Pic:Canva

Sex reassignment surgery is a kind of surgery that helps a transgender person to transition into the self-identified sex. This can be on 3 forms:
1. Facial reconstructive: it helps to enhance their cheek bones and facial structures according to the gender they identify with.
2. Chest reduction/enhancement surgery
3. Genital surgery:Transitioning reproductive organs in accordance with the gender the person identifies with is significant.Furthermore, it is not necessary that surgery is the only option to attain gender and physical body affirmation. It can be three types:
1. Hormone therapy: herein, there is artificial injection of opposite sex hormones, to increase gender affirming characteristics, such as voice modulation, body hair etc.
2. Puberty blockers: herein, the person is injected with certain hormones that hel as blockers for the onsetting puberty and its characteristics changes as per the biological sex of the individual.&nbsp;
3. Physical surgery, that is, breast enhancement/reduction and/or genital surgery.
&nbsp;

What is sex-reassignment surgery?

In many cultures and religions, transgenders and people supporting them are understood as sinners, mentally disturbed, or someone who has an illness which could be cured eventually. What they do no understand is it is as normal to identify as a different gender than your sex as it is to idenitfy with the same gender as your sex. Sex is a biological label given to us on the basis of the reproductive organ we are born with. This means that a male is a person who is born with testicles and a female is a person who is born with a vagina. Whereas gender is a social construct. This means a person who shows characteristics that of a man and a woman set by the society is identified as a boy or a girl respectively.&nbsp;
Due to such societal and religious biases, a lot of transgender people opt for sex-reassignment surgery so as to feel more physical alignment and congruity with their psychological gender identity.
&nbsp;
Why is there a need for therapeutic intervention prior and post sex-reassignment surgery?
Eventhough researches suggest that the mental health of an individual improves post sex-reassignment surgery, there is a an important need to consider therapy pre and post surgery. Following are the few reasons to consider so:
Pre-sex reassignment surgery
1. Sometimes, adolescents are influenced by their peers, media or the kind of reactions their sibling (of different sex) get from their parents, which makes them adopt false assumptions of being a transgender. Hence, the false assumptions about sexuality, body, and personal preferences with respect to gender (IF ANY) should be encountered in a family setting as well as in individual therapy.&nbsp;
2. Is there bullying happening for the child to feel that they will be better able to adapt to the said situation if they are of the opposite gender? (research suggests an increased number of ABF turn to man).
3. Understanding attachment issues, childhood trauma, and psychological well-being of parents. These factors play an important role for the children who have gender dysmorphia to identify with a sexuality other than their sex.
4. Psychoeducation about the changes both bodily and psychological that will come along. These changes may include voice tone modulation, hormonal imbalances, physical appearance, communication gaps, stigma, and discrimination from society.

What do transgenders opt for sex-reassigment surgery?

Pic: canva

5. Family therapy especially for families who are queer affirmative. This helps them to better adjust to the changes that the sex-reassignment surgery will bring along.
6. Understanding of bodily changes of the male and female body including hormonal and how do they plan to deal with it on a biological, psychological, and social level (biopsychosocial).
7. Understanding what aspects of the muscular and feminine characteristics they already have in their personality.&nbsp;
8. Understanding their reasons for identifying as a transsexual man/woman instead of gay/lesbian.&nbsp;
9. Understanding their view points about men and women on the dimensions:  - independence - control - love - strength and power - ability to practice sexuality and/or sexual fetishes and desires.
&nbsp;

Questions that can help the psychologist understand the client and help them better:
1. How accepting is their social environment of transsexuals, gays, and lesbians? Their perception and reality. Building the person&rsquo;s reality according to some level of congruency and acceptance with society becomes extremely important for the psychological and social well-being of the transgender man/woman.
2. What makes them feel uncomfortable in their present physical, mental, and sexual being?
3. How well do they peer support and think about their decision to get surgery?&nbsp;
Post-sex reassignment surgery
1. Since after surgery there are biological changes in one&rsquo;s body, therefore, getting used to the bodily changes becomes taxing.
2. Pre-surgery there was psychological and sexual discomfort. Post-surgery there is physical discomfort as well.
3. Understanding changes in sexual arousal, masturbation, and bladder emptying is an important task.&nbsp;
4. Adjusting to the new physical appearance with their sexuality and psychological factors also becomes a difficult task and requires therapeutic intervention.
5. Post-surgery it is not guaranteed that society will now accept them as the sex and gender they identify with. Therefore, developing coping mechanisms against such societal discrimination becomes important for the person.
6. There have been researches that suggest that post-surgery the tendency of individuals to isolate themselves increases more than among transgenders who do not go for surgery.
7. The transition happening from being in a different sex body and feeling a particular way and now being in the other sex body and what are now the sexual and mental challenges from within.
8. Peer relations being affected by the surgery (if any).
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Who does being transgender mean and what is gender dysphoria?
Transgenders are people who identify themselves with the opposite sex to the one they were assigned at birth. For example, a female at birth now as an adolescent or adult identifies as a man and vice-versa. This discomfort with their assigned sex and gender identity is identified as gender dysphoria in the psychological world.

Understanding Psychological Therapeutic Intervention For Transgenders Prior To Sex Reassignment Surgery

understanding-psychological-therapeutic-intervention-for-transgenders-prior-to-sex-reassignment-surgery-1