Beed cop undergoes first operation for sex change

MUMBAI: Constable Lalit Salve, who fought a long battle to get official leave for a genital reconstruction surgery, underwent the first of a series of operations at the state-run St George’s Hospital near CST on Friday morning.
“As Salve was always a male, there is no need for a sex reassignment surgery. It is just a reconstruction that should ideally have been done when he was younger,” said plastic surgeon Dr Rajat Kapur, who operated on the cop between 9am and 1pm.

The 29-year-old constable’s brother and mother are in the hospital with him. “We are happy that the operations have begun,’’ said his maternal uncle Arjun Ujgare. “The surgery went as planned and there were no complications,” said the doctor. Salve will need another surgery three to six months later, depending on how quickly the “half tube” that the four-member surgery team constructed out of his tissues on Friday will heal.
The tube will be completed in the next operati on, said the doctor, adding that it would help Salve perform certain functions like a man. St George’s Hospital medical superintendent Madhukar Gaikwad said that Salve will stay in the hospital for two weeks. “Salve hails from Beed and it wouldn’t be possible for the family to travel back and forth,” he said.
The hospital will also organize funds of up to Rs 1 lakh for the entire treatment, which would take up to 18 months. The first round of operations would be over within six months. The next round will concentrate on giving Salve more masculine features. “We will also look at hair transplant to make Salve’s moustache and beard denser,” said Dr Kapur, adding, in a lighter vein, that “he could style his beard like cricketer Virat Kohli”. Salve was born with rudimentary male genitals, leading his parents to presume he is a female. Ujgare said Salve wanted to be a male since childhood. It was only recently, after he applied for leave for a sex change operation, that Dr Kapur ordered a genetic karyotyping which showed Salve has the male XY sex chromosomes.