Week before 5th birthday, Beed ‘girl’ begins journey to become a boy

MUMBAI: Aman Khan’s fifth birthday next week is going to be special. Born a boy, Aman was raised as a girl till the age of three because of underdeveloped male genitals. On September 18, said his father Sayeed, will be a new beginning for his second son.
On Friday, Aman from Majalgaon in Beed underwent an orchidopexy, the first of many surgeries as a part of gender reassignment, at St George’s Hospital near CSMT. “This was the first step to restore the gender he was born with,” said Dr Madhukar Gaikwad, medical superintendent of the state-run hospital.This surgery was carried out to move down a testicle that has not descended to its proper place in the scrotum. The child has also been started on hormone replacement therapy.
Sayeed (37) said they learnt about the gender disorder when the child, then called Aiman, was three. He would often complain about itching in the private parts. “We took him to a doctor in Beed who told us that our third child was a son. Why were we raising him as a daughter?” he said. The family had always wondered why the child would urinate like a boy.
The Beed doctor advised several tests that proved that Aiman was a boy. But the discovery raised fear about treatment costs. Sayeed, who worked as a driver, earned Rs 8,000 per month.
But everything changed when Beed policeman Lalit Salve underwent a gender reassignment surgery three months ago at St George’s Hospital. Salve was posted in a police station opposite Sayeed’s brother’s shop in Majalgaon. “Lalit put me in touch with doctors here,” said Sayeed. “I feel fortunate that my child didn’t have to grow up with the disorder.”
The decision didn’t come without its share of doubts and disputes. “My relatives didn’t understand why I was getting it done. They told me to be happy with what God has given me. But I felt I couldn’t let my child suffer,” said Sayeed, a class VI dropout. Worried that the child’s life may become complicated by attending school, Sayeed and his wife Nadajan decided not to start his schooling till they had clarity about his condition. They, however, began the Aiman-to-Aman transformation in day-to-day language. “We got him to say ‘main aa raha hoon’ instead of ‘aa rahi hoon’.”
The state’s only gender dysphoria clinic started in St George’s Hospital has so far received 13 enquiries, most from women including an employee of the Assam Electricity Board from Hojai. “We have asked her to get the requisite governmental permissions as her gender will change,” said Dr Gaikwad.