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Five years ago, Professor Miroslav Djordjevic, the world-leading genital reconstructive surgeon, received a patient at his Belgrade clinic.
It was a transgender patient who had surgery at a different clinic to remove male genitalia – and had since changed their mind.
That was the first time Professor Djordjevic had ever been contacted to perform a so-called “reversal” surgery.
Over the next six months, another six people also approached him, similarly wanting to reverse their procedures.
They came from countries all over the Western world, Britain included, united by an acute sense of regret.
At present, Professor Djordjevic has a further six prospective people in discussions with his clinic about reversals and two currently undergoing the process itself; reattaching the male genitalia is a complex procedure and takes several operations over the course of a year to fully complete, at a cost of some $18,000.
Those wishing the reversal, Professor Djordjevic says, have spoken to him about crippling levels of depression following their transition and in some cases even contemplated suicide.
“It can be a real disaster to hear these stories,” says the 52-year-old. And yet, in the main part, they are not being heard.
Last week, it was alleged that Bath Spa University has turned down an application for research on gender reassignment reversal because it was a subject deemed “potentially politically incorrect”.
James Caspian, a psychotherapist who specialises in working with transgender people, suggested the research after a conversation with Professor Djordjevic in 2014 at a London restaurant where the Serbian told him about the number of reversals he was seeing, and the lack of academic rigour on the subject.
According to Mr Caspian, the university initially approved his proposal to research “detransitioning”.
He then amassed some preliminary findings that suggested a growing number of young people – particularly young women – were transitioning their gender and then regretting it. Continue reading
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- Stuff article by Joe Shute, a features writer at the Daily Telegraph, London
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