Doctors perform gender reassignment surgery on woman

A 19-year-old young woman, who was found to be a male due to a rare genetic disease, received medical treatment at a local hospital to become a female through surgery and hormone therapy.

The patient, a Yi minority from Yunnan Province, had a bigger external sexual organ than ordinary girls upon delivery, but it was smaller than a boy’s penis. Parents believed the baby was a girl and the child also grew up like a girl without any other physical problems.

Her mother started to worry about her daughter who didn’t have period or breast development like girls at the same age and brought her to a local hospital, which didn’t find womb or ovary in her belly. Chromosomal check found he was actually a male.

The patient came to Shanghai No.9 People’s Hospital, which diagnosed that she suffered a rare sexual deformity called androgen insensitivity syndrome, a genetic disease resulting intersex condition because partial or complete inability of the cell to respond to androgens.

There is no complete cure for the disease so far. Doctors can give management like sex assignment, hormone replacement therapy and surgery to help the patient to decide the sex and reduce tumor risks due to the disease.

Doctors considered the patient’s psychological status and helped her to remain the identity as a female and carried out surgery to remove male parts and gave hormone therapy. The patient now has an external sexual organ like a normal woman and an artificial vagina. Her breast also started to develop.