LAHORE: Justice Muhammad Ahsan Bhoon of the Lahore High Court Tuesday allowed a girl from Faisalabad to undergo gender reassignment (sex change) surgery.
Naureen Aslam sought legal protection for her surgery as the doctors had refused to perform an operation after an already widely reported case in the recent past pertaining to gender transformation of a girl, Shumile Raj, of the same city.
In the case, Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif of the LHC had punished Shumile Raj and her same-sex wife Shehzina Tariq for perjury and also took action against the doctors who had performed sex-change surgery on Shumile.
On Tuesday, Dr Nadeem Hassan, assistant director general health, Islamabad, submitted his reply in the court, stating that authorities had no objection to it and the petitioner would be provided with medical treatment for gender reassignment, as advised by her consultant. He also agreed that the petitioner's case was of gender identity disorder.
In her petition, Naureen had submitted she was a graduate and worked in her father's school as administrator. At the age of nine years, she felt some changes in her voice, hair and physique etc. She was in class 8, when her parents consulted several doctors at local level and finally the doctors were of the view that her case was of gender identification or reassignment case which needed to be operated.
The local doctors referred her to Lahore, where she consulted Dr Haroon Rashid Chaudhry who, after starting her medical treatment, also constituted a panel of four doctors and then referred her to Dr Arshad Cheema, a professor of surgery at the King Edward Medical College/Mayo Hospital.
Dr Cheema also treated her in 2003 and before any further proceeding, referred her, for an expert opinion, to Lt-Col Dr Mamoon Rashid, head of the Department of Plastic Surgery and Reconstructive Surgery, CMH, Rawalpindi.
She said Dr Mammon agreed to perform surgery on her for sex
change. On January 31, 2008, a date of operation was given to her and she was to be operated upon on February 13, 2008.
However, Dr Mammon refused to operate her on the plea that the Lahore High Court had passed a judgment in the Shumile Raj case and action was also taken against the doctors who had performed surgery. So, the doctor asked her to get permission from the High Court before an operation.
She, through her counsel, pleaded that she was a gender reassignment case which could be treated through simple surgery whereas her matter had neither a comparison with the Shumile Raj case nor the court had passed an order, restricting doctors from providing medical treatment to any patient in any case.
She said the refusal to provide medical treatment to her by doctors was absolutely illegal. She said the state was bound to provide basic necessities of life, such as food, clothing, housing, education and medical facilities to all citizens under the constitution.
She said she was ready to bear all expenses of her hospitalisation and operation. She prayed the court to order the respondents to provide her with the required medical facility under the law.
