An Emirati woman wanted to have a gender change operation, she appears to be the first for the United Arab Emirates, newspapers reported on Tuesday.
The application to the court in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi came right after a change in the law that took effect earlier this month legalizing gender relocation surgery.
Lawyer Ali al-Mansouri told Gulf News that the 29-year-old woman strongly felt that she was not the gender she physically appeared to be.
“Ever since she was three, the woman felt that she is actually a male. She would have an intense desire to have a male body and to be accepted by others as a male and would feel her true identity is male,” he told the paper.
He said his client’s feeling that her body does not reflect her true gender caused her severe distress, anxiety and depression.
“She has been undergoing physical and psychological care since 2012 and a medical commission had recommended that she undergo a gender-change surgery.”
The court said it would hear the case on 28th September.
The new Medical Liability Law that came into effect earlier this month allows for gender change operations on medical grounds.
“The surgical procedure is permitted if it is part of a treatment for gender dysphoria in transgender people, as advised by a medical commission to be set up for this purpose,” the law says.
