All under one roof: A total of 1,330 transgender persons availed themselves of outpatient services at the clinic from June 2019 to February 2024.
| Photo Credit: R. RAGU
Between 2019 and 2024, nearly 1,300 transgender persons have walked into the Transgender Guidance Clinic at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH). Through the exclusive clinic, the RGGGH has brought multi-disciplinary care for transgender persons under one roof.
It was in June 2019 that an exclusive clinic was formally started at the RGGGH. Earlier, services, including surgeries, were available for the community at the Department of Plastic Reconstructive and Facio-Maxillary Surgery. The clinic was conceived and established under the National Health Mission, Tamil Nadu.
Services interrupted
“The aim was to have specialists under one roof for transgender persons. The services were interrupted during COVID-19 and resumed later. Such exclusive clinics are functioning at the Government Rajaji Hospital, Madurai, and Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College Hospital, Salem,” says M. Sridharan, professor and head of the department.
Apart from an assistant professor and a postgraduate of the Department of Plastic Reconstructive and Facio-Maxillary Surgery, the Transgender Guidance Clinic, which functions on every Friday, has an attending psychiatrist, endocrinologist, physician and dermatologist. Depending on the need, a transgender person is referred to an urologist and gynaecologist at the hospital, he adds.
A total of 1,330 transgender persons availed themselves of outpatient services at the clinic from June 2019 to February 2024, with the total outpatient census from 2009 being 1,536. From 2009, a total of 159 surgeries have been performed. They included 55 sex reassignment surgeries, 68 implants, and 10 mastectomy procedures, according to data provided by the department.
Thorough preparation
In a long-drawn process, a team of doctors work on the smallest of details before a transgender person undergoes a sex reassignment surgery. Doctors point out that while the clinic provides the community with multi-speciality care, the majority of transgender persons approach it for surgeries.
“At the clinic, nearly 65% of the persons approach us for male-to-female sex reassignment surgeries,” says T.M. Balakrishnan, assistant professor of the department. A transgender person seeking a surgery is evaluated by a team of doctors, including psychiatrist, physician, endocrinologist, venereologist and plastic surgeon. “We check for their readiness. This is an irreversible step in their lives. The physician assesses their general health, including acute or chronic conditions, while the venereologist look for any sexually transmitted diseases and treats them appropriately before surgery. Through the surgery, we align their phenotype and external appearances according to their mentally perceived sex,” he explains.
If their parents accompany the transgender persons, the doctors also give them guidance and counselling, explaining that this is normal, he adds. The team adopts a step-by-step approach in the sex reassignment surgeries, which are followed by post-operative care and follow-ups.