'gender reassignment surgery'

We learned in Lynn's story that she was born and raised as a boy, and later in life was changed into a girl by female sex hormone treatments and major surgical procedures. Because of this past, Lynn is sometimes called a "transsexual" woman. Why did this happen to Lynn, and what is transsexualism anyway?

In order to understand transsexualism, we must first answer some basic questions about gender. What is Gender Identity? Where does it come from? What events occur in nature that interfere with correct assignments of gender? These pages aim at answering these questions. Links are then provided to further information on gender identity, transgenderism, transsexualism and intersexuality, and to information about methods and technology for physical gender modification.

Knowledge in this area is under rapid development. There are challenges in defining, separating and "labeling" the different phenomena, and in making estimates of frequencies of occurrence. There are also differing interpretations of the underlying science, and differing points of view about the evolving social and medical protocols for resolving these conditions.

However, much more is known about gender identity than just a few short years ago, and those new understandings are very much worth sharing and building upon. The taboo on this area has also been broken, so that we can openly discuss these important issues without fear, shame or embarrassment.

As we'll see, far more people suffer from gender-identity conditions than previously suspected, and the lives of millions of people are impacted by gender-identity issues. The key to improving the quality of those lives is better knowledge and more widespread understanding of that knowledge.

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TS.html