sex reassignment surgery.

Sex reassignment surgery (initialized as SRS; also known as gender reasignment surgery, genital reconstruction surgery, sex affirmation surgery, sex realignment surgery or sex-change operation) is a term for the surgical procedures by which a person's physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics are altered to resemble that of the other sex. It is part of a treatment for gender identity disorder/gender dysphoria in transsexual and transgender people. It may also be performed on intersex people, often in infancy.

The best known of these surgeries are those that reshape the genitals, which are also known as genital reassignment surgery or genital reconstruction surgery (GRS). However, the meaning of "sex reassignment surgery" has been clarified by the medical subspecialty organization, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), to include any of a larger number of surgical procedures performed as part of a medical treatment for "gender dysphoria", "transsexualism" or "gender identity disorder". According to WPATH, medically necessary sex reassignment surgeries include "complete hysterectomy, bilateral mastectomy, chest reconstruction or augmentation including breast prostheses if necessary, genital reconstruction (by various techniques which must be appropriate to each patient and certain facial plastic reconstruction."In addition, other non-surgical procedures are also considered medically necessary treatments by WPATH, including facial electrolysis.

Many medical professionals and numerous professional associations have stated that surgical interventions should not be required in order for transsexual individuals to change sex designation on identity documents.However, depending on the legal requirements of many jurisdictions, transsexual and transgender people are often unable to change the listing of their sex in public records unless they can furnish a physician's letter attesting that sex reassignment surgery has been performed. In some cases, such statutes may specify that genital surgery has been completed.