Sex organ operation not vital to change gender

A Seoul court has ruled that persons who undergo sex change operations can be recognized as the opposite without altering the sex organ for the first time in the country.

According to a research organization specializing in sex change, a Seoul district court ruled that while sex change operations involve the removal of wombs and other physical attributes, the sex organs themselves do not have to be operated on to be recognized as persons of the opposite sex.

As a result of the ruling, five persons were able to register themselves officially as those of the opposite sex men without having to remove their sex organs.

One of the five who filed the case with the court said there are medical problems in removing sex organs as part of sex change operations and that it should not be mandatory in getting herself recognized as part of the opposite sex.

The person was born as a female but underwent surgery to remove her breasts and her womb _technically called a hysterectomy _ and have been living as a man with injections of male hormones.

He wears a beard and has a voice like any man and has been living with a woman for the past 23 years without being formally recognized as a man.