Retarded growth

Natee

Teen males as young as 14 are seeking out medical clinics to get their testicles removed, in the belief it will stop them becoming men, says gay activist Natee Teerarojjanapong (pictured).

A coalition of gay groups led by Natee will call on the Medical Council today, to insist that it cracks down on errant surgeons who are allowing youngsters below the legal age to undertake such drastic surgery.

No law prohibits surgeons from offering castration surgery to under-age youngsters, the Health Ministry admits. It has vowed to crack down on the practice, which Natee and his gay coalition says has become an internet-fuelled craze.

Natee says he himself has a younger sibling, a kathoey aged 16, who has undergone the procedure. She has two friends, aged 14 and 15, who are in the process of going through it.

Natee is gathering together parents of youngsters who have undergone the procedure, to speak to the media today. He says young kathoey (boys who want to change their sex) believe the operation will result in their getting finer skin, like a girl; that they will not have to put up with an Adam's apple, broad chest, body hair, or deep voice like a man. It is particularly popular among a group he calls dek toot (เด็กตุ๊ด), aged 14 to 16.

The procedure is readily available from small private medical clinics in many provinces nationwide, though he has also heard of the operation being performed at big hospitals, in Chiang Mai and Phuket.

Kathoey teens have left messages on webboards in which they talk about the operation as all in fun.

Natee wants to know whether surgeons have asked their patients whether they are young kathoey, committed to looking like girls, or whether they are just ordinary gays, who may later regret the decision.

In any event, he says it is wrong to perform the procedure on under-age patients. They should leave it until they are at least 20 - by which time, surgeons say, there is little point in proceeding anyway.

The operation costs just B4-5000, which is much cheaper than gender re-assignment surgery. However, it can have big impacts on a youngster's health.

Sittiporn Srinualnad, from the Department of Surgery at Siriraj Hospital, said the ideal age for gender change surgery was 13 or 14, before a young male's body has developed. By 16, his body is already grown. That said, surgeons only recommended castration surgery be performed to treat disease.

Castration at the age of 13, before the body had fully developed, could result in the patient growing up short, bald, fat, and with increased risk of memory disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, at a younger age than his peers. Because 80% of male hormones come from the testes, losing them can also affect sexual drive.

Sirachai Jindarak, a plastic surgeon at Chulalongkorn Hospital, said castration surgery would make gender re-assignment surgery harder to perform, because the skin surrounding the testicular sack shrinks.

Dr Somsak Lolekha, president of the Medical Council of Thailand, said the council was drawing up regulations on gender re-assignment surgery and cosmetic surgery, for surgeons to follow.

He had heard of surgeons performing castration surgery on youngsters who were under-age, but he did not know which clinics performed it.

Public Health Minister Chaiya Sasomsap said he would ask the the Medical Registration Division of the Ministry of Public Health to crack down on clinics offering surgery to under-age youngsters.