THAILAND
The Sex Changers
1730
March 2000
Its the monsoon in Thailands tourist Mecca of Phuket - not exactly peak season for visitors. But that doesnt worry Robyn Perkins ... shes not here for the beaches. The Australians travelled thousands of kilometres to finally put an end to a double life.
ROBYN: Over your life its a bit like a disease it slowly eats into you, and the more you try to hide it and make it go away, the stronger it gets.
Williams: Robyn began life as a man -- over time that man has transformed into a woman, and Phuket is where Robyns transformation will be made complete.
SANGUAN: Afternoon, Miss Robyn, the weather very bad, sorry, but welcome to Phuket.
ROBYN: Thankyou very much
WILLIAMS: Dr Sanguan Kunaporn is a cosmetic surgeon with a growing international reputation for one particular procedure -- and its not facelifts.
SANGUAN: After the operation you have to learn to use the dilator.
Williams: Phuket is emerging as a global capital of sex change surgery, with hundreds of operations every year.In this sex change bazaar, business is booming and, of course like any boom there are those who know what theyre doing and those who dont -- sometimes with disastrous consequences for those making the ultimate switch.
Music
Williams: Friday night in the raucous resort of Pattaya, and the Tiffany Clubs showgirls are baring their all for the tourists.
Williams: The soundtrack for all this exuberance is - appropriately the countrys new tourist jingle -- Amazing Thailand. Music
Williams: The star of the show is only 18 ...
Pattariya Siringawong is just stepping out into a promising new career, a life which is a long way from that of a confused and battered child.
PATTARIYA: My father hit me and kicked me when I acted like a girl. I had to keep my feelings inside of me and tried to live as a normal boy. But one day I wanted to be myself, so I started to show the feminine side of me. I dressed like a woman and felt more confident because I became myself.
PATTRIYA: My friends were shocked. For example, three years ago we went out and had a good time chasing girls together - but now they see me on TV, or in the newspaper - they say, Oh my god, this is my friend!
Williams: Like all Tiffany dancers - Pattariya is giving herself over to the surgeons in Thailands booming industry of cosmetic surgery and gender reassignment.But its not just the locals who are driving demand. The relatively low cost and the discreet distance from home mean foreigners are flocking to Thailands operating theatres.
ROBYN: You start to realise okay, Im a woman Im stuck in this guys body and this guys gonna look after me. hes going to protect me until I really can do something about it.
Williams: Today, after 46 years Robyn is doing something about it, and shes allowing us to follow her -- all the way.
Its not a superman type transformation where youre just going to put on these clothes and be a woman for a little while. Ive been a woman for 46 years. And Ill be a woman for the rest of my life. So Im not really doing anything, Im just being myself for the first time in a lot of years.
Williams: Robyns journey from man to woman can be traced back through the years to her earliest childhood recollections.
Robyn: I always tended to be a little bit feminine, and actually at one stage a few of the local school bullies tried to actually hang me, they actually managed to get my feet off the ground before they got stopped but as time went on I sort of had to learn to live with it all, because it just wasnt going away, so you build these walls up and I suppose hide your inner feelings and you try, from peer pressure and I suppose to try and get the pressure off yourself, you try to conform to the rest of society and what they believe you should be.
Music
Williams: To the rest of the townsfolk in his rural New South Wales home, Rodney Perkins was a mans man. A mechanic by trade, Rodney raced speedboats, speedway motorcycles, took up stunt work and even became chief of the local rural fire brigade. He married and fathered four children - all boys. No one could have guessed that this knockabout bloke yearned to be a woman.
RODNEY: That was basically just grasping at straws that there would be a way if I did enough of this crazy stuff that it would go away. But then after that split second its a case of well Im Robyn anyhow, nobody knows because Im in my own little fantasy world doing this thing anyhow. Because theyre not inside my head, you know, like theres nothing better than going 160 miles an hour down the straight at Bathurst, okay, in this guys body knowing that youre somebody else and youre having a big giggle at everybody else.
Williams: But the shift from one extreme to the other is not uncommon. In Phuket, Robyns sharing a room with Nora, a former coalminer from Louisiana USA. And - reassuringly perhaps - Noras just undergone the same operation Robyns about to go through. Tomorrow Robyn takes the final step.
ROBYN: Whats a few days at this stage of our life.
Williams: Gender reassignment is just one of the cosmetic changes on sale in Thailands plastic surgery market, which operates from seedy backstreet theatres to modern, hi tech, specialist clinics. By far the biggest is Bangkoks Yan Hee General Hospital, a one-stop shop advertising head to toe overhauls. But according to the man in charge, the marketing pitch isnt so much about vanity, rather, steering prospective clients to a safe professional practice.
DOCTOR: Okay before I start out this big cosmetic department I seen a lot of people go to the beauty salon, go to like a night clinic, and those night clinics try to do medical treatment. They do face peelings, skin peeling, they do face lift and they do liposuction which is more dangerous. thats why I think its not mainly for profit, mainly to educate people that for doing cosmetic surgery you should come to the hospital.
Williams: Dr. Sanits factory of change is a million dollar business turning over up to 20 operations a day. One of the most popular is rhinoplasty the nose job. Doctor: See over here, her nose is too kind of wide apart, so doctor will cut part of this and then bring it narrow. So when it be narrow, and then doctor will put silicone in the nose to insert inside, by making small incision inside the nose so there wont be any scar. And then put the hard silicon into the nose and then that make the nose go up high and this one narrow, and she be beautiful when after she woke up.
Williams: For the most successful of Yan Hees patients, plastic surgery can mean a whole new life.
The work on 22-year-old Nopadon Chaivichien was so good shes been given a coveted PR internship at the clinic. Youd never guess she started life as a boy.
Nopadon: When I still had a penis I didnt like it - I wasnt happy. When I saw it in the shower it annoyed me. I felt happy after the operation. Some people have asked me if I have any regrets. I say, Yes - that I kept it with me so long.
Williams: But far from Yan Hees clean efficiency, many of Thailands cosmetic clinics are in less salubrious surroundings. And its among the backstreet clinics that are doing so much dangerous damage, that we find Thailands Doctor Fixit.
Williams: Just describe for me what were seeing.Vijwisit: This patient have mammaplasty by some quack, never have any training.
Williams: Dr Thep Vijwisit is the man many come to when things go wrong - in this case a life threatening alternative to silicon breast implants.
Vijwisit: The first time I saw it Im shocked, because I never believe that any doctor can put this inside the body.
Williams: And whats in the condom.
Vijwisit: Water.
Williams: Just water.Vijwisit: Yeah, water.
Williams: Dr Thep sees it all. From bad breast jobs and misshapen bottoms to crooked smiles and toxic shock -- mistakes that can even be deadly.
Sixty-seven year old Sa-ang Isaragura could have lived out her old age gracefully, instead she paid the ultimate price for trying to hold back time. Its thought she was allergic to the anaesthetic - her surgeon has been charged with manslaughter. But that doesnt help her grieving husband - Retired Admiral Livit Isaragura didnt even know shed gone to have the facelift.
Livit: Maybe she was afraid that I would complain because Ive never agreed to this. In my opinion my wife was not ugly. She was a bit fat, nothing much. Maybe she thought her face was not that good and she wanted to have a facelift to get rid of some the wrinkles.
Williams: It could have happened to anyone, but the fact this was elective surgery for reasons of vanity make this a shameful end for a high-society wife, and raises questions about an industry thats now straining to keep up with its own success.
DR THEP: We estimate that peoples demand increases every year thirty percent maybe - but the government never want to provide a good surgeon. They wont support any training - they dont want to support it. So we are in short supply of good cosmetic surgeons.
Williams: Its the morning of Robyns operation. In just a few hours 46 years of frustration and misery will be over.
ROBYN: Ive never been so sure of anything in my life that. First second after I wake up after the surgery will tell me, because thats when the reality hits that you cant go back.
Williams: After her eight months of global research Robyn found Dr Sanguan - the right guy at the right price - 15-thousand dollars in fact, about a third of the cost in the United States or Australia. But its not just about money. This surgeon has developed an additional procedure which will enable Robyn to retain sexual sense.
THEP: First I have to mark the flap here to be the floor of the vaginal opening, then I have to dissect inside between the urinary tract, the prostrate gland and the bladder.
Williams: The operation will take five hours and theres not a scalpel in sight. Dr. Sanguan will use the precision of a laser for this procedure.
SANGUAN: If we injure the prostrate or the bladder or the rectum under this canal so this should be done very, very carefully millimetre by millimetre. 14:23
Williams: The operation is going well, but now comes the main reason this surgeon is developing such a strong following among foreign transsexuals. By inverting some of the penis, he makes an imperfect, yet functional clitoris.
SANGUAN: I will share some part of the glans penis - that is a very sensitive tissue - with the nerve and artery attached to reconstruct a clitoris.
Williams: That means there is active sexual pleasure?
SANGUAN: Yes, right.Williams: And others doctors dont do that?
SANGUAN: Not so many doctor or surgeon do this technique.
Williams: Good morning. How are you?
ROBYN: Sore and sorry.
Williams: Its the morning after Robyns operation. She finally feels shes made it.
ROBYN: Well its just about come to a complete end. After all those years, now Im a complete woman, jeez its a big relief. No more mental torture.
Williams: While Robyns embraced her new future, it may take some time for those in small town New South Wales to also accept it.
Many of her friends simply cant cope with the disappearance of their old mate, Rodney.
Williams: What would happen if you just walked down the local pub, like you used to perhaps, and ordered a beer?
ROBYN: Oh Id probably go out on a stretcher. You cop a lot of the threats, but being in a small town I think its probably only threats, but they wont make me go away. Its my choice to live there. I havent got the problem, they have. Im willing to accept them, so theyve got to accept me.
Williams: Robyns family has struggled to come to terms with the dramatic change. But so far theyve stood by her, and the decision to be surgically assigned a woman. For Robyn its been a remarkable and successful journey to freedom. The showgirls of Pattariya are a showpiece of those few who can do this work but as demand grows for this under regulated and under qualified body business disfigurement and death are sure to be more common.
The Sex Changers
1730
March 2000
Its the monsoon in Thailands tourist Mecca of Phuket - not exactly peak season for visitors. But that doesnt worry Robyn Perkins ... shes not here for the beaches. The Australians travelled thousands of kilometres to finally put an end to a double life.
ROBYN: Over your life its a bit like a disease it slowly eats into you, and the more you try to hide it and make it go away, the stronger it gets.
Williams: Robyn began life as a man -- over time that man has transformed into a woman, and Phuket is where Robyns transformation will be made complete.
SANGUAN: Afternoon, Miss Robyn, the weather very bad, sorry, but welcome to Phuket.
ROBYN: Thankyou very much
WILLIAMS: Dr Sanguan Kunaporn is a cosmetic surgeon with a growing international reputation for one particular procedure -- and its not facelifts.
SANGUAN: After the operation you have to learn to use the dilator.
Williams: Phuket is emerging as a global capital of sex change surgery, with hundreds of operations every year.In this sex change bazaar, business is booming and, of course like any boom there are those who know what theyre doing and those who dont -- sometimes with disastrous consequences for those making the ultimate switch.
Music
Williams: Friday night in the raucous resort of Pattaya, and the Tiffany Clubs showgirls are baring their all for the tourists.
Williams: The soundtrack for all this exuberance is - appropriately the countrys new tourist jingle -- Amazing Thailand. Music
Williams: The star of the show is only 18 ...
Pattariya Siringawong is just stepping out into a promising new career, a life which is a long way from that of a confused and battered child.
PATTARIYA: My father hit me and kicked me when I acted like a girl. I had to keep my feelings inside of me and tried to live as a normal boy. But one day I wanted to be myself, so I started to show the feminine side of me. I dressed like a woman and felt more confident because I became myself.
PATTRIYA: My friends were shocked. For example, three years ago we went out and had a good time chasing girls together - but now they see me on TV, or in the newspaper - they say, Oh my god, this is my friend!
Williams: Like all Tiffany dancers - Pattariya is giving herself over to the surgeons in Thailands booming industry of cosmetic surgery and gender reassignment.But its not just the locals who are driving demand. The relatively low cost and the discreet distance from home mean foreigners are flocking to Thailands operating theatres.
ROBYN: You start to realise okay, Im a woman Im stuck in this guys body and this guys gonna look after me. hes going to protect me until I really can do something about it.
Williams: Today, after 46 years Robyn is doing something about it, and shes allowing us to follow her -- all the way.
Its not a superman type transformation where youre just going to put on these clothes and be a woman for a little while. Ive been a woman for 46 years. And Ill be a woman for the rest of my life. So Im not really doing anything, Im just being myself for the first time in a lot of years.
Williams: Robyns journey from man to woman can be traced back through the years to her earliest childhood recollections.
Robyn: I always tended to be a little bit feminine, and actually at one stage a few of the local school bullies tried to actually hang me, they actually managed to get my feet off the ground before they got stopped but as time went on I sort of had to learn to live with it all, because it just wasnt going away, so you build these walls up and I suppose hide your inner feelings and you try, from peer pressure and I suppose to try and get the pressure off yourself, you try to conform to the rest of society and what they believe you should be.
Music
Williams: To the rest of the townsfolk in his rural New South Wales home, Rodney Perkins was a mans man. A mechanic by trade, Rodney raced speedboats, speedway motorcycles, took up stunt work and even became chief of the local rural fire brigade. He married and fathered four children - all boys. No one could have guessed that this knockabout bloke yearned to be a woman.
RODNEY: That was basically just grasping at straws that there would be a way if I did enough of this crazy stuff that it would go away. But then after that split second its a case of well Im Robyn anyhow, nobody knows because Im in my own little fantasy world doing this thing anyhow. Because theyre not inside my head, you know, like theres nothing better than going 160 miles an hour down the straight at Bathurst, okay, in this guys body knowing that youre somebody else and youre having a big giggle at everybody else.
Williams: But the shift from one extreme to the other is not uncommon. In Phuket, Robyns sharing a room with Nora, a former coalminer from Louisiana USA. And - reassuringly perhaps - Noras just undergone the same operation Robyns about to go through. Tomorrow Robyn takes the final step.
ROBYN: Whats a few days at this stage of our life.
Williams: Gender reassignment is just one of the cosmetic changes on sale in Thailands plastic surgery market, which operates from seedy backstreet theatres to modern, hi tech, specialist clinics. By far the biggest is Bangkoks Yan Hee General Hospital, a one-stop shop advertising head to toe overhauls. But according to the man in charge, the marketing pitch isnt so much about vanity, rather, steering prospective clients to a safe professional practice.
DOCTOR: Okay before I start out this big cosmetic department I seen a lot of people go to the beauty salon, go to like a night clinic, and those night clinics try to do medical treatment. They do face peelings, skin peeling, they do face lift and they do liposuction which is more dangerous. thats why I think its not mainly for profit, mainly to educate people that for doing cosmetic surgery you should come to the hospital.
Williams: Dr. Sanits factory of change is a million dollar business turning over up to 20 operations a day. One of the most popular is rhinoplasty the nose job. Doctor: See over here, her nose is too kind of wide apart, so doctor will cut part of this and then bring it narrow. So when it be narrow, and then doctor will put silicone in the nose to insert inside, by making small incision inside the nose so there wont be any scar. And then put the hard silicon into the nose and then that make the nose go up high and this one narrow, and she be beautiful when after she woke up.
Williams: For the most successful of Yan Hees patients, plastic surgery can mean a whole new life.
The work on 22-year-old Nopadon Chaivichien was so good shes been given a coveted PR internship at the clinic. Youd never guess she started life as a boy.
Nopadon: When I still had a penis I didnt like it - I wasnt happy. When I saw it in the shower it annoyed me. I felt happy after the operation. Some people have asked me if I have any regrets. I say, Yes - that I kept it with me so long.
Williams: But far from Yan Hees clean efficiency, many of Thailands cosmetic clinics are in less salubrious surroundings. And its among the backstreet clinics that are doing so much dangerous damage, that we find Thailands Doctor Fixit.
Williams: Just describe for me what were seeing.Vijwisit: This patient have mammaplasty by some quack, never have any training.
Williams: Dr Thep Vijwisit is the man many come to when things go wrong - in this case a life threatening alternative to silicon breast implants.
Vijwisit: The first time I saw it Im shocked, because I never believe that any doctor can put this inside the body.
Williams: And whats in the condom.
Vijwisit: Water.
Williams: Just water.Vijwisit: Yeah, water.
Williams: Dr Thep sees it all. From bad breast jobs and misshapen bottoms to crooked smiles and toxic shock -- mistakes that can even be deadly.
Sixty-seven year old Sa-ang Isaragura could have lived out her old age gracefully, instead she paid the ultimate price for trying to hold back time. Its thought she was allergic to the anaesthetic - her surgeon has been charged with manslaughter. But that doesnt help her grieving husband - Retired Admiral Livit Isaragura didnt even know shed gone to have the facelift.
Livit: Maybe she was afraid that I would complain because Ive never agreed to this. In my opinion my wife was not ugly. She was a bit fat, nothing much. Maybe she thought her face was not that good and she wanted to have a facelift to get rid of some the wrinkles.
Williams: It could have happened to anyone, but the fact this was elective surgery for reasons of vanity make this a shameful end for a high-society wife, and raises questions about an industry thats now straining to keep up with its own success.
DR THEP: We estimate that peoples demand increases every year thirty percent maybe - but the government never want to provide a good surgeon. They wont support any training - they dont want to support it. So we are in short supply of good cosmetic surgeons.
Williams: Its the morning of Robyns operation. In just a few hours 46 years of frustration and misery will be over.
ROBYN: Ive never been so sure of anything in my life that. First second after I wake up after the surgery will tell me, because thats when the reality hits that you cant go back.
Williams: After her eight months of global research Robyn found Dr Sanguan - the right guy at the right price - 15-thousand dollars in fact, about a third of the cost in the United States or Australia. But its not just about money. This surgeon has developed an additional procedure which will enable Robyn to retain sexual sense.
THEP: First I have to mark the flap here to be the floor of the vaginal opening, then I have to dissect inside between the urinary tract, the prostrate gland and the bladder.
Williams: The operation will take five hours and theres not a scalpel in sight. Dr. Sanguan will use the precision of a laser for this procedure.
SANGUAN: If we injure the prostrate or the bladder or the rectum under this canal so this should be done very, very carefully millimetre by millimetre. 14:23
Williams: The operation is going well, but now comes the main reason this surgeon is developing such a strong following among foreign transsexuals. By inverting some of the penis, he makes an imperfect, yet functional clitoris.
SANGUAN: I will share some part of the glans penis - that is a very sensitive tissue - with the nerve and artery attached to reconstruct a clitoris.
Williams: That means there is active sexual pleasure?
SANGUAN: Yes, right.Williams: And others doctors dont do that?
SANGUAN: Not so many doctor or surgeon do this technique.
Williams: Good morning. How are you?
ROBYN: Sore and sorry.
Williams: Its the morning after Robyns operation. She finally feels shes made it.
ROBYN: Well its just about come to a complete end. After all those years, now Im a complete woman, jeez its a big relief. No more mental torture.
Williams: While Robyns embraced her new future, it may take some time for those in small town New South Wales to also accept it.
Many of her friends simply cant cope with the disappearance of their old mate, Rodney.
Williams: What would happen if you just walked down the local pub, like you used to perhaps, and ordered a beer?
ROBYN: Oh Id probably go out on a stretcher. You cop a lot of the threats, but being in a small town I think its probably only threats, but they wont make me go away. Its my choice to live there. I havent got the problem, they have. Im willing to accept them, so theyve got to accept me.
Williams: Robyns family has struggled to come to terms with the dramatic change. But so far theyve stood by her, and the decision to be surgically assigned a woman. For Robyn its been a remarkable and successful journey to freedom. The showgirls of Pattariya are a showpiece of those few who can do this work but as demand grows for this under regulated and under qualified body business disfigurement and death are sure to be more common.