Bangkok – New rules governing sex change operations come into place on Sunday, 1 November, forcing a long wait for those looking for the big cut.

Thailand’s Medical Council introduced stiffer rules following a number of controversies over the last couple of years. Prior to these new rules, getting a sex change operation was relatively easy, with few checks to ensure that young males were psycologically ready to deal with the challenges of life after the operation.

The Medical Council now require that transgendered people first consult a psychiatrist to assess their mental state before they are allowed to get hormone therapy from endocrinologists, then live as a woman for a year, and receive hormone therapy before an operation is allowed.

Medical Council spokesperson Dr Somsak Lolekha said: “The council want to make sure that they really want to be a woman and spend the rest of their lives as a woman, forever, not for a second. Sex reassignment surgery would affect the physical body, as well as people’s mental health and society around them.”

Dr Somsak said that at least two psychiatrists must give guarantees for those who want to undergo a sex change.

Dr Paiboon Jittrapai, of Thailand’s Royal College of Surgeons, said the new rules would lift standards for sex change operations. They would also help screen transgender people who really need sex change surgery.

He said some patients had committed suicide after a sex change operation as they had later regretted undertaking the operation.