[Transsexualism and sex change]

The article deals with the psychosexually disturbed identity known as transsexualism. The medical practice is occupied with this problem and phenomenon since the sixth decennium of this century. However, in this country it was not present at that time. In Serbia the treatment of transsexualism began at the beginning of 1989, and there have not yet been published articles on this problem. This paper is the first article dealing with transsexualism in Serbia. It is based on personal authors' experience. The essential characteristic of transsexualism is the existence of such psychical grasp and conduct which do not correspond to bodily sexual characteristics. The difference is so great that the patient must force himself (herself) to accept the existing psychical properties or inborn bodily particularities which do not harmonize. Therefore the patient decides to take psychial things as they are but to alter his (her) body. Psychiatry cannot alter his (her) soul but surgery and endocrinology can alter his (her) body. In that case the patients body is first shaped with hormonal therapy according to his (her) wishes (female or male), and then genital organs are appropriately formed by surgery. The popular nema of this procedure is sex reassignment. The whole problem and the therapeutic procedure are considered as hermaphroditism. In true hermaphroditism ovarian or testicular tissue is present in the same patient; in false hermaphroditism female or male organs predominate; and in transsexualism only one way of alteration is possible i.e. bodily sexual alteration. The latter is the most complex form and physicians finally realized that spiritual feelings can be the property of one sex and bodily characteristics of the other.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)