First Transgender Woman Legally Recognized in Vietnam
BY ADVOCATE.COM EDITORS
SEPTEMBER 09 2012 10:45 AM EThttp://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2012/09/09/first-transgender-legally-recognized-vietnam
Pham Le Quynh Tram has become the first transgender woman to be legally recognized by Vietnamese authorities as a woman, according to website Vietnamnet.
"I can't believe that this is true," Tram says, who had reassignment surgery in 2008. "I cannot describe my happiness of living with my true sex."
The first trans-gender legally recognized in Vietnam
Last update 08/09/2012 7:20:00 SA (GMT+7)
Compiled by Mai Lan
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/special-reports/43702/the-first-trans-gender-legally-recognized-in-vietnam.html
Pham Le Quynh TramShe was very happy to show off the decision to redefine her sex as female, granted by the administration of a town in Binh Phuoc province, dated November 5, 2009. The decision declares: allowing Pham Van Hiep to re-define sex from male to female and to change name into Pham Le Quynh Tram.
Tram was born as an intersex but she was defined at birth as a boy. "At puberty, my body changed as a woman. My breast kept growing. I was very frightened and did not tell anyone. I tried to hide it by eating a lot to gain weight," Tram said.
In 2006, medical tests showed that the boy Pham Van Hiep had high female hormone volumes and a lot of female characteristics in his sex organ. Doctors advised Hiep to go to Thailand for a transgender surgery.
In mid-2008, after the sex organ surgery, she became a real woman.
Returning home, she sent applications to relevant bodies to ask their permission to change her sex and name in her personal papers.
