China posts rules of sex change (Xinhua)

It is now as difficult for transsexual people to get access to health services in communist China as it is via government-funded programmes in Toronto at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

BEIJING - To change gender in China costs more than money. One must be free of a criminal record and be single if he or she wants to have a sex change, the Ministry of Health said Tuesday in a new regulation.

Other conditions include having lived publicly as the other gender for more than two years, at least five years of unwavering desire to change, more than one year of psychotherapy and a commitment by local police to issue a new ID card after the operation.

The ministry posted the regulation online to solicit opinions from its local bureaus, which are due by July 10.

Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

The regulation also set thresholds for medical facilities and doctors eligible for transsexual operations. For example, hospitals must have an ethics committee to evaluate applications and a plastic surgery department that has operated for more than 10 years. Surgeons must have more than five years of experience in transsexual operations.

There are an estimated 1,000 transsexuals in China.

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