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Health: Switching Genders

PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― Medical Reporter Stephanie Stahl reports on a surgery on the rise, switching genders, or men becoming women and women turning into men. It is a delicate and complicated surgery and a difficult psychological journey.

They look like an ordinary couple, but Matthew and Isabel are switching genders.

Matthew, who's 23-years-old, was born a girl named Meloney and Isabel, who's 44, was a man man named Dwayne.

"Everytime I looked in the mirror I always felt something was wrong," said Isabel.

Isabel and Matthew have been taking hormones for a year and are already dressing for their new genders, but Matthew is still a woman under his clothes and Isabel a man.

"It's been a turmoil all my adult life," said Isabel.

She lived the life of a man, was married to a woman, had two children, but always felt he should be a she.

It was the same for Matthew who felt he was born with the wrong body.

"What I want is to have the body I should have had all the time, which I feel should have had all the time," said Matthew.

After meeting online, they came to the Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery.

"There's an enormous demand for it," said Dr. Sherman Leis.

Dr. Leis, who specializes in gender reassignment surgery, said it's not about sexuality, but gender identity.

For some people, like Matthew and Isabel, the brain doesn't fit with the body.

Now the couple is about to have the first of several surgeries.

"I'm nervous 'cause it's my first surgery," said Matthew.

Matthew will have his size D breasts removed and Isabel is getting breast implants.

Dr. Christine McGinn, who is on the surgery team, identifies with Isabel's need to make the transformation in a special way.

"Ever since the age of three I knew something was different," said Dr. McGinn.

Dr. McGinn was a man until four years ago, at one point a prominent surgeon in the Navy.

She said gender reassignment is not a freak show, it is simply fixing nature's mistake.

"It was just a wonderful thing that I wanted for my whole life," said Dr. McGinn.

After Matthew and Isabel's breast surgeries comes genital reassignment.

Isabel's male genitalia will be turned into a females and Matthew will become a man with tissue from his abdomen.

"The female to male is a little more complicated," said Dr. Leis. "The problem with female to male is that instead of shortening the urethra, which is the tube that we urinate through, we have to lengthen it."

Dr. Leis said the reassigned body parts eventually looks and works just like the real thing.

For Matthew and Isabel, their families have accepted their new identities and someday they could even be coming to a wedding.

"We don't know what the future keeps for us but we hope that it's gonna work for a long while," said Matthew.

There are about 12-hundred transgender surgeries a year in the U.S. It costs between 20 to 50-thousand dollars and it is not covered by insurance. Like with any surgery, there are some risks.

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