Trinidad, Colorado: ‘The Sex Change Capital of the U.S.’ [video]
”It was just interesting, because everyone thought, ‘Oh, how cute! A lady OBGYN is moving into town. How sweet.’ As some of these media things happened, people began to find out about me. And then it’s like, ‘Ohhhh…. That’s interesting.’ … [Dr. Biber] would educate little by little. And [the townspeople] would meet transgender people one by one. And pretty soon the town came to realize that we were helping these people. And that, in turn, they were providing an economic stimulus to this small community…. Well, there may be as many as 25 [U.S. doctors who] have ever done [a sexual reassignment surgery], but in terms of the ones who do them on a regular basis — I would say, fewer than six.”
Dr. Marci Bowers, a surgeon who performs gender reassignment surgery on hundreds of patients a year, and is a MTF transgender herself. She took over for Dr. Stanley Biber in 2003. The late Dr. Biber started the first private practice for the operations in 1969. Reportedly 1,000 reassignment surgeries occur in the US at a cost of about $18,000, most not covered by insurance. (CBS News)
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