Her operation was scheduled for March 2009. Audrey was already active within the transgender movement in Kenya and was working closely with transgender Kenya initiative that had been formed to address the needs of those silently dealing with GID.
“Somebody suggested that we should do a documentary on my operation and we needed permission to film in KNH. Zawadi Nyong’o, a consultant in the social justice movement, suggested she could get permission from her father, Prof Anyang Nyong’o who was Health minister to film in Kenyatta hospital.”
Says Audrey: “Apparently, the minister called the director of KNH and told him he was aware that a gender change operation was scheduled for the following day and advised him against allowing the operation to proceed. I arrived the following morning ready for my operation and my urologist informed me the operation had been cancelled.”
Audrey was in utter disbelief. Her dream had suddenly short-circuited into shocking disappointed. The journey towards becoming fully a complete woman had come to an abrupt halt.
She has written countless letters to the Health minister before he left office to understand why he issued instructions for the operation to be cancelled with no response. But his instructions opened a new battlefront for GID victims, the war to have the right to an operation.
In addition, Audrey’s experience accidentally revealed the complexity of GID treatment with stunning clarity.
Sex change
She says the medical board brought a new dimension to the issue. She learnt to her dismay that according to the medical code of ethics chapter two, gender re-assignment on demand was not permitted.
That a specialist team must be constituted to evaluate each applicant’s situation to reach a decision if an operation was needed, a condition she believes she met. Her attempt to pierce the veil of the medical board in the last four years has been met with soporific silence.
Audrey now combined the battle for her operation with the fight to have other GID victims have the right to sex change if they wanted. “They took me in circles. First, I was told by the medical board I needed my parents consent because they might sue the hospital. But I was over 18, why would an adult need permission?”
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