No child should endure my ordeal, says sex-disorder Hongkonger forced to be a boy
Born neither male nor female, bullied as a child and driven to attempt suicide by repeated anatomical operations, Small Luk hid her bodily ambiguity for 20 years until a proper diagnosis allowed her to choose surgery and live as a woman. Now she wants Hong Kong to change laws so ‘intersex’ babies don’t have their sex decided for them, like hers was
Small Luk is a survivor.
Born neither fully male or female, Luk was one of seven people operated on as children at Hong Kong’s Kwong Wah Hospital in the 1970s to correct their anatomies – and the only one still alive. The rest have killed themselves – an indicator of the stigma and trauma they faced.
He, too, tried to kill himself before he was in his teens, so harrowing was his childhood. It’s an experience Luk hopes to ensure others born in a similar state don’t have to endure any longer in Hong Kong.
Luk is what is called intersex – someone with genitalia, reproductive organs and sometimes a set of chromosomes that do not conform to what’s expected of either sex.
Born with vestiges of male genitals and so classified as male, it was only in his teens, when he started to develop breasts, suffer stomach cramps and see blood in his urine that Luk was diagnosed as genetically male but suffering from a condition in which the body is resistant to hormones, such as testosterone, that control the development of male traits. And Luk was 36 before a physical examination revealed an undeveloped uterus and vagina, allowing doctors to classify Luk as hermaphrodite.
Acting on his doctors’ advice, he eventually had surgery to remove his male genitalia, began treatment with female hormones and now lives as a woman.
[When I was 12] the doctors told me my surgery failed again and asked me to come back next summer. So I attempted suicide. I made a second attempt one year later.