London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Oct 04, 2025

The surprising place where sex change tourism is booming

The surprising place where sex change tourism is booming

Thailand was always considered the ‘go-to’ overseas destination for gender-change surgery, but not anymore. India is going through an "exponential rise" in patients.

Since the mid-1970s, foreigners have flown into Thailand as men and later flown back out as women. The Philippines, too, was something of a hotspot. Southeast Asia in general was long thought to be more tolerant of transgenderism.

But now gender affirmation surgery is easing into the mainstream, it’s big business, and the industry is booming in a new destination: India.

So much so that surgeon Dr. Narendra Kaushik has erected a purpose-built hospital solely for trans patients. His Olmec centre in Delhi handles up to 70 patients a month, with many undergoing multiple procedures. Olmec performs around a thousand surgeries every year; 600 of these are to change the genitalia from male to female or female to male.

“We have undergone an exponential increase in the past seven years or so,” Dr. Kaushik told RT.com. “It’s mostly male-to-female surgery as this is what is reflected in society, but we are also getting female-to-male patients.”

For every patient born female who wants to make the change to male, there are three patients who want to make the leap from male to female. What does the surgery entail?

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING


“We take away the testes,” explained Dr. Kaushik. “We then use the outer parts of the penis to make the female genitalia in a beautiful way, including a clitoris with good sensations from the glans of the penis, and this makes orgasm possible.

“In the past, the majority of sex-change operations meant patients had to live without sexual intercourse. Not anymore. We have a 98.3% satisfaction rate amongst patients and their partners.

“We cannot say they are absolutely normal female genitals because they are made from the male organs but they are as close as is possible in terms of function and appearance. She feels like a woman.”

As with any surgery, the experience is not exactly pleasant.

“Believe me when I say it’s very, very painful,” Isabella Thalund told RT.com. “But absolutely worth it – when you are in my situation, obviously.”

Isabella, 33, travelled to India from her home country of Denmark in the autumn for genital surgery and paid around $14,000 including flights. That’s already expensive to most people, but Dr. Kaushik estimates that full gender alignment surgery can cost between $30,000 and $40,000. That could include reduction of the Adam’s apple, breast surgery and – often the most expensive element – facial feminisation surgery. It depends on the individual.

But those costs are tiny compared to the US, where bills can reach way over $100,000 for similar treatments. And in Denmark, says Isabella, there is also a six-year waiting list for less effective surgery in the public sector. It’s a two-year wait in the UK just to get an appointment to see a specialist, as demand has reached record levels. Some 5,700 people are waiting for an appointment at London’s main gender clinic, the Tavistock and Portman Foundation Trust, alone.

Treatment in India includes everything from pick-up at the airport to the drop-off back at the terminal five or six weeks later with an entirely different body. It also usually, in times when Covid is not on the rampage, includes a tourist trip to destinations such as the Taj Mahal.

“As I was already out when I underwent the surgery; it hasn’t made a big difference in how I interact with people around me, but for me personally, it just allows me to feel ‘correct’,” Isabella told RT.com.

“Having male genitals was a constant reminder that I was born ‘wrong’ and I also would constantly limit myself in what I could do and what I would wear, as I feared anyone else seeing.

“After surgery, I no longer worry about clothes being too tight and I am excited to be able to use the changing room like any other woman.

“As to why I chose to go to India, it was partly because of the price but definitely also because of the surgeon.”

Patients are only accepted after a minimum of a full year of female hormone treatment and a thorough psychological evaluation for gender dysphoria, essentially meaning they feel the opposite sex to that into which they were born.

But the recovery from surgery doesn’t take all that long and it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to. Patients are usually up and walking in four to seven days. And the results of the modern technique, pioneered by Dr. Kaushik, called Sigma-lead, can be remarkable.

In his two decades in the field, Dr. Kaushik has operated on around 10,000 transgender patients and carried out over 16,000 operations. The youngest was aged 19, the oldest in their late 60s. Some come for corrective surgery on less effective procedures carried out elsewhere, and not all get the full change.

Around 20% of Dr. Kaushik’s patients are from outside India, and he’s recently operated on people from the US, Europe, and Australia. At least a thousand foreigners have been through his doors. He operates on two or three patients most days.

Accurate figures for how many people have travelled to Asia for gender surgery don’t exist but, if Dr. Kaushik’s busy clinic is anything to go by – and there are many such clinics across India, Thailand and the Philippines – it must be in the thousands. There are at least 100 doctors qualified to carry out gender surgery in Thailand alone.

The Olmec trans-specific clinic in Delhi was only inaugurated in 2019 to help deal with the demand, and Dr. Kaushik operated on a dozen foreign patients in December 2021.

“We are looking forward to further expansion,” said Dr. Kaushik.

Indeed. The demand is only going to increase, especially as the cultural stigma decreases.

“If someone is male externally but female internally, psychologically, it is a constant demand from the mind to have the female gender,” he told RT.com. “Only surgery will satisfy this and make them happy. This is a fact, this is the reality.”

And for people who undergo the treatment, it’s a matter of turning their bodies into how they’ve felt most of their lives.

“It is very hard to imagine how it feels without being transgender, but if you imagine someone deliberately calling you a different name than your own every single day, it sort of comes close,” Isabella told RT.com.

“I am not hurting anyone by being who I am, I am simply looking for acceptance to be allowed to be who I am. And to be allowed to be happy.

“I finally feel complete. After a journey of more than 10 years, I can finally be at rest with myself. I am happier, much less stressed and very, very hopeful for the future.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
×