DNAIndia.com – By Arun Ram
Chennai: Almost seven months after the Tamil Nadu government’s revolutionary order offering free penile amputations for aravanis (as they are referred to here), members of the community are fuming as doctors refuse to wield the scalpel, citing medical ethics.
The government order was aimed at preventing unsafe castrations that a large number of aravanis resort to for lack of an alternative but that can cause infections and, in some cases, even death.
In Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, home to more than 60,000 registered aravanis, a large number of cross-dressers go to ‘dayammas’ (designated elderly eunuchs) for crude forms of castration. Quacks also make a killing, doing penile amputation on poor and confused cross-dressers for Rs 10,000.