There are precious few hints of the social revolutionary around Kim Seok-kwan, the 52-year-old doctor who single-handedly brought sex-change surgery to this deeply conservative country.
But there is no gainsaying Kim's audacity in introducing sex-change operations here in 1986. Nor do many South Koreans dispute the impact his surgery has had on a society where, even quite recently, sexual matters were mostly whispered about and few dared live openly as homosexuals.
That all began to change with the emergence of superstar Ha Risu, a slinky, silky-haired singer, actor, comedienne and model, armed with a 35-24-35 figure, who is now a fixture in the Korean entertainment firmament. Ha, whose adopted stage name is a play on the English phrase Hot Issue, lived most of her 28 years, unhappily, as a man, until Kim transformed her into a ravishing transgender beauty three years ago.
Kim is a plastic surgeon whose training was in facial and cranial operations, getting his start in sex-change surgery almost by accident. For years he performed the operations largely in obscurity, with awareness of his skills with a scalpel spreading mostly by word of mouth.
"In 1986, a male transvestite approached me and asked me if I could perform a sex-change operation," Kim said. "At that time, nobody knew anything about this sort of thing in Korea, and I told him I couldn't help him."
A couple of months later, the doctor said, another man approached him asking for a sex change. With that, Kim said he became intrigued enough to start reading up on the subject. Within a short time, Kim called the patient back and said he would operate.
The surgery was a first for South Korea. Not only that, but Kim also rejected the use of skin grafts for vaginal construction, which was the standard at the time.
Although the operation's success exceeded expectations, soon afterward Kim went to the University of California at Davis for a year to study more about sex change surgery. When he returned, he found a long list of candidates desperate for the operation.
For the first few years of performing gender-change surgery, Kim said, his patients were overwhelmingly working class or poor, and few could afford to travel abroad for the operation.
The first glimmers of celebrity came to Kim in 1991, with his first female-to-male surgery, which he also pioneered here. That operation caught the attention of the nation's news media.
The brouhaha eventually died down, but by the time it did, something had changed in Korean society. Taboo had been lifted, and sexual mores were suddenly being discussed much more openly in the media and portrayed with more realism in film.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
Separatists in Alberta are preparing to submit a petition tomorrow that they said has enough signatures to force a referendum on independence for the oil-rich Canadian province. Polls indicate the pro-independence camp remains a minority among Alberta’s 5 million people, but has hit a historic high of roughly 30 percent. Alberta separatists are also closer than ever to forcing a referendum, riding momentum fueled by intensifying grievances over Ottawa’s control of the provincial oil industry. They have also undeniably gotten a boost from the return to power of US President Donald Trump. After launching a petition in January, Stay Free Alberta, the group
RSS