Male Sailor Undergoes Surgery To Become Female, Navy Sacks ‘Her’ For Breaching Service Rules

A serving sailor of the Indian Navy who underwent a sex change surgery last year has been sacked because he was recruited as a ‘man’ and no women are recruited as sailors. 

 The Navy said the sailor who did "sex reassignment surgery" while on leave in Mumbai last August was discharged from the service for breaching service rules.

 Sex reassignment surgery or gender change surgery is surgical procedures that help to alter the transgender person's physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics.  In male to female surgery, which is relatively easier than the reverse, the patient’s penis and testicles are removed and the urethra is cut shorter. Some of the skin is used to fashion a largely functional vagina. A "neoclitoris" that allows sensation can be created from parts of the penis. Men retain their prostates.

It comes at a time when the Indian defence forces is mulling over the demand to induct women into combat roles. Recently Army chief Bipin Rawat said Army is set to open up combat positions for women. At present women are allowed in medical, legal, educational, signals and engineering wings of the Army, but combat roles are kept off limit.  

 The sailor who was posted at Vishakhapatnam in the engineering branch of the Navy, told the authorities that he was feeling 'like a woman trapped in a man's body' and that is why he underwent the surgery. 

 "The Indian Navy has discharged… (the) naval sailor evoking the clause of 'Service No Longer Required' under the Navy regulations," the Navy said in a statement.

 "The individual chose to undergo irreversible gender re- assignment on his own accord, whilst on leave wilfully altering his gender status from the one he was recruited for at the time of his induction," it said.

 "He has breached the Recruitment Regulations and eligibility criteria for his employment as a sailor in the Indian Navy," the Navy said.

 It said that the existing service rules and regulations do not permit the sailor's continued employment owing to his altered gender status, medical condition and "resultant employability restrictions".