WOMAN COP FROM BEED MOVES HC AFTER BEING DENIED SEX CHANGE SURGERY

A woman police constable in Beed district has approached the Bombay High Court after the Maharashtra Police turned down her plea to undergo sex realignment surgery.

The 29-year-old constable, Lalita Salvi, posted at Majalgaon in Beed District, had applied for a sex realignment surgery but her plea was allegedly rejected by Beed police and Maharashtra police top officials.

Salvi had recently written to Director General of Police Satish Mathur seeking a month’s leave to undergo the operation and to be referred to as a male constable after the procedure.

The cop, who has been serving in the police force since 2010, took the decision to change her gender aftr she felt that she was a man trapped in a woman’s body due to what she described as hormonal imbalances. She has said that for the last four years she had been noticing changes in her physical appearance that could happen only to men and that convinced her that she was meant to be a man.

Her lawyer claims that on diagnosis and medical consultation at the Sir JJ hospital in Mumbai, she was told that her hormonal imbalances are incurable and thus she was adviced to undergo plastic surgery or sexual reassignment.

The lawyer appealed to the authorities to allow her to undergo the surgery saying that his client’s human rights were at stake.

He says he is seeking necessary orders as per Maharashtra Police Rules ensuring the cop’s right to equality and life.

This isn’t the first such instance. The first case was in the Indian armed forces in 2016 when Navy sailor Manish Giri underwent sex change surgery. The Indian Navy sacked him on the ground that he hd violated the rules and regulations under which he was recruited as “an Indian male citizen”. Giri now goes by he name Sabi.