Two identical twins in Brazil, who were born male, are now apart of medical history, after undergoing double gender confirmation surgery to become female–a medical first.
According to The New York Post, the 19-year-old twins, Mayla Rezende and Sofia Albuquerck, who are from a small town in southwestern Brazil, were born with male sex parts, but both say they’ve always known they were girls.
“I would blow dandelion seeds into the air and wish for God to turn me into a girl,” Rezende said, “I always loved my body, but I didn’t like my genitalia.”
While gender-reassignment surgery is covered under Brazil’s nationalized health care plan, clinics that can perform the surgery are few and far between, making the waitlist very long.
The girls were originally planning to travel to Thailand for their procedures but were lucky enough to stay local. They contracted a private doctor, and had financial support from their grandfather, who auctioned off property to pay for the $20,000 operations. The twins were then able to undergo the five-hour surgeries one day apart.
Dr. Jose Carlos Martins of Transgender Center Brazil performed their surgeries on February 11th and February 12th.
“This is the only reported case in the world of twins who were presumed to be male at birth undergoing female gender confirmation surgery together,” Dr. Martins claimed.
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