The Miss Gay and Ms. Transsexual Australia 2016 offers gender reassignment surgery as their grand prize, and they’re taking a lot of heat from people who think they’re trivializing a major surgery.
The pageant has been called out by president of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons Hugh Bartholomeusz, who blasted the grand prize as “irresponsible.”
He also claims gender reassignment surgery “is not something to be entered into lightly and requires multiple expert consultations with both surgeons and psychologists.”
Bartholomeusz also took aim at the use of an overseas facility to perform the surgery:
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“The Society also warns Australians that any form of surgery carries risks and when people travel overseas for operations there are less likely to be appropriate cooling off periods and adequate provision for after care should complications occur.”
The pageant is a part of the LGBT-oriented Midsumma festival, and founder Gayzha Davao struck back at the claims, telling the Herald Sun:
“I’m not really in a position to say whether the hospitals in Thailand would be inferior compared to Australia, because they’re all good hospitals. They’re also really quick, and I think the hospital is really safe; we’ve had people who went there and got good results.”