An Autopsy Case of a Transsexual Woman.

Han, Ki Hwan; Han, Seung Ho; Kim, Dae Cheol; Jo, Gam Rae; Choi, Dong Ho; Kim, Kwang Hoon

Case Report

Korean Journal of Legal Medicine 2003;27(2):73-77.
Published online October 31, 2003.

An Autopsy Case of a Transsexual Woman.

Ki Hwan Han, Seung Ho Han, Dae Cheol Kim, Gam Rae Jo, Dong Ho Choi, Kwang Hoon Kim

¹Department of Anatomy, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea. hsh@catholic.ac.kr
²Cell Death Disease Research Center, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
³Catholic Institute for Applied Anatomy, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
⁴Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Dong-A University, Busan, Korea.
⁵Department of Forensic Medicine, Southern District of National Institute of Scientific Investigation, Busan

Abstract

Transsexualism is a variety and complexity of conditions to the desire for sex change and may require medical treatments over psychological evaluations in some patients. Consequently, there is a potential confusion in the determination of anatomical sex in transsexuals arising from administration of hormone and/or sex reassignment surgery. In this article, we represent a case of a 52-year-old "woman"found dead on the road-side. "She"was naked on the scene and supposed to be murdered by strangulation of he neck. Surprisingly, autopsy findings as well as DNA typing revealed that "she"was transsexual once a man. We discuss medicolegal problems posed by medico-surgical treatment in transsexuals.

Key Words: Determination of sex, Transsexualism, Sex reassignment surgery, Autopsy