An assumed transition - S.J: a feminine first name to fully live your identity

Seven years after gender reassignment surgery in Thailand, S.J. undertakes to officially change her first name. An essential step so that her civil identity finally corresponds to the woman she is today.

Seven years after undergoing gender reassignment surgery in Thailand, S.J., 37, residing in Grand-Baie, is taking a new step in his journey. Her official request to change her first name, recently published in the press in accordance with legal procedures, represents for her much more than a simple administrative formality. Today fully fulfilled in her feminine identity, she wants her first name to finally correspond to the woman she has become. Behind this approach lies a story of courage, sacrifice and acceptance.

The day S.J. discovers her request published in the legal notices, she feels a mixture of relief and emotion. For many, it’s just a change of first name. For her, it is the culmination of a long journey that began well before her sexual reassignment operation carried out in Thailand in 2018. She always claims to have felt like a woman in a body that did not correspond to her.

This conviction accompanied her throughout her childhood. While the other boys naturally identified with their birth gender, S.J. felt a deep unease. For years, she hid her emotions, aware that Mauritian society still sometimes looks harshly on transgender people. But time has only reinforced this certainty: she could never be happy until she fully lived her identity.

In 2018, after saving for several years, she flew to Thailand. There, she underwent a twelve-hour surgical procedure, particularly delicate, at a cost of around Rs 500,000. A considerable sum, but which she considers today as the price of her freedom. “Many dream of taking this step, but do not dare. I knew I had to do it to finally live in harmony with myself,” she explains.

His return to Mauritius, however, marks the start of another fight. It’s no longer just a matter of transforming your body, but of convincing those around you to accept it as it is. The reactions are diverse. Some relatives have difficulty understanding his decision. Others distance themselves. However, S.J. remains faithful to one conviction: before asking others to accept her, she had to first accept herself.

His mother plays an essential role in this reconstruction. “She’s the one who gave me life. I explained to him how I had always felt. Over time, she understood that I remained her child above all,” she says. His father is now deceased. As for his two brothers and four sisters, their reactions were divided. If not all have im