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The transgender team believes that the increase can be attributed to the presence of positive role models.
Role models include the Austrian winner of the Eurovision Song Contest Conchita Wurst.
Ms Wurst didn’t undergo a sex change operation, but with her beard she raised the profile of the topic.
Ghent University Hospital is an authority when it comes to transgender switches.
The number of people embarking on a sex change continues to rise. In the 1990s there were only twenty changes a year.
By 2013 113 sex change operations were being carried out. Last year the figure rose to 148.
The Ghent transgender team is hoping to expand soon: “If the number of people working on transgender teams does not increase we will end up with long waiting lists,” says Jos Motmans.
“It’s a difficult topic and people wait a decade before broaching the subject. If you then hear that there is a six month wait for an appointment to discuss the matter, then you realise how inhuman this is.”
Flandersnews.be / Expatica