A 48-year-old woman has won a three-decade battle against her parents for the right to have gender reassignment surgery.
Christine Kitzler’s parents have long argued that she is mentally incompetent to consent to have the surgery, saying she is not a woman trapped in a man’s body, but a mentally disturbed drug addict.
However, a judge in the case, C. Theodore Fritsch Jr, said Christine had impressed him with her knowledge of the procedure and the risks involved, and gave her permission to go ahead.
The operation had been set to take place last Tuesday before Christine’s parents, Klaus and Ingrid Kitzler, won a temporary injunction.
Christine told the court: “It’s barbaric to keep me this way. I can’t maintain being a sober man, being happy, because it hasn’t happened. It can’t happen. I don’t have a choice.”
Her parents argued that a childhood learning disorder and depression had compromised her judgment and that her HIV and hepatitis C diagnoses would make the surgery far riskier.
“I would love to have a son back who goes to church with us on Sunday mornings,” Klaus Kitzler told the judge, repeatedly referring to Christine, born in 1967 as Christopher Klaus Kitzler, as “he” and “son.”
