PRAYAGRAJ: Observing that a person has a constitutional right to change their gender through surgical intervention, the Allahabad high court has directed the UP DGP to dispose of an application filed by a female police constable seeking permission to undergo sex reassignment surgery (SRS).While passing the directive, Justice Ajit Kumar observed that if a person suffers from gender dysphoria and except for physical structure, her feeling and traits are of opposite sex, so much so that that there is a complete misalignment of her personality with physical body, such a person does possess a constitutionally recognized right to get her gender changed though surgical intervention."If we, in modern society, do not acknowledge this vested right in a person, we would be only encouraging gender identity disorder syndrome.

At times such a problem may be fatal as such a person may suffer from disorder, anxiety, depression, negative self image, dislike of one's sexual anatomy.

If psychological interventions to alleviate such distress as above fail, surgical intervention should become a must and should be encouraged," added the bench.

The court made the observations while dealing with a writ petition filed by an unmarried woman constable, working with UP Police, who claimed to be suffering from gender dysphoria and wished to undergo SRS to get herself ultimately identified and personalized as a male with true male physical character.The court has directed to put up this matter on September 21 for the next hearing.