“I am still practising to address myself as a man,” says 29-year-old Lalita Salve, a police constable from Maharashtra’s Beed district. “I have lived all these years as a woman. It’s not an easy transition for me”.
Biologically born a male, Mr. Salve was labelled a female due to a congenital malformation which made his genitals look more like those of a girl child.
Sharing pictures of his childhood where he is seen with long hair and earrings, Mr. Salve said in Rajegaon village, he grew up with other girls, playing with dolls. Later at the Lokmanya Tilak College in Beed, he always hung out in a girl’s group. As with other teenagers in the area, he applied for government jobs, including in the police force. On selection, when he was sent for training to Pune, he shared a room with other women trainees and then went on to join the police force in 2010 as a Lady Police Constable (LPC).
But his life is up for a 360 degree change now.
First of many changes
On May 25, Mr. Salve underwent the first of many surgeries planned for genital reconstruction, carried out by plastic surgeon Dr. Rajat Kapoor at the State-run St. George’s hospital. While the complete reconstruction and hair transplant for a beard will take close to two more years, Mr. Salve will now formally become Lalit, a name that he has been using since he first stumbled on the fact that he is indeed a male. According to Mr. Salve, all was well till his mother Kesar, who works as an agricultural labourer plucking cotton, began discussing his marriage sometime in 2016.
Lalit Salve sharing a lighter moment with his mother and his younger brother at St. George hospital in Mumbai and, inset, his old photograph of college days, before the sex corrective surgery.
Medical negligence
Around the same time, he had noticed a small growth in the genital area for which he saw a doctor. “That day, what the doctor told me shocked me to the core. The doctor said the growth was a testes, which is a male organ,” said Mr. Salve, recalling the meeting that altered his world completely. Further tests confirmed presence of XY chromosome distinctly found in males.
And incidents from his childhood began to fall in place. When he was seven years old, he had complained about a similar growth to his mother. He was taken to a private practitioner.
“The doctor back then diagnosed the growth as a hernia or a cyst. My medical examination was done at a private hospital and then I was operated in the Beed Civil Hospital where they removed the growth. What the doctors had actually removed was one of my testes,” said Mr. Salve, furious at the botch-up.
Doctors explain that Mr. Salve’s reduced body growth was due to the removal of one testes — the organ responsible for hormone production.
“My parents were illiterate. They knew nothing. But the doctors were educated. How could they be so callous?” he asked, adding that had the doctors carried out a proper diagnosis, “I would have been saved from all the psychological trauma.”
Later in 2016, Mr Salve first met Dr. Kapoor, then with the JJ Hospital in Mumbai. He confirmed that Mr Salve’s case was that of a male, mistakenly brought up as a female because of a genital anomaly.
But Mr. Salve’s application for leave for re-constructive surgery had to go all the way up to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who’s nod finally saw the Beed Superintendent of Police sanction his leave.
At the end of his medical treatment, he will return to the force as a male constable. “I don’t know how it is all going to be. I will face it as it comes,” said Mr Salve.
Mother unconvinced
Fortunately for Mr. Salve, his parents, elder sister and two younger brothers have been extremely supportive, and so too, the people of Rajegaon. His mother Kesar has come to terms with the turn of events. But when asked about the day when Mr. Salve was born, she firmly said, “ Mulgich jhali hoti (It was a girl).”
“My delivery at my mother’s house was carried out by her and a few other elderly women from the village. It was definitely a girl,” asserted Ms. Kesar, who is still unconvinced by the scientific and medical explanation behind Lalita’s journey to Lalit.
But she is full of praise for Mr Salve’s support for the family — taking responsibility for his elder sister’s marriage, buying a rickshaw to support his younger sibling and bringing financial stability to the family. “I will stand by her, whatever it may be,” said an emotional Ms. Kesar.
At the St George’s Hospital, Mr Salve has been given a private room with a guard. “Everyone wants to meet him. Everyone is so curious about him. So we have taken extra precautions”, said Dr. Madhukar Gaikwad, Medical Superintendent of the hospital.
Mr. Salve can’t wait to get back home. “I have dealt with a lot of trauma. I just want to live a happy life now,” he said.
