by SATIMAN JAMIN
“It’s easy to heap unkind words on our family but nobody has tried putting themselves in our shoes,” said Mak Yah, 50, the mother of medical assistant Mohd Ashraf Hafiz Abd Aziz, 25, the transgender whose application to change his name to Aleesha Farhana was rejected by the High Court here on Monday. Eyes brimming with tears, Mak Yah lamented to the New Straits Times the pain and humiliation she felt when she read the negative comments about her and her husband, Abdul Aziz, 60.
“They accused us of being bad parents.
It hurts to read such reports.” Although they had noticed Ashraf’s effeminate tendencies since hewas a toddler, Mak Yah said they were still horrified when they found out t h at their eldest son had undergone a sexual reassignment surgery in Thailand in 2009.
“Wewere in Mecca performing the haj, and as far as we knew, our child was working in Putrajaya,” she said, adding that Ashraf had never mentioned about the medical tests and hormone level monitoring he had gone through at the Pantai Medical Centre for two years prior to the surgery.
At first, their anger and sadness over what Ashraf had done led the couple, who have four other children, to disown him.
“We burnt all his dresses and told him never to return home, but we knew that Ashraf, or Aleesha, often came home, spending nights in the car, instead of in his room.” As an ex-serviceman, Abdul Aziz had no problem instilling discipline in his children and meting out punishment if they misbehaved, but he had no answer to Ashraf’s problem.
“Our other son had even cut Ashraf’s hair as short as an army recruit, but instead of a man, we saw a short-haired woman.
WLUML for more