Denver Health To Offer Gender Reassignment Surgery
June 20, 2018
DENVER (CBS4) – Denver Health is preparing to become the only hospital in Colorado, and one of a select few in the country, to offer gender reassignment surgery. The move is in response to growing demand in the transgender community.
Danielle Badler understands. She is a transgender woman who had the procedure four years ago in California.
“No more secrets. I mean it’s really, it’s unbelievable. No more secrets,” Badler told CBS4 Health Specialist Kathy Walsh.
Badler can finally say that at the age of 67. She was born a he, biologically a boy.
“At age 5, I knew I was different, and I felt like I should be a girl,” Badler said. “I was deathly afraid that anybody would find out. There was nothing I could do, so I sublimated the whole thing and went on with my life.”
That was life as Richard Badler. That life included work in corporate communications, a 35-year-long marriage, two daughters and grandsons.
“I had a very close friend who was transgender and had a stroke and died,” Badler said.