Marcia Torres

In 1971, Torres read a newspaper article about urologist Antonio Salas Vieyra, who was studying the possibility of performing a surgery to effect a sex change.[6] Salas and Osvaldo Quijada had created the Chilean Society of Anthropological Sexology in the late 60s hoping to use the operation to help people who had an identity disorder.[2][11] Torres exchanged letters with Quijada and Salas explaining her desire to have the surgical procedure performed.[6][12] Accompanied by her mother, Torres went to Santiago and underwent a series of physical, psychiatric and psychological examinations administered by doctors from the medical staff of the University of Chile.[6] She was diagnosed with pseudohermaphroditism,[13] which the Chilean weekly Vea explained meant that Torres was genetically male but psychically female.[14]

Once the doctors cleared Torres for the surgery, lawyers were consulted to determine whether there were any legal impediments.[2] As there was no specific law that addressed surgical genital modification in Chile at that time, it was determined that a judge would have the discretionary authority to rule on any case presented to the court regarding a change to the sex registry.[15] During the presidency of Salvador Allende, there was also a gap in the legal code which allowed people to change her names, if their name diminished their identity ("menoscabara su identidad").[3][16] Law No. 17,344, passed on 22 September 1970, allowed name changes if a current name created a material or moral impairment, to correct an affiliation not previously known, or in instances in which the person was known by a name other than the one on official documents for more than five years. If a court approved the change, the law required publication in the Official Gazette of a notification of the current names and first and surname the party intended to begin using. After publication, a thirty-day waiting period for third parties to oppose the change had to lapse before the court was authorized to formalize the name change.[16]

In March 1973, Torres underwent a sex reassignment surgery at the San Borja Arriarán Hospital in Santiago.[2][17] The procedure was led by Salas, and the operating physician was Dr. Cáceres.[18] It was the first such surgery performed in Latin America.[17]

After completing her surgery, Torres applied to the court on 21 May 1973, for her documents to be changed on the basis of material impairment, as her biological sex no longer matched her identification documents.[1][15] On 5 December 1973, the court ordered publication of her name change and gender mark requests,[19] which appeared in the journal on 2 May 1974.[1] Following the publication, extensive news coverage was given to the event, and articles about sexuality appeared in legal, medical, and psychiatric journals, evaluating the procedure and advocating for categorization, classification, and education on sexuality.[20] Sensationalized media stories argued whether Torres was a homosexual, discussing whether or not, that as she had never felt like a man, she could have been attracted to someone of the same sex.[14]

After the coup d'état of 1973, the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet began adopting policies which criminalized and marginalized the activities of the homosexual and transsexual community, escalating social stigmatization and insecurity among her population, which was denied health benefits and health education.[3][21] Article 365 of the criminal code imposed penalties for same sex relations between men and Article 373 established penalties for moral improprieties which did not reinforce Catholic values and affirm the heterosexual family model for society.[22] In the early part of the dictatorship, the regime and the press characterized sex reassignment surgery as a means of regulating public spaces, since many LGBT people were engaged in sex work and nightlife entertainment, which in effect would allow people to move from an illegal identity to a legal one.[11] Before 1977, there were five other cases of transgender people obtaining a reassignment surgery and name change, published in the Official Gazette.[15]

Despite the difficulties, over the next ten years, Torres underwent numerous additional surgeries and treatments to complete her transformation.[2][6] Her friend, Pedro Lemebel, said that she was treated like a guinea pig for medical experimentation.[2][23]