Malaysia's New Straits Times reports on Jul 17, 2011:
The applicant, Mohd Ashraf Hafiz Abd Aziz, 25, was rejected by the courts to have her name changed to Aleesha Farhana Abd Aziz. Sex reassignment surgery is legal in the mainly Muslim country although the person is unable to change his/her identity card to reflect their new name and gender. The last time a transsexual was allowed to do so was in 2005, when a judge ruled it was the court's duty to help. However, in the only other case since that decision, a court ruled it had no jurisdiction over the issue.
A medical assistant failed in his application at the High Court yesterday to have his name and gender altered in his identity card.
In dismissing the application, High court judge Datuk Yazid Mustafa said the court did not have the power to declare a gender change legal, adding that there were no provisions that allowed for a sex change.
Yazid, who took 45 minutes to read the grounds for his decision, also highlighted numerous factors, including the applicant's chromosome count, external and internal organs, as well as his physical and psychological conditions.
"We took into account the testimony of the applicant's mother, who noticed an anomaly in the applicant's sexual organ since young, and that she had accepted her child's feminine tendencies."
Yazid said the purpose of the sex-change procedure was not meant for an individual to change his or her gender but to allow the individual to feel comfortable with his or her body.
"Unless the applicant was listed wrongly by medical staff, the gender attributed to the individual is legitimate."