The work of ‘celebrity’ gender reassignment surgeon Dr Georges Burou

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Casablanca is an anomaly in Morocco. Much of it is commercial, urban and Europeanised, with art deco parades, shopping centres and parks laid out in the early 20th century. Despite the towering Hassan II Mosque, the crashing Atlantic coast and a certain raffish appeal, it lacks the tourist-trapping atmospherics of Marrakesh and Fez.

But the “white city” set one marker in history – as a key location in the history of gender reassignment surgery, or GRS. From the 1950s to the ’70s, Casablanca became the fabled destination of people wishing to transition from male to female, courtesy of glamorous gynaecologist Dr Georges Burou – including Jan Morris, who died last week and who at 45 years old in 1972 went to see Dr Burou for GRS. Her account, in the 1974 book Conundrum, is a classic in its field, and introduced Britain to the idea of what was then known bluntly as a “sex change”.

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