22 Facts About Georges Burou

Georges Burou was born on September 6,1910, in Tarbes in the Hautes Pyrenees, France, while his parents were visiting the Georges Burou family in the nearby village of Juillan.

Georges Burou's parents worked as schoolteachers in Algiers, where Burou spent his youth.

Georges Burou underwent medical training at the Algiers University of Medicine.

Georges Burou specialized in gynecology and obstetrics at the Maternity of Mustapha Hospital in Algiers and became "Chef de Clinique" at Parnet Hospital in the Algiers suburb of Hussein Dey.

From early 1943 onward Georges Burou first served as a second lieutenant in the French Expeditionary Corps and eventually left North Africa as a military surgeon of the 2nd Moroccan Mountain Division to actively join battle at the French island of Corsica and the Italian river Garigliano and mountain of Cassino.

Between 1956 and 1958 Georges Burou independently developed the anteriorly pedicled penile skin flap inversion vaginoplasty in his clinic.

Georges Burou is said to have worked at the clinic seven days a week, and frequently up to fifteen hours each day.

Georges Burou reported all of his vaginoplasty patients to have been prepared, to have undergone psychiatric care and hormonal therapy.

Georges Burou later confirmed that he did not ask his patients too many questions, but sought to fulfill their wishes, and that he did restrict his services to trans women with a distinct "feminine" appearance or character.

Georges Burou made a point of barring, but not damaging, the posterior aspect of the prostate so that the penile skin flap after invagination would immediately overlie this aspect, which he felt optimized the possibility of postoperative orgasm.

Georges Burou considered this first part of the operation to be the most important, but most risky, and stressed the importance of repeated intrarectal inspection to determine that there was no lesion to the rectal wall.

Georges Burou considered the second part of the operation to be relatively easy.

Georges Burou is said to have been willing to make "enormous" financial concessions to his fees whenever a case "merited the operation".

Georges Burou was known to have a great love of the sea and had a great proclivity for water recreation throughout his life.

Georges Burou wished to become a commercial marine officer before going into medicine, and thus was at first reluctant to pursue his medical training.

Georges Burou spoke little English but for certain gynecological and golf vocabulary.

Georges Burou moved to Casablanca as a result of his fiancee, Jeanne Boisvert, whose parents had a farm there.

Georges Burou was protected only by the branch of a tree, and thereafter kept the piece of shell in his office, reportedly as a memento mori.

Georges Burou wanted the building attached to his office and private quarters so as "not to distance himself from his patients," and so that he could be immediately available should a patient be admitted late at night.

Georges Burou continued to work at the Clinique du Parc until his death in 1987.

The discretion of Georges Burou's clinic made him relatively unknown to his medical contemporaries, despite him being well known among many trans women around the world.

Georges Burou was a notable resource for a great many trans women throughout much of the latter half of the 20th century.