Liu Yifei is confident about his sex-change operation next week that makes him a woman. [Shanghai Daily]

"I found I really wanted to be a girl since I first started to remember things," said Liu, who has already had breast surgery and face-lifts. "But the cruel truth is I am a man. I have been puzzled by the problem all my life."

While he grew up in Guizhou Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, his desire to be a woman made him a target for discrimination.

His family, however, after a few arguments, accepted his wish.

Liu now performs in Nanning in Guangxi as a popular singer and dancer, but has come to Shanghai for his final operation.

"Transsexualism is not an abnormality but a disease," said professor Song Jianxing, vice director of the cosmetic surgery department of Changhai Hospital and the doctor in charge of Liu's operation on Tuesday. "The sufferer is healthy mentally, and what he or she needs is proper treatment."

Liu decided to get a sex change when he was 18, but he hesitated for years because of the importance of the operation. Eventually, Liu said he could no longer stand being a man.

Doctor Song came to know Liu's case when he attended a medicine forum in Guangxi this year. It was there he decided to help Liu realize his wish.

"We are going to use a part of his gut to make a vagina for him," said Song. "This will leave no harm to his skin and won't affect his sex life."

Doctors are also planning to leave some of Liu's penile glans and turn it into a clitoris so as to make Liu's life as much like a woman's as possible.