from www.sfgate.com – The British press are spreading the news of a 16-year-old boy who is hoping to become the country’s youngest sex change patient.

Bradley Cooper, who goes by Ria, has been applying his mother’s lipstick and dressing up in her clothes since he was 12 years old. He’s now training to be a hair stylist.

A psychologist says Cooper would benefit from a sex change, and the teen believes he’s ready to undergo the life-changing procedure.

Cooper told the Daily Mail, “I hate my body as it is now. I’ve known for years I’m a woman — I think and act like a woman, not a man. I don’t want years of misery. I want it done as soon as possible so I can be the person physically that I am on the inside.”

Britain’s National Healthcare System (NHS) was said to have agreed to fund the operation costing $16,000 (10,000 pounds) because a psychologist has recommended it and Cooper’s single mom can’t afford to pay for it herself. But now many are saying Cooper shouldn’t have the procedure.

The TaxPayer’s Alliance is saying that the expense can’t be justified when the NHS is turning down requests for expensive cancer treatments that could potentially save dying children’s lives.

And many experts are saying that Cooper is too young to make this decision. Miranda Ponsonby, a former member of the Household Cavalry who had a sex change from male to female at 56, told the Daily Mail, “The problem in undergoing surgery so young is that the person involved may not have had long enough to come terms with who they are.

“They might think they know their own mind but teenagers are so impressionable, and they may have got this thought into their heads through the people they have been mixing with.

“Once they’ve had the surgery it is too late, and they’ll end up no happier than they were beforehand if they think they have made a mistake.”

Some studies have found that children who show transgender tendencies and who express a desire to be the opposite sex, end up being gay and happy with their gender as an adult. But Cooper is a teenager and so he may be at that point when he’s ready to make a final decision.

Last January, a German teenager, Kim Petras (pictured]), was the world’s youngest person to undergo a sex change. She was 16 at the time, and she is now an aspiring pop star.