How to Invert SVG text with appropriate kerning?

How can I invert (rotate 180 degrees) a text object so that the text is kerned appropriately?

My example uses Python and the svgwrite package, but my question seems about any SVG.

Suppose I use the following code:

dwg = svgwrite.Drawing()
dwg.add(dwg.text(fullName, (int(width/2.),gnameHeight), 
                    font_size=gnameFontSize, text_anchor="middle"))

The above code generates text looking like this:

dwg.text() objects accept a rotate parameter that is applied to all characters in a text string, so I've used the following code to reverse the string first:

pcRotate = [180]
ngap = 1

revFullName = fullName
rcl = []
for c in revFullName:
    rcl.append(c)
    for i in range(ngap):
        rcl.append(' ')

rcl.reverse()
revFullName = ''.join(rcl)

dwg.add(dwg.text(revFullName, (int(width/2.),pcnameHeight), 
                font_size=gnameFontSize, text_anchor="middle", rotate=pcRotate))

But, this produces the very ugly version below:

and this is using an artificial space gap between characters to make it slightly less unreadable.

What's the best way to tap into whatever kerning is being used by standard text in this inverted situation?

The rotate attribute of a <text> element is intended for situations where you want to rotate individual characters. If you want to rotate the whole text object then you should be using a transform instead.

http://pythonhosted.org/svgwrite/classes/mixins.html#transform-mixin