Ex-Tranny regrets irreversible procedures

[Bonaventure]

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/04/14688/

I Was a Transgender Woman

by  Walt Heyer   
within Marriage

April 1st, 2015

The reprieve provided by surgery and life as a woman was only temporary. Hidden deep underneath the make-up and female clothing was the little boy hurt by childhood trauma, and he was making himself known.

It was a pivotal scene. A mom was brushing a boy's long hair, the boy slowly turned his head to look at her. In a tentative voice, he asked, "Would you love me if I were a boy?" The mom was raising her boy to become a trans-girl.

In that split second, I was transported back to my childhood. I remembered my grandmother standing over me, guiding me, dressing me in a purple chiffon dress. The boy in that glowing documentary about parents raising transgender kids dared to voice a question I always wanted to ask. Why didn't she love me the way I was?

I am haunted by that boy and his question. What will the trans-kids of 2015 be like sixty years from now? Documentaries and news stories only give us a snapshot in time. They are edited to romanticize and normalize the notion of changing genders and to convince us that enlightened parents should help their children realize their dreams of being the opposite gender.

I want to tell you my story. I want you to have the opportunity to see the life of a trans-kid, not in a polished television special, but across more than seven decades of life, with all of its confusion, pain, and redemption.

The Trans-Kid

It wasn't my mother but my grandmother who clothed me in a purple chiffon dress she made for me. That dress set in motion a life filled with gender dysphoria, sexual abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, and finally, an unnecessary gender reassignment surgery. My life was ripped apart by a trusted adult who enjoyed dressing me as a girl.

My mom and dad didn't have any idea that when they dropped their son off for a weekend at Grandma's that she was dressing their boy in girls' clothes. Grandma told me it was our little secret. My grandmother withheld affirmations of me as a boy, but she lavished delighted praise upon me when I was dressed as a girl. Feelings of euphoria swept over me with her praise, followed later by depression and insecurity about being a boy. Her actions planted the idea in me that I was born in the wrong body. She nourished and encouraged the idea, and over time it took on a life of its own.

I became so accustomed to wearing the purple dress at Grandma's house that, without telling her, I took it home so I could secretly wear it there too. I hid it in the back of a drawer in my dresser. When my mom found it, an explosion of yelling and screaming erupted between my mom and dad. My father was terrified his boy was not developing into a man, so he ramped up his discipline. I felt singled out because, in my view, my older brother didn't receive the same heavy-handed punishment as I did. The unfairness hurt more than anything else.

Thankfully, my parents decided I would never be allowed to go to Grandma's house again without them. They couldn't know I was scared of seeing Grandma because I had exposed her secret.

Uncle Fred's Influence

My worst nightmare was realized when my dad's much younger adopted brother, Uncle Fred, discovered the secret of the dress and began teasing me. He pulled down my pants, taunting and laughing at me. At only nine years of age, I couldn't fight back, so I turned to eating as a way to cope with the anxiety. Fred's teasing caused a meal of six tuna-fish sandwiches and a quart of milk to become my way of suppressing the pain.

One day Uncle Fred took me in his car on a dirt road up the hill from my house and tried to take off all my clothes. Terrified of what might happen, I escaped, ran home, and told my mom. She looked at me accusingly and said, "You're a liar. Fred would never do that." When my dad got home, she told him what I said, and he went to talk to Fred. But Fred shrugged it off as a tall tale, and my dad believed him instead of me. I could see no use in telling people about what Fred was doing, so I kept silent from that point on about his continuing abuse.

I went to school dressed as a boy, but in my head that purple dress lived on. I could see myself in it, standing in front of the mirror at my grandma's house. I was small, but I participated and excelled in football, track, and other sports. My way to cope with my gender confusion was to work hard at whatever I did. I mowed lawns, delivered newspapers, and pumped gasoline. After high school graduation, I worked in an automotive shop, then took classes in drafting to qualify for a job in aerospace. After a short time, I earned a spot on the Apollo space mission project as associate design engineer. Ever eager for the next challenge, I switched to an entry-level position in the automobile industry and quickly rocketed up the corporate ladder at a major American car company. I even got married. I had it all—a promising career with unlimited potential and a great family.

But I also had a secret. After thirty-six years, I was still unable to overcome the persistent feeling I was really a woman. The seeds sown by Grandma developed deep roots. Unbeknownst to my wife, I began to act on my desire to be a woman. I was cross-dressing in public and enjoying it. I even started taking female hormones to feminize my appearance. Who knew Grandma's wish in the mid-1940s for a granddaughter would lead to this?

Adding alcohol was like putting gasoline on a fire; drinking heightened the desire. My wife, feeling betrayed by the secrets I had been keeping from her and fed up by my out-of-control drunken binges, filed for divorce.

Life as a Woman

I sought out a prominent gender psychologist for evaluation, and he quickly assured me that I obviously suffered from gender dysphoria. A gender change, he told me, was the cure. Feeling that I had nothing to lose and thrilled that I could finally attain my lifelong dream, I underwent a surgical change at the age of forty-two. My new identity as Laura Jensen, female, was legally affirmed on my birth record, Social Security card, and driver's license. I was now a woman in everyone's eyes.

The gender conflict seemed to fade away, and I was generally happy for a while.

It's hard for me to describe what happened next. The reprieve provided by surgery and life as a woman was only temporary. Hidden deep underneath the make-up and female clothing was the little boy carrying the hurts from traumatic childhood events, and he was making himself known. Being a female turned out to be only a cover-up, not healing.

I knew I wasn't a real woman, no matter what my identification documents said. I had taken extreme steps to resolve my gender conflict, but changing genders hadn't worked. It was obviously a masquerade. I felt I had been lied to. How in the world had I reached this point? How did I become a fake woman? I went to another gender psychologist, and she assured me that I would be fine; I just needed to give my new identity as Laura more time. I had a past, a battered and broken life that living as Laura did nothing to dismiss or resolve. Feeling lost and depressed, I drank heavily and considered suicide.

At the three-year mark of life as Laura, my excessive drinking brought me to a new low. At my lowest point, instead of committing suicide I sought help at an alcohol recovery meeting. My sponsor, a lifeline of support and accountability, mentored me in how to live life free from alcohol.

Sobriety was the first of several turning points in my transgender life.

As Laura, I entered a two-year university program to study the psychology of substance and alcohol abuse. I achieved higher grades than my classmates, many of whom had PhDs. Still, I struggled with my gender identity. It was all so puzzling. What was the point of changing genders if not to resolve the conflict? After eight years of living as a woman, I had no lasting peace. My gender confusion only seemed to worsen.

During an internship in a psychiatric hospital, I worked alongside a medical doctor on a lock-down unit. After some observation, he took me aside and told me I showed signs of having a dissociative disorder. Was he right? Had he found the key that would unlock a childhood lost? Rather than going to gender-change activist psychologists like the one who had approved me for surgery, I sought the opinions of several "regular" psychologists and psychiatrists who did not see all gender disorders as transgender. They agreed: I fit the criteria for dissociative disorder.

It was maddening. Now it was apparent that I had developed a dissociative disorder in childhood to escape the trauma of the repeated cross-dressing by my grandmother and the sexual abuse by my uncle. That should have been diagnosed and treated with psychotherapy. Instead, the gender specialist never considered my difficult childhood or even my alcoholism and saw only transgender identity. It was a quick jump to prescribe hormones and irreversible surgery. Years later, when I confronted that psychologist, he admitted that he should not have approved me for surgery.

Becoming Whole

Coming back to wholeness as a man after undergoing unnecessary gender surgery and living life legally and socially as a woman for years wasn't going to be easy. I had to admit to myself that going to a gender specialist when I first had issues had been a big mistake. I had to live with the reality that body parts were gone. My full genitalia could not be restored—a sad consequence of using surgery to treat psychological illness. Intensive psychotherapy would be required to resolve the dissociative disorder that started as a child.

But I had a firm foundation on which to begin my journey to restoration. I was living a life free from drugs and alcohol, and I was ready to become the man I was intended to be.

At age fifty-six, I experienced something beyond my wildest dreams. I fell in love, married, and began to fully re-experience life as a man. It took over fifty years, but I was finally able to unwind all the damage that purple chiffon dress had done. Today, I'm seventy-four years old and married to my wife of eighteen years, with twenty-nine years of sober living.

Changing genders is short-term gain with long-term pain. Its consequences include early mortality, regret, mental illness, and suicide. Instead of encouraging them to undergo unnecessary and destructive surgery, let's affirm and love our young people just the way they are.

Walt Heyer is an author and public speaker with a passion to help others who regret gender change. Through his website, SexChangeRegret.com, and his blog, WaltHeyer.com, Heyer raises public awareness about the incidence of regret and the tragic consequences suffered as a result. Heyer's story can be read in novel form in Kid Dakota and The Secret at Grandma's House and in his autobiography, A Transgender's Faith. Heyer's other books include Paper Genders and Gender, Lies and Suicide.

[Prayerful]

That is so sad. 

[OCLittleFlower]

People are calling Bruce Jenner brave -- no, this man is brave.   

[Mattock]

Our society does such evil to these people in it's attempt to war against nature. The "trannies" that I have met have all been clearly sad and miserable. My heart aches for these poor confused people. They need mental help and a supportive family and friends, not painful, irreversible, mutilating surgery.

It often feels like modern Liberalism is a religion and gays are the priests and trannies the mystics.

[Greg]

How do we know this is true?

Look, I am open minded and if psychologist suggest that some brain wiring happens when we dress up at a young age I am ready to consider that dressing up in a dress as a child can make an otherwise well adjusted hetrosexual into a trans faggot.

Does such research exist?  Is it convincing or just psychobabble?

I dressed up as a superhero as a kid.  I didn't try to fly as an adult or even learn to skydive.

My little boy dresses up as a minion, a gorilla, an elephant, a shepherd and all sorts of things.  Boys play with toy guns and swords, they don't go on to be killers as adults.

Personally I think people make choices and open doors the rest of us would keep closed.  Just as some people make choices to drink, smoke, cut themselves, work at Goldman Sachs, prostitute themselves, stop keeping the commandments etc.

Seems to me that we are born with different weaknesses.  Mine is sloth and laziness, finding a way to cheat the system and get something for nothing.  Other people are soaks.  Others lectures.  Some people profligate with money.  Some greedy as hell.

Life is about battling those weaknesses.  This guy gave in, chopped his willy off, and then realised he was wrong.  I am glad he has seen the light, but he's no "braver" than a recovering alcoholic.  The really brave person is the natural alcoholic who avoids grog and doesn't fall into the trap in the first place.  Doesn't walk through the door that is so tempting for them.

There are probably monks who would have been ruthless drug kingpins and nuns who would have been wealthy prostitutes if they had followed their weaknesses.   They didn't.  That was brave, but we don't have a juicy story about them.

[Arun]

How do we know this is true?

Look, I am open minded and if psychologist suggest that some brain wiring happens when we dress up at a young age I am ready to consider that dressing up in a dress as a child can make an otherwise well adjusted hetrosexual into a trans faggot.

Does such research exist?  Is it convincing or just psychobabble?

I dressed up as a superhero as a kid.  I didn't try to fly as an adult or even learn to skydive.

My little boy dresses up as a minion, a gorilla, an elephant, a shepherd and all sorts of things.  Boys play with toy guns and swords, they don't go on to be killers as adults.

Personally I think people make choices and open doors the rest of us would keep closed.  Just as some people make choices to drink, smoke, cut themselves, work at Goldman Sachs, prostitute themselves, stop keeping the commandments etc.

Seems to me that we are born with different weaknesses.  Mine is sloth and laziness, finding a way to cheat the system and get something for nothing.  Other people are soaks.  Others lectures.  Some people profligate with money.  Some greedy as hell.

Life is about battling those weaknesses.  This guy gave in, chopped his willy off, and then realised he was wrong.  I am glad he has seen the light, but he's no "braver" than a recovering alcoholic.  The really brave person is the natural alcoholic who avoids grog and doesn't fall into the trap in the first place.  Doesn't walk through the door that is so tempting for them.

There are probably monks who would have been ruthless drug kingpins and nuns who would have been wealthy prostitutes if they had followed their weaknesses.   They didn't.  That was brave, but we don't have a juicy story about them.

you make a good point on a certain level, but psychological abuse at a young age is a common cause of homosexual or other deviant symptoms in adults. the way the guy describes it, and however mild it may sound compared to other thing swe've heard of, the grahndmother psychologically abused the poor little bastard. a simple reading of that story shows that the problem wasn't simply dressing in those clothes, but the withholding of affection when they were not dressed one way and lavishing of it when they complied. this is a common form of psychological abuse used to bring about compliance in small children.

[Greg]

but psychological abuse at a young age is a common cause of homosexual or other deviant symptoms in adults

I'd like to see proof of this.

I accept that abuse at any age will shape your character.  I went to a rough London school where you had to fight or get beaten down.  Where bullying was constantly and relentless.  The stress at the age of 12 is pretty appalling.  You either curb your personality and try and hide everyday and kowtow or you fight back (and risk a beating or even a stabbing).

We are all products of our experiences AND our will, how we react to those.

I accept that abandoned children often have all sorts of detachment and personality disorders.  I accept that very early abuse might have a more profound effect because a child's brain isn't fully wired and their will is still being formed.

But when you say "homosexual or other deviant" I wonder how much there is cause and effect rather than effect then looking for a cause.

If someone becomes an axe murderer or a necrophiliac can they blame grandma and the purple dress incident or not getting enough cuddles?  Frankly, apart from a few faded photographs who has much memory of what went on in early childhood?  All I have is a few flashbacks.

What's Rachel Dolezal's excuse.  Her Montana parents sat around all day watching Soul Train?

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXbP4JBf8To[/yt]

[Greg]

Double post

[Arun]

Well nobody is born homosexual or transexual. It can happen for various reasons; modern homosexuals are well skilled at uaing hegemony on impressionable youths for example.

Psychological abuse is very real and cam have lasting damaging effects on the psyche to a degree often unrivalled by other forms of abuse.

Lastly, this person was psychologically abused which caused them to have a disordered perception of the world. They were then preyed on by a hegemonic doctor who pushed them into irreversibly mutilating themselves. How often does somebody with a normal background do the same, Greg?

The wigger activist has nothing to do with this.

sent from a cheap Asian phone using Crapatalk

[LausTibiChriste]

Id also regret cutting off my best friend

[Maximilian]

I accept that abuse at any age will shape your character.  I went to a rough London school where you had to fight or get beaten down.  Where bullying was constantly and relentless.  The stress at the age of 12 is pretty appalling.  You either curb your personality and try and hide everyday and kowtow or you fight back (and risk a beating or even a stabbing).

In that kind of sink or swim environment, some will be able to swim, while others will sink to the bottom. Not everyone can overcome hardships. We read the stories about plucky orphans who pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but no one writes books about the 99% of the orphans who aren't able to do that.

What's Rachel Dolezal's excuse.  Her Montana parents sat around all day watching Soul Train?

Her parents adopted 4 black children. That is what set her on a course of identifying herself as black.

[Arun]

I accept that abuse at any age will shape your character.  I went to a rough London school where you had to fight or get beaten down.  Where bullying was constantly and relentless.  The stress at the age of 12 is pretty appalling.  You either curb your personality and try and hide everyday and kowtow or you fight back (and risk a beating or even a stabbing).

that's not abuse, that's just character building.

[Greg]

Well that's certainly a perspective.

It did have one advantage.  I've never been scared of a fight or an aggressive environment.  Never been mugged, or robbed.  School was so dangerous, I have felt safe ever since leaving.   I was only there five years, but it seemed to last an eternity.

My kids schools have anti bullying monitors and all sorts of stuff.  They nip it in the bud now.

I was a middle class softy before I went there.  My elementary school was a paradise.

[dymphna17]

In the OP, it wasn't just Grandma who was the problem, if you can call her that, it sounds like he was surrounded by problems.  He said that his Dad's  unfairness that hurt the most.  Apparently Mom was a problem as well.  Why in the hell did he have to go back to that woman's house?  What is wrong with people?  Just because she was a predator one time that they knew of makes it OK?

This was just the beginning of his problems.  Granted, he's responsible for his adult decisions, that doesn't mean he knows how to make right ones.  He's taking the consequences for the bad ones.  Hopefully he will save his soul.  God's kind of funny that way.

And please, please, please, people, if you find out one of your children have been made a pawn in a predator's lair, don't bring them back to it.  No matter who they are or how much your spouse and/or kids cry for it.  Please.

[Greg]

So his grandmother, father and mother were all enablers?

Possible.  But also possible that he's exaggerating a little.  Or even making stuff up.  I have met people like this several times in life.  They always have someone to blame, usually dead.

It's rare to get a story where someone says, "I wasn't a victim, I was a pervert through my own choice.  I visited hookers and snorted coke because it was fun.  I can't really blame anyone but myself".

"Sin is fun when you're young.  Visiting the local dogging site is exciting."

"I had an abortion because I just didn't want the baby.  I had more important things going on and my boyfriend was a selfish git but he looked good in selfies on my facebook page and I didn't want to be embarrassed by him dumping me".

"I was transmutalated, because I didn't want to stop.  I ignored my conscience.  Sure I had pangs telling me it wasn't right, but I did it anyway."

You never see testimonies like that.  I guess they were all victims of circumstances.  Someone else was the start of all that.

They probably need to remake Pinocchio.  Update it for the enlightened modern age.  Jiminy Cricket can be a past-memory councillor and Stromboli a pimp.

"Hey, it wasn't all my fault.  I was raised by a single old man and a blue fairy, how the heck was I going to have a normal life and avoid pleasure island?"