Sex change regret ?!

[Mari]

Sex change regret comes when you understand the surgery did not make
you a female or change your DNA gender/sex.

Recently I came across this website http://www.sexchangeregret.com/
where appearently de-transitioned Walt Heyer promotes formentioned postulate
and his book.

Contrary to what you may think, male-to-female sex change surgery does not
include cutting off the penis or removing the scrotum tissue. The bad boy "Snoopy"
remains attached, turned inside out.

He also goes on, telling that karyotype will remain the sam i.e. XY.He concludes with
statement that there is no evidence sex-change is justified, or that it improves lifes
of people with GID; not mentionig any alternative treatment.

Your opinion...

[Sandy]

The kindest thing I could say is that he is a crackpot.

One of the reasons for extensive counseling and therapy is identify those with GID.  A person *can* game the system and not be honest with themselves or their therapists and get the letters necessary for SRS.

Approximately 1 in 1500 have regrets about their SRS.  Which makes SRS the most successful surgery to address the dysphoria of gender.

One of the things therapy is designed to communicate to the candidate is that they do not become female.  If a person thinks anything else they they are sadly misinformed.  Also the other primary purpose of therapy is being able to deal with your place in society as your chosen gender, and all the issues that surround it.

In none of the things that his website alluded to was the purpose of therapy in the process.  And just the few individuals who complained that SRS did not make them female.  And that it didn't change their DNA.  duh!

This book was written for the fundie religious zealots who are looking for more "scientific" proof that SRS is against gods will.  No amount of quoting out of context will change the fact that *thousands* of transsexuals (both male and female which he doesn't cover) lead happy and health lives following SRS.

-Sandy(perhaps crackpot was too kind...)

[lisagurl]

What do you believe?

[NicholeW.]

What do you believe?

I believe he had regrets and went back to being who he probably should have been in the first place. Like most people he wants to place all his regrets in the hands of psychologists, surgeons and therapists, anyone other than himself, instead of realizing that he could have made these decisions for himself, long ago, had he given himself any thought at all.

"Know thyself" remains up-to-date advice in any age.

Nichole   

"There will be another incarnation. It'll have to be something different and shocking."

[Wendy Kahr]

... Your opinion ...

From the article at:  http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2007-10-11/news/>-bleeped-<-regret/print

"... As a teenager, Berke started acting out. "We were using slingshots and breakin' windows and lighting Dumpsters on fire," he says, grinning slightly as he puffs a Camel Light ... He went to Wright State University in Ohio, where he tried LSD. He loved it ...

Berke began neglecting his studies in theater tech to hang out with punk rockers, trip on acid, and go to shows. Then he dropped out completely. In 1985, his parents divorced. Berke took $10,000 that had been put away for him, packed his Datsun 310 hatchback, bought a trailer for his dirt bike, and drove straight to San Francisco, where he got a job as a roadie for the Sea Hags, a metal band. He also became a heroin addict. After the band's bass player died of an overdose, Berke moved to Mission Beach in San Diego to clean himself up.

He ended up living on the street and becoming addicted to crystal meth.

"I got absolutely out of my mind," he remembers.

He moved to L.A., hoping again for a cleaner lifestyle and a job in the music industry. He lived on the streets of South Central for a while, then moved under a bridge in Hollywood, where he became part of a street gang, the Hollywood Trolls. By now, he was in his late 20s, having spent almost a decade on drugs."

My opinion: Maybe not the best person to be giving others advice on how to handle their life's problems.

I believe he had regrets and went back to being who he probably should have been in the first place. Like most people he wants to place all his regrets in the hands of psychologists, surgeons and therapists, anyone other than himself, instead of realizing that he could have made these decisions for himself, long ago, had he given himself any thought at all.

"Know thyself" remains up-to-date advice in any age.

Nichole   

Nicole: Very well put.

[Rachael]

nope
transition or surgery to not make a man into a woman
its impossible.

completely, utterly, impossible.



But if you are female to start with, and by some twist of fate had to suffer a male body, they do fix that problem.

Sure you will still have xy... but who can tell that? and are xy women men suddently? is women? no....

does not being able to have childrene make you a man? if so, a lot of natal women are actually men!

this dude is making excuses for his own mistake....

he though he could escape his crap life by swapping sex


nobody changes sex.
EVER.
R >

[tekla]

If that is the true story, I don't see where at any point this person was able to make a full and informed decision.  Neither acid, smack or crank are very good for reason.  And where does a roadie for a pretty minor  band  (once described like this: Their manager once stated, "there's only so far you can get with three junkies and one alcoholic,", or someone living under a bridge have that money anyway?  The Sea Hags only did one record and one tour, and that guy died in like 90 or 91, so almost a couple of decades ago.

[Wendy Kahr]

I guess I should point out that my previous comment was regarding a Michael/Michelle Berke, referred to in Walt Heyer's blog (at http://waltheyer.vox.com/) , not Walt Heyer himself.

Looking around (doing a Google search) I finally found some more more in-depth information on Walt Heyer here:

http://www.freeatlastjsu.org/sermon.php?sid=193

...Here is yet another testimony of the destructive power of child abuse. My father used a hardwood floor plank for enforcement of discipline, and my mother always called me bad names that she shouted at the top of her lungs. My grandmother enjoyed dressing me as a female. When my uncle found out my grandmother had cross-dressed me, he began to tease me and sexually abuse me. All this took place before I was ten years old. To cope with the abuse, I developed a second personality named Crystal who would escape the abuse.

But the consequences of this twisted confusion would come thirty-three years later when I was diagnosed as a transsexual. To eliminate the twisted confusion, sex change surgery would be required. I wanted the confusion that had tormented me all my life to go away, so in 1983 the surgery was performed. Walt Heyer, male, became Laura Jensen, female. That is when the mess started to get so big that I lost my career, my wife, my children, and my friends.

My inability to get hold of the twisted confusion was complicated by the fact that I was a high-functioning alcoholic who also used cocaine to cope. In 1986 as the female personality Laura Jensen, I entered an alcohol recovery home in San Mateo. Four months of in-home treatment has worked to provide over eight years of recovery now.

But the surgery changing my sex did not eliminate the twisted confusion. And it was not until 1991, eight years after the surgery, that a new diagnosis of my case was made. Over the six months beginning on July 21, seven prominent Ph.D.s and psychiatric doctors agreed that I was not nor had I ever been a transsexual, but had always suffered from multiple personality disorder. As an abused child I had developed sixteen fragmented personalities, some female and some male. But one thing was for sure: the very destructive transsexual surgery was in error...

Ok, like I said before, although Walt was not as messed up as Mark/Michelle, Walt Heyer is not the best person to be telling others what to do either

I am sorry that Walt Heyer suffered such abuse as a young boy. But his life story (like everyone else's) is unique, and not all TS women have this kind of history.

These stories just point out that some people's situations are very complex. Still that does not mean that they can translate their own situations and apparent solutions over to anyone who transitions from male to female...

An excellent YouTube response is here:

[Rachael]

thats excelent?

its a babbling aussie transwoman talking about the same thing 3 times, covering everything in this topic....
R >

[Steph]

nope
transition or surgery to not make a man into a woman
its impossible.

completely, utterly, impossible.

I have to agree with Rachael on this point.  If there is anyone here who believes that the surgery will make you a woman (Or man for those who it applies to) I would recommend they should seriously reconsider their own personal situations.  The same applies to those who think that HRT will make you a woman.

Steph

[Hypatia]

Sex change regret comes when you understand the surgery did not make
you a female or change your DNA gender/sex.

That is quite simply the stupidest statement on this subject I've ever heard. 

Like we didn't know that going in? Big fat duh. Does this person think everyone is as ignorant as they were? No wonder they're expressing regret. They went into it with completely the wrong idea about it. Fools  like this give the rest of us a bad image.

[ToriVF]

You have all made some very good posts regarding this subject.

I too, ufortunately, have a sex change regret though.

I regret that I did not have the courage to do this 30 years ago!!!!  Having a body and soul that match is a great influence on my getting up to get started each and every day.  I hope everyone that wants to go that far on the genderline gets to experience it.  It isn't for everyone, however.  Many times we forget this.

It sounds to me like this person bypassed the standards of care.  Sure, we all THINK we know what is best for us and who we are...but the standards are there for a reason.  Occasionally, there are some that think life on the other side would be better...however, if you have underlying issues before transition and surgery, being transgendered in a hateful world is just going to add to the list of problems.

This person had substance abuse problems and a history of being unstable.  If this history was shown to a good gender therapist, they would have never been sent forward for grs.  It might even be possible that they went to a surgeon that did not require any documentation of GID. 

It is absurd to think that the surgery is going to make us a man or a woman.  We are a man or a woman long before we get to surgery.

[sneakersjay]

I spent the last 47 years in the wrong body, so much that getting up and getting dressed in clothing that did not fit literally and figuratively was torture.  Leaving the house knowing I was not me, trying so hard to be what society and biology said I was. 

Finally realizing I had options was like a light bulb coming on in my dark closet, and I could see a way to be myself!!  What's the worst thing that can happen if I transition?  That I spend the rest of my life (poss 47 years) in thw wrong body??  I'm already there now.  Can't be any worse than this.

I'm on vacation and just buying tickets to attractions can be torture, because they want your NAME.  And I can't use my male name, because the next step is passing over the credit card which still bears my female name.  When can I be just Jay??

Jay

[Nero]

Of course surgery doesn't change your chromosomes. Hello! And surgery doesn't result in a 'neutered condition'. Having a P**** is not neuter!  All the surgery does is take the tissue (which is the same tissue for both sexes) and reconfigure it to the arrangement it should've been in the first place.
Just a case of some freak who didn't know who he was and now thinks he has a story to tell. 

[tinkerbell]

Really?  Oh no, what am I going to do?  I thought HRT and SRS had "made" me female & "changed" my chromosomes to XX.  Mr. Twilight Zone there doesn't even know the differences between genetic sex and gender identity.  Duh!  What a bunch of rubbish!

tink

[buttercup]

Sex change surgery is only a cosmetic procedure to make it look like a change was made, when in fact no female "parts" are used.

What the....?    Duh?   Whoever thought otherwise??     

[cindybc]

For me it was an inside thing.

From the age of three when I remember my mom dressing me in little dresses and I had long hair; back in those days it was common for a mom to do that with her boy. But the thing is that I remembered that, never forget it.

When I began school, of course the hair got cut off but it still didn't make me different in my preferring playing house and dress up with the girl next door.

I have always been a sensitive kid and didn't get along with other boys. Well, even after I grew up I would play act being a girl in the privacy of my home when no one was around. I played a lot of fantasy games back then and was proficient at them as well.

When I was 47 I was suicidal. It felt to me like I was being possessed by demons to the point it was either die or seek help. Back then I didn't know about transexuality and that there actually were therapists and shrinks that you could go see.  I ended up going to speak to the clergy lady of the Anglican church where I was working as a support worker for street people. I was so scared and it was such a relief after I got it all off my chest and she didnt condemn me to eternity in hell. She assured me that everything was OK and she recommended I talk about it to my shrink.

I did and now here it is 10 years later I am sitting here comfortable to be congruent between my inner self and body, to be as female as science can help me to be.  I am woman in every sense of the word. I suffered long enough and fought long enough to deserve to be who I am. You see, it's got nothing to do with the physical body or the DNA, XY or anything else. It is what you believe yourself to be in your mind, yes, the mind, like in the brain.

Cindy       

Posted on: May 04, 2008, 06:35:57 PMHi Tink, you summed it up in two and a half sentences to my nearly a flippin page long. Well anyway that were my feelings on it.
Tanks Tink. 

Cindy

[Kate]

Sex change surgery is only a cosmetic procedure to make it look like a change was made, when in fact no female "parts" are used.

Ya know, that's just... creepy. What, was Walmart out of "Female Parts" that day? I mean... what's that supposed to mean? Surgeons have an inventory of "female parts" on their shelves?

~Kate~

[Mari]

Like we didn't know that going in? Big fat duh. Does this person think everyone is as ignorant as they were? No wonder they're expressing regret. They went into it with completely the wrong idea about it. Fools  like this give the rest of us a bad image.

And this is exactly why I started this topic. From time to time articles in, what could
be considered relevant, newspaper surface questioning weather SRS is important, or
appropriate treatment. They are uaually backed up with statements like this:
from a know-it-all guy
who puts the blame on surgeon for "mutilating" him.
Also, it is very often to hear that they started questioning their sex-change after they
joined a churh of some kind, that later attempted to cure their "illness" and have them
return to former gender.
......
Thing that recently came to my mind is: Is there really anything in your opinion that can
be done for transgendered/transsexed that is not the traditional sex-change procedure?
They all say sex-change is wrong but never mention any alternative route (to running a
website promoting their own mistake, or writing a book about your failed life)

[Beyond]

Approximately 1 in 1500 have regrets about their SRS.  Which makes SRS the most successful surgery to address the dysphoria of gender.

SRS has one of the highest efficacy rates for ANY medical procedure period.

And I agree he is a crackpot.



On a more serious note I have read a thread on another board of a girl who was not happy after surgery.  She's been full-time like 3.5 years, had FFS and BAS, and loves her life, but regrets having SRS.  And this doesn't appear to be a transient issue as her surgery was about 18 months ago now.  Regrets are rare, but they do happen.

Posted on: May 05, 2008, 07:01:36 AM

nobody changes sex.
EVER.
R >

It would be more correct to say nobody can change their chromosomes.  And that's okay because we all know that chromosomes do NOT determine gender.  You can change your sex (phenotype).