“Can you imagine what it must be like to tell a therapist of your experience being abused as a child, which you offer as a possible explanation for your dysphoria, only to have the psychiatrist totally ignore that aspect of your past and instead push you to sex-change procedures as the only way to overcome your angst?”
(Stella Morabito – The Federalist) Walt Heyer knows firsthand what it’s like to undergo sex change surgery and then regret it. After living as a woman for nearly a decade, he decided to accept his biological sex and de-transition back to male. By then, Walt had received intensive cognitive therapy that helped him recognize early childhood trauma he had experienced.
The trauma resulted in a mental condition known as dissociative identity disorder (DID). In the clarity of that realization, his gender dysphoria simply vanished. His life as a “woman” all amounted to an attempt to escape reality. Sadly, too few people consider the possibility that gender dysphoria can manifest as a byproduct or symptom of other mental conditions, and most certainly of DID. (More on that below.)
Walt suffered huge waves of regret as a result of following through with his urge to be a woman. He had eagerly taken the bait of politicized medical practitioners, who hurried him along in the transition. He not only regretted what he had done to his body, he also grieved over the estrangement from his wife and children caused by his drastic change in identity.
There was collateral damage to other personal relationships as well. He also regretted the lost decade of his life in which he lived in the persona of a woman.
Heyer’s New Book Shines Light on Trans Life Survivors
Heyer has written several books on transgender regret, but his sixth and newest book, “Trans Life Survivors,” is not his personal story. It’s a compilation of the stories of many others caught up in today’s “transmania.” They specifically sought out Walt to get some much-needed support. They’ve shared their lonely, surreal experiences falling down the trans rabbit hole, hoping to escape as he did.
Walt’s correspondents describe a wide range of frustrating and confusing experiences. Some are nudged into transgenderism by social pressures and emotional manipulation. Many are hastily sent into surgery without adequate counseling (or any counseling at all), or are misdiagnosed. Some of those regret their decision very shortly after having irreversible surgery.
Many concerns about childhood traumas are ignored by therapists who are politically motivated to push as many patients as possible into sex change. They also fear intense ostracism and vicious backlash from the trans community if they “come out” as a potential de-transitioner.
Walt wrote “Trans Life Survivors,” he says, because he wants others “to catch a glimpse of the raw emotions and experiences of people who are harmed by the grand – and dangerous – experiment of cross-sex hormones and surgical affirming procedures.”
Research:
H/T Linda Harvey