Years ago I was bitten by the bug that suggested I needed to align my physical body with my gender feelings.
I was diagnosed as suffering from Gender Dysphoria and that would require a surgical gender change. But I was married, had 2 wonderful kids I loved and a wife who married a man, not half a man.
The support for changing genders is very intoxicating on every level and hard to resist or ignore but I sure wish I had had the knowledge about the lifelong regret that would come my way as a direct result of changing genders.
How utterly foolish I was to turn my life over to the pursuit of changing genders with hormones and surgery. Today I can look back and assess the damage and how much joy I lost over the years. If only I had just continued being a father to my kids. I see now the rewards of being a father in life are priceless; being a transgender is costly.
My regret inspired me to build the web site www.sexchangeregret.com. Thirty thousand (30,000) people view the site each year and I have found many others also regretted their gender surgery.
Today I realize how self-centered and self-absorbed my feelings were regarding my gender change. Making the change became far more important than being a father, sadly. "If only" I would have paused and asked the questions:
Is wearing female clothing and make-up and becoming a female transgender really the most important pursuit over the course of my lifetime? Or, is being a father, supporting and guiding my kids and modeling what a father really is the best long term legacy for my life?
I should have given the same devotion, determination and desire at being a father as I did in using hormones and surgery to become a female transgender. I realize now: a father is real; a transgender is only a surgically fabricated female.
The transgender helpers turned on me when I returned to being a male after 8 years. The transgender supporters felt betrayed, but better the advocates feel betrayed than my kids. My daughter did not talk to me for almost 10 years and my son said he wished I had had cancer and died.
All because I felt I had no choice but to change genders. I was very wrong—there is a choice.
Too bad I made the wrong choice. Do not make the same mistake I did.
Walt Heyer
www.sexchangeinfo.com
www.sexchangeregret.com
www.tradingmysorrows.com
Author of Paper Genders, Perfected with Love, Trading My Sorrows
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