Ex Transgender: Parents Who Don't Put Trans Kids in Psychotherapy Are 'Abusing' Their Children
A former transgender-turned-activist is warning that children who think they are members of the opposite biological sex are actually "deceiving themselves" and could likely be suffering from undiagnosed psychological disorders that are being overlooked in a politically correct society.
Walt Heyer, an author and public speaker who had sex reassignment surgery at the age of 42 and has grown to regret it, explained in a recent op-ed published by the Daily Signal that parents who encourage their children's gender dysphoria and don't get them psychological treatment are hurting their children.
Heyer, who now runs the website SexChangeRegret.com, detailed how he was forced by his grandmother to crossdress as a small child, which led him to have strong feelings of being a girl as he grew older.
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After getting help from a renowned gender specialist, Heyer was told that he was suffering from gender dysphoria and that the only way to get relief from the situation was to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
"I lived as a transgender, Laura Jensen, female, for eight years. While studying psychology in a university program, I discovered that trans kids most often are suffering from a variety of disorders, starting with depression — the result of personal loss, broken families, sexual abuse, and unstable homes," Heyer explained. "Deep depression leads kids to want to be someone other than who they are."
"That information sure resonated with me," Heyer continued. "Finally, I had discovered the madness of the transgender life. It is a fabrication born of mental disorders."
In the op-ed, Heyer commented on a recent Buzzfeed article highlighting the life a 9-year-old biological boy Girl Scout named Stormi.
The article reports that when Stormi knocked on one neighbor's door to ask him if he wanted to buy some Girl Scout cookies. The neighbor replied, "Nobody wants to buy Girl Scout cookies from a boy in a dress."
Although others were quick to shower Stormi in love and praise, buy her Girl Scout Cookies and dismiss the neighbor as transphobic, Heyer defended the neighbor by arguing that "not everyone assumes that a boy in a dress selling Girl Scout cookies is transgender."
"Stormi looked like a boy to the neighbor because he really is a boy," Heyer wrote. "Transgender people may deceive themselves, but they do not deceive others."
Heyer added that adults who call people like the neighbor in the Buzzfeed story "transphobic" because of their reaction to a boy in a dress are "gender-phobic."
"Life in society is not some fantasy world where a boy should pretend he has magically transformed himself into a girl simply by uttering the words 'I am a girl' and changing how he presents himself," Heyer added. "The people who strongly object to the honest reaction from a man saying, 'Nobody wants to buy Girl Scout cookies from a boy in a dress' are perhaps gender-phobic, rejecting and ridiculing the reality of male and female genders."
Heyer reasons that Stormi could have deep-rooted psychological reasons for why he desires to be a girl, as Stormi has been separated from his biological parents and lives in foster care.
"Separation anxiety disorder and other psychological disorders can masquerade as gender dysphoria, leading caregivers and medical practitioners to misdiagnose and not provide proper or effective psychotherapies," Heyer wrote. "Stormi could be in need of psychotherapy, not a dress."
"The transgender life is often the direct result of early childhood difficulty or trauma," Heyer continued. "Assisting a young child into the fabricated ideology of a transgender life is not helping the child sort out what is real and what is fiction."
Heyer wrote that guardians and caregivers need to stop collaborating with a mental disorder instead of treating it.
"Telling a psychologically troubled boy he has changed genders is not compassion, but can become reckless parenting." Heyer stated. "By withholding psychotherapy, parents could be abusing the kid."
Heyer predicts that Stormi will live out most of his childhood and early adolescence as a transgender female but will eventually come to grips with reality.
"Stormi's life will evolve as maturity unfolds. Most likely in 15 or 20 years, reality will set in that he really never changed genders," Heyer concluded. "This is often a turning point where the trans life is not looking as good as it once did."
