Oh good god, the pain this man must have been suffering in his head to do this to himself: “[A Welsh] ex-soldier was so desperate to become a woman he performed a DIY sex change operation on himself. When Roland Mery, a 61-year-old, married, father-of-four from Newport, was told he had to wait two years for gender reassignment surgery he decided he had no option but to do the job himself. Telling his wife of 23 years, Julie, that he had a headache, Roland took some painkillers and headed for the family bathroom. Using a home-made surgery kit, he removed his genitals, losing two pints of blood in the process. But for Roland, this drastic action was his only way of setting himself free. ‘From the moment I walked down the stairs after I did it I just felt right. I had repressed my feelings for so long,’ said Roland, who is considering changing his name to the more feminine-sounding Rolande.”
alejandro
:'( this is just sad.
ioni
Why not cut his brains out just as well?
I am quite positive that the man not only voluntary inflicted unbearable pain, but also has all the chances of doing something wrong. I wonder how long will he live after this?
Come on people. this is profanation!
Distingué Traces
Are being transgendered and this intense kind of body-hatred necessarily the same thing?
There is a condition which seems psychological but in fact has a neurological basis called “Body Integrity Identity Disorder” in which people become convinced that one of their limbs — an arm, a leg — is not really part of their body and feel an intense compulsion to separate themselves from it.
Rather than having an emotional basis, this disorder is caused by problems in the part of the brain that creates a mental map of the body.
To me, the guy in the story doesn’t sound like someone with an atypical gender, he sounds like someone with Body Integrity Identity Disorder — where the body part that got left of the neurological map happens to be the genitals rather than an arm or leg.
fuzzy
@Distingué Traces
Follow the link and read the rest of the article. It doesn’t sound like Body Integrity Identity Disorder at all. It sounds like he bottled this up all his life, and it exploded. An unfortunate way to go about it, but she is happier now and her wife is very supportive.
eagledancer
We had a case like this in our clinic–one of the reasons I remember it so well is that when the clinical director was going over info during our staff meeting, and at the moment she told us about a patient who had sliced off his penis with a razor blade and flushed it down the toilet, every single male around the table crossed his legs, exactly as if it were choreographed.
The other really sad thing is that in a MTF sex reassignment surgery, the tissue of the penis is used to preserve nerve endings to allow greater pleasure/sensivity of the “new” genitalia.
Kropotkin
“Are being transgendered and this intense kind of body-hatred necessarily the same thing?”
For some yes, but every trans person is affected body dysphoria to a different degree. For some it’s very strong, others experience it in less intensity. And what the story described doesn’t seem like BID.
Unfortunately these kind of diy “surgeries” are probably more common than is officially reported among trans people. It’s mainly caused by gender dysphoria being bottled up for so long and not having access to medical treatment for transition. Usually people who do things like this are in very severe emotional distress.
Emily
I speak from experience when I say, this is a part of being trans. For a long time thoughts of taking a butcher knife to “it” came to mind whenever I would have to see myself naked. Knowing that I’d need the material to form a proper vagina helped me a lot, it gave me hope, and a goal to look forward to. Now that I’ve had my surgery, it feels so right to me, I know I did the right thing for myself. But, I am still young (26), and hadn’t bottled things inside for so long as she had. I also had the support of my friends, and my doctors were knowledgable in trans issues. From what I understand of the UK health care system, it remains very clique-y and gatekeeperesque with regard to transgender issues, which can put a really tough burden on the patient to jump throgh so many hoops to get the care they so desperately need! So, while I don’t condone whatever Rolande did to herself, I understand where she is coming from.
eagledancer
Hey Emily–so glad to read things turned out so well for you. Although as you point out there are still so many obstacles in terms of medical support for transgendered folks, over my professional lifetime, it’s a relief to see people like you–(“still young”)who have had the experience of being on the journey to the person you want to be–years ago I can’t remember anyone who had gone through all the “hoops” by your age. I am happy that’s changing. Episodes like that of Mervy point out how much further we all have to go.
...
love the choice of image
ousslander
he crazy
stevenelliot
another reason not to like Obama’s socialized medicine plan. That poor transgender person was on hold for two years to get his dinky cut off. Socialized medicine leads to DIY operations!!!!
I am kidding
stevenelliot
he could have just called the Lorena Bobbitt Clinic in Manassas, Virginia. She does penis detactments while you sleep LOL
Distingué Traces
So … if there was a young girl with female genitalia who didn’t identify as male but had an intense hatred of her own body, if she thought she was fat and hideous, thought that her sex organs were disgusting and so on — and there are a great many such young girls, it is practically a societal epidemic — what do you think would be best way to help her?
Would you say, “Alter your body, by surgery if necessary, until it conforms to the image of what you think your body ought to be”?
scott ny'er
OMG!
Well, I do hope he’s happier now and did not due lots of damage.
I read the article and I liked to play with dolls when I was little too but I don’t think I would want to cut off my penis. How terrible that feeling must be, that you are in the wrong body.
M Shane
@Distingué Traces;
I am more interested in your stake in claioming that there is a ‘Body Integrity Image problem than a M/F issue in either case you categoize that way;
With the fat girls, if they don’t see themselves as men, what would you suggest that they pick in liew of being females.
secondly what would make you think that the man wouldn’t rather be a woman in liew of his very selective choice.
I believe that in India men would actually do the surgery themselves .
You don’t really make any case for the distinction applying in these cases.Maybe we vcabn say that the disorders are the same in this case, but I see noreason why there is a point in eliminating the choice of M/F sexual dysphoria.
Distingué Traces
My second comment wasn’t really connected to the one about BIID, but was a more general response to the comment that being transgendered necessarily involves hatred of one’s own body, a belief that one’s body is not “right”.
My point is simply that hatred of the body is very common among women in our culture, whatever genitalia they may have been born with. But the way we respond to that body hatred is very different for transgendered and cisgendered women.
When a young girl with a vagina hates her body, most people are agreed that the best response is to try to help the girl learn to love her body.
But when a young girl with a penis hates her body, the conventional response is to say “It’s true that your body is a monstrosity! What you need is a surgeon’s knife to turn you into a Real Woman!”
I don’t see why we don’t treat both young girls in the same way.
poonifa
Something is seriously wrong with our species. Everyday, I’m amazed at the display of lunacy enacted around the world.
It is true that it is our imagination which is our strength, but sadly, without proper exercises and conditioning to hone its true potential…and while, in my lifetime, we are mired in a hot war of insanity…I will be attacked by this kind of madness, for we are what we = seek =
Kropotkin
Distingué Traces, are you trans?
If you aren’t, then you don’t get a say in this.
Okay?
Distingué Traces
I dunno, am I?
Can I still be “transgender” if I think the label is pathologizing and false, and that its use implies acceptance of a whole host of assumptions about “normal” gender that I reject completely?
Kropotkin
Okay, I see the point you were trying to make. My bad.
But I would say that “society” tells trans people not to transition and if they do they will never be their self-identified gender even with SRS. But you’re right that some trans people buy into the that vagina=woman.
Zoe Brain
It’s more common than most people realise.
I know personally of several cases.
By the time the lack of treatment causes GID this bad, they’re crazy. As crazy as anyone who’s been a victim of torture every day for decades.
tlezfemme
To begin with. I think that she has more than proven that she identifies as female. How about using female pronouns in your reporting. I realize that the article that you took this from had the wrong pronouns but you are supposedly talking to & for TLBG people. Yes, I used the acronym opposite from what people usually see. Yes, that was intentional. I’m a transwomen & tired of being told to sit in the back of the queer bus. I have encountered a lot of prejudice from LGB people & I’m tired of it. The purposeful misuse of gender pronouns & complete unwillingness to accept my true gender being the primary issue. Hence when I read over & over again that you are not using proper pronouns for transpeople It gets my hackles up Please think about what you are saying. Even the stogy newspapers & other media outlets at least across USA have adopted in their styles the proper use of a person’s pronoun by how they present. It’s common courtesy. Please learn it.