In 1981 at 40 years of age, I was diagnosed as suffering from “gender dysphoria” by a world-leading gender therapist, Dr. Paul Walker.
Sitting across from Dr. Walker in his San Francisco Union St. office, I explained that when I was only 4 years old, I started cross-dressing in my grandma’s clothes at her house. To encourage me, she used her dress-making skills to fashion a made-to-fit full-length purple chiffon evening dress for my 4-year-old body.
The imagery of that purple chiffon dress was more like a hot branding iron on the hindquarters of ranch livestock than a loving gift to a 4-year-old grandson. I have not been able to totally erase the memories of the purple dress, but the harm it did in my life motivates me to help prevent another child, or even an adult, from being put on the path to cross-sex hormones and surgeries.
While I can forgive Dr. Walker for recommending that I start immediately on female hormone therapy in 1981, I cannot forgive the gender therapists today for rushing to a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and provide cross-sex hormones without evaluating the underlying contributing factors.
I can forgive surgeon Dr. Stanley Biber for surgically altering me in 1983, a time when few people were talking about gender dysphoria, opposite-sex hormones, or cosmetic surgeries on breasts or genitals. What is unimaginable to me is that surgeons today perform “gender surgeries” as treatment given what we now know. […]
— Read More: thefederalist.com
