Facing life in wrong body leads to botched castration
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 2:50 pm
>>>>This article appeared in today's newspaper (Post Gazette, Sunday, Sep 28, 2003 - - - It enlightens the previous story. I think the reporter is realloy quite compassionate.<<<<<
Facing life in wrong body leads to botched castration
Sunday, September 28, 2003
By Ann Belser, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/2 ... 0928p5.asp
Catherine Watson's desire is so simple. "I just want to be normal," she said.
Normal, however, is an elusive goal for her, and for many others like her.
Watson, 45, of McKeesport, was born a boy. By 9 years old, she said, she knew her gender was wrong and started to dress in girl's clothing. She switched schools and her records from male to female. She never matured as a man: She has neither a protruding Adam's apple nor facial hair, but she did still have male sex organs.
Her desire to remove those last vestiges of her masculine identity led her to botched castration surgery performed in her home two weeks ago by a man who passed himself off as a doctor. He has been charged with aggravated assault for the incident which nearly killed her.
The often-frantic drive by transsexuals for a sex-change operation is well-understood by Randi Ettner, a psychologist in Illinois and the author of the book "Confessions of a Gender Defender: A Psychologist's Reflections on Life Among the Transgendered."
"I think everybody who has this condition feels desperate," she said.
Dr. Sheila Kirk, the research director of Persad Center, a counseling service that caters to gay, lesbian and transgendered clients, said the fact that Watson was able to overlook clues that the man who performed the surgery was not who he said he was shows how anxious she was to have the procedure done.
"This is an individual who needs to be looked at with a measure of concern and consideration," Kirk said. "She's not ... trying to do anything but put herself in a better place."
Transgendered people typically know as children they are in the wrong bodies, but when they start to act as the person who they really feel they are, they are usually shamed back into their gender roles, Ettner said.
"It's a terrible, terrible, constant, horrible, shameful secret," she said. It also leads to isolation and loneliness.
"They cannot have a best friend, because you tell your best friend everything," Ettner said. "It's just torture to feel so different."
Ettner describes Watson as a primary transsexual: Someone who knew at a very early age that her body did not conform to her self-image.
For Watson, one of the most upsetting aspects of the recent ordeal is that she has been referred to as a man in the police report and news accounts.
"I'm legally a female," she said. Her name has been legally changed and her driver's license reflects that she is a woman. She will not say the name that her parents gave her when she was born a boy, saying that he is gone and she is Cathy now.
Watson grew up in California. Her sister, Terri, was a hermaphrodite who committed suicide when she was 28 years old.
According to Watson, the two girls and their mother had been abandoned by their father, who told them he didn't want to live with "a bunch of freaks." Her mother remarried and had two other daughters from whom Watson is now estranged.
She was working, most recently as a waitress and pizza delivery person, but has lost both those jobs. She's afraid she will not work again as long as people recognize her from this experience.
She's just under 5 feet, 10 inches tall, and slightly heavy at 187 pounds, with long, strawberry blond hair and glasses. To help with her appearance, she has had makeup tattooed to her lips, eyes and eyebrows.
She had previously scheduled sexual reassignment surgery at a Pittsburgh hospital, she said, but did not have enough money to cover the full $17,000 fee.
Then one morning in July, she caught sight of herself, naked in the mirror, her body not matching the person she knew herself to be.
"I broke down. I started crying," she said. "I didn't want to live like this anymore." She put a notice on an Internet bulletin board seeking anyone who could help her.
Doug Lenhart answered her plea.
He told her he was a doctor, she said, who was licensed in Kansas but not in Pennsylvania.
"I wanted this so bad," she said. "He got me totally at ease."
Watson said he gave her his home telephone number and she talked to a woman who said she was his wife.
First she thought she was going to a day surgery center, then a hotel, then he told her he would perform the procedure in her home, she said.
"As far as I knew, he was a doctor, just not licensed in Pennsylvania," she said.
He took her money, $200 with the promise of $600 later in payments, she said. "I almost backed out of it, but he offered me something that I needed."
On Sept. 12, they set up a makeshift operating room. Watson sat in her dining room on a club chair that had been draped in plastic. The surgical tools were laid out on a table.
Lenhart numbed the area and started to cut. "I kept going in and out of consciousness because of the pain," she said. She also was bleeding profusely.
That's when her partner, who was there to support her, called for an ambulance. Lenhart, she said, grabbed his stuff and left before the police or an ambulance could arrive.
She spent the next two days at UPMC Presbyterian.
"It never would have crossed my mind that this man would lie to me and tell me he was a doctor," she said.
McKeesport police have charged Lenhart with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and unauthorized practice of medicine. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 6.
Lenhart's attorney, James Wymard, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
For transsexuals contemplating any level of sexual reassignment surgery, cost can be a huge factor, Ettner said.
"If you're a transsexual, you have to be a rich transsexual. You have to have electrolysis. You have to have [psychiatric] therapy. You have to have surgery, and all of these procedures are cash dependent," she said. The surgery is not covered by health insurance because it is deemed to be cosmetic surgery. For some transsexuals, it can add up to $45,000.
The International Foundation for Gender Education, based in Waltham, Mass., estimates there are nearly 2,000 sexual reassignment surgeries performed each year.
Watson still wants to complete her sexual reconstruction. She also wants her life to calm down.
"I want to heal. I want this to be over with. I want the final surgery."
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Ann Belser can be reached at abelser@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699.
Facing life in wrong body leads to botched castration
Sunday, September 28, 2003
By Ann Belser, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/2 ... 0928p5.asp
Catherine Watson's desire is so simple. "I just want to be normal," she said.
Normal, however, is an elusive goal for her, and for many others like her.
Watson, 45, of McKeesport, was born a boy. By 9 years old, she said, she knew her gender was wrong and started to dress in girl's clothing. She switched schools and her records from male to female. She never matured as a man: She has neither a protruding Adam's apple nor facial hair, but she did still have male sex organs.
Her desire to remove those last vestiges of her masculine identity led her to botched castration surgery performed in her home two weeks ago by a man who passed himself off as a doctor. He has been charged with aggravated assault for the incident which nearly killed her.
The often-frantic drive by transsexuals for a sex-change operation is well-understood by Randi Ettner, a psychologist in Illinois and the author of the book "Confessions of a Gender Defender: A Psychologist's Reflections on Life Among the Transgendered."
"I think everybody who has this condition feels desperate," she said.
Dr. Sheila Kirk, the research director of Persad Center, a counseling service that caters to gay, lesbian and transgendered clients, said the fact that Watson was able to overlook clues that the man who performed the surgery was not who he said he was shows how anxious she was to have the procedure done.
"This is an individual who needs to be looked at with a measure of concern and consideration," Kirk said. "She's not ... trying to do anything but put herself in a better place."
Transgendered people typically know as children they are in the wrong bodies, but when they start to act as the person who they really feel they are, they are usually shamed back into their gender roles, Ettner said.
"It's a terrible, terrible, constant, horrible, shameful secret," she said. It also leads to isolation and loneliness.
"They cannot have a best friend, because you tell your best friend everything," Ettner said. "It's just torture to feel so different."
Ettner describes Watson as a primary transsexual: Someone who knew at a very early age that her body did not conform to her self-image.
For Watson, one of the most upsetting aspects of the recent ordeal is that she has been referred to as a man in the police report and news accounts.
"I'm legally a female," she said. Her name has been legally changed and her driver's license reflects that she is a woman. She will not say the name that her parents gave her when she was born a boy, saying that he is gone and she is Cathy now.
Watson grew up in California. Her sister, Terri, was a hermaphrodite who committed suicide when she was 28 years old.
According to Watson, the two girls and their mother had been abandoned by their father, who told them he didn't want to live with "a bunch of freaks." Her mother remarried and had two other daughters from whom Watson is now estranged.
She was working, most recently as a waitress and pizza delivery person, but has lost both those jobs. She's afraid she will not work again as long as people recognize her from this experience.
She's just under 5 feet, 10 inches tall, and slightly heavy at 187 pounds, with long, strawberry blond hair and glasses. To help with her appearance, she has had makeup tattooed to her lips, eyes and eyebrows.
She had previously scheduled sexual reassignment surgery at a Pittsburgh hospital, she said, but did not have enough money to cover the full $17,000 fee.
Then one morning in July, she caught sight of herself, naked in the mirror, her body not matching the person she knew herself to be.
"I broke down. I started crying," she said. "I didn't want to live like this anymore." She put a notice on an Internet bulletin board seeking anyone who could help her.
Doug Lenhart answered her plea.
He told her he was a doctor, she said, who was licensed in Kansas but not in Pennsylvania.
"I wanted this so bad," she said. "He got me totally at ease."
Watson said he gave her his home telephone number and she talked to a woman who said she was his wife.
First she thought she was going to a day surgery center, then a hotel, then he told her he would perform the procedure in her home, she said.
"As far as I knew, he was a doctor, just not licensed in Pennsylvania," she said.
He took her money, $200 with the promise of $600 later in payments, she said. "I almost backed out of it, but he offered me something that I needed."
On Sept. 12, they set up a makeshift operating room. Watson sat in her dining room on a club chair that had been draped in plastic. The surgical tools were laid out on a table.
Lenhart numbed the area and started to cut. "I kept going in and out of consciousness because of the pain," she said. She also was bleeding profusely.
That's when her partner, who was there to support her, called for an ambulance. Lenhart, she said, grabbed his stuff and left before the police or an ambulance could arrive.
She spent the next two days at UPMC Presbyterian.
"It never would have crossed my mind that this man would lie to me and tell me he was a doctor," she said.
McKeesport police have charged Lenhart with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and unauthorized practice of medicine. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 6.
Lenhart's attorney, James Wymard, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
For transsexuals contemplating any level of sexual reassignment surgery, cost can be a huge factor, Ettner said.
"If you're a transsexual, you have to be a rich transsexual. You have to have electrolysis. You have to have [psychiatric] therapy. You have to have surgery, and all of these procedures are cash dependent," she said. The surgery is not covered by health insurance because it is deemed to be cosmetic surgery. For some transsexuals, it can add up to $45,000.
The International Foundation for Gender Education, based in Waltham, Mass., estimates there are nearly 2,000 sexual reassignment surgeries performed each year.
Watson still wants to complete her sexual reconstruction. She also wants her life to calm down.
"I want to heal. I want this to be over with. I want the final surgery."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Belser can be reached at abelser@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699.
