A detransitioner has told how he was ‘brainwashed’ into having gender reassignment surgery after believing himself to be a woman trapped in the wrong body.
Going by the name Shape Shifter, the 32-years-old who lives in Massachusetts grew up in a Muslim country in the Balkans where even being gay was frowned upon, but he believed that if he transitioned to female he would finally feel happy with himself.
He was given a referral letter by Fenway Health in Massachusetts, which he claims has been taken over by biased pro-trans activists.
The surgery itself was performed by Dr Sherman Leis of the The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery. He is regarded as the United States’ most experienced gender reassignment surgeon.
But soon after the operation was complete in 2015 in his mid-20s, Shape Shifter quickly realized he had made a terrible mistake, and that he was just a gay man who enjoyed presenting in a feminine way.
The procedures he has undergone – which include the removal of his penis and the creation of a ‘neo-vagina’ are irreversible.
They have left him with osteoporosis, scoliosis, a ‘vagina’ which his body believes is a wound, and which it tries to close up, as well as a host of mental health conditions including depression and a reduced sex-drive.
Shape Shifter believed that making the initial switch to a woman would make him finally feel happy in his own body, but he ended up feeling even more depressed than before the surgery, ultimately realizing that he was simply a man who enjoyed expressing his femininity.
He still wears makeup, and has long hair, but says men like him need to be encouraged to feel comfortable in their femininity, without feeling pressured into medically transitioning.
Shape Shifter, 32, was born male, transitioned to female but then reverted back. The surgeries have left him without a penis and without a working vagina also
Speaking to Blaire White, 28, herself transgender, during a more than hour-long interview, he explained how after the initial surgery to become female he suddenly fell into a deep depression.
During the interview, which has been posted to YouTube and received almost 500,000 views, Shape explained how the new vagina that had been constructed for him using tissue from his penis fell far short of expectations and left him unable to have intercourse.
‘I was happy maybe for a month or two but then got even more depressed after surgery. My neo-vagina started constricting. I thought I was going to spread my legs and get f****d and that never really happened after I gave away my penis.
‘I was online telling people how depressed I was. A lot of people thought it was because of the surgery… but I had no energy, I was so lethargic, I had brain fog and no sex drive at all. I then found that all the tranny-chasers stopped following me and I was competing with other women for men.’
Shape believes a lot of people would reconsider having surgery in the first place if they knew of the possible complications and regret that can follow
White asked Shape what it was like to ‘miss your penis’.
‘I just wanted to have my surgery and then blend in and complete my transition. When I started taking testosterone I had no sex drive. I went from enjoying sex to avoiding it,’ Shape explained.
‘I miss just being an average dude and obsessing over sex, money and my career. It sucked being heteronormative and doing the whole emotional thing. Now I feel like a man trapped in a woman-lookalike body.
‘I will never be able to get my penis back which is extremely traumatic for me. I want it back and I can’t. Sex is traumatic for me now because I’ve had botched surgeries.’
Shape says he even dreams about having a penis, while before his first transition he would dream about having a vagina.
Host, White, asked how difficult it was for Shape to revert to being male.
Speaking to Blaire White, 28, right, herself transgender, Shape warns others who may be considering transitioning to think carefully of their options beforehand
Shape, pictured, says he even dreams about having a penis, while before his first transition he would dream about having a vagina
‘These detransitioners regret the surgeries and then because they’ve got the surgeries they’re seen as like an enemy by these activist doctors and then they can’t even get help to revise the surgeries because trans surgeons hate detransitioners?’ White suggested.
‘Pretty much’, Shape responded.
‘What they don’t tell you is because they’ve labelled them as difficult patients but even beyond that, the one thing they don’t tell you is once your first surgery didn’t go right and second one didn’t go right, after a while nobody wants to touch other surgeons work because they don’t want to attach their name to a complicated case. Every time you go in there is more scar tissue and more complications.’
Shape said that despite wanting to detransition he is happy to present as female and appear like a woman in terms of how he dresses.
‘I just declared myself to be a woman but when i changed my paperwork or when it was all libbed out and drinking kool-aid and was brainwashed by the trans community. I simply enjoy presenting as feminine and having long hair.’
In a more than hour-long interview, Blaire White, herself trans, asked Shape Shifter what it was like to ‘miss your penis’ now that he is male once again
Shape says that he is trying to navigate his sexuality moving forward.
‘Looking back I don’t think my mind was able to comprehend what was happening. Even when I was a woman, I only knew what it was like to be a man on estrogen. And now I can’t go back to being a traditional man.’
‘I will never know what it’s like to be a woman, at least biologically,’ added host, White, agreeing with him.
Shape explained how there is no long-term research as to what taking all of the artificial hormones will do to his body in the long term.
‘I’ll have to have some kind of hormone in my body so it’s going to be estrogen only because if I don’t take any hormones, I already have osteoporosis and it will continue to get worse. I went almost seven years without any hormones. The hormones I am taking are similar to what women get during menopause.’
Shape explained how having undergone the surgeries, neither having a working penis nor a vagina that functions and now required to take hormones for the rest of his life, feels like a medical experiment gone horribly wrong.
Shape explained how neither having a working penis nor a vagina that functions and required to take hormones for the rest of his life, feels like a medical experiment gone horribly wrong
‘It’s transphobic to say it but after I’ve been through the system, I 100 percent feel like I was part of some cruel medical and social experiment – except nobody checked in on me,’ Shape explained.
‘If I’d killed myself I would not have even been included in any statistics. I’m sure they would just write me off as the cause being some other issue. Moreover, I’ve spent thousands of dollars. I’ve traveled across the country and did all the consults trying to get help.’
Shape believes that a lot of people might reconsider having surgery in the first place if they knew of the possible complications and regret that can follow in the moments following transitions. However, he believes it would be ‘bad for business’ if surgeons alluded to such realities.
After his first surgery to become female, Shape Shifter quickly realized he had made a terrible mistake, and that he was just a gay man who enjoyed presenting in a feminine way
Shape has blamed Fenway Health, an LGBT health care and advocacy organization based in Boston, Massachusetts for the position he finds himself in currently.
‘One of the biggest mistake is because I went to Fenway Health. A lot of their staff is LGBT and one of my therapists was trans as far as I know. Initially I thought it was good because she would understand me but now looking back she was biased. You know it’s kind of an activist hospital in a way.
‘I feel like my life would have been better and more productive if over the last 10 years I spent expanding definition of what it is to be a man instead of trying to just blend in like society wants and trying to be a heteronormative woman.
‘I don’t really know what the future holds. But we need to go back to the science lab to work out what true trans is. Do you want to be on hormones or have surgery?’
‘I f****d up my life, I could have been so much more.’
Shape feels his time might have been put to better use by defining what it is to be a man instead of trying blend into society as a woman