Do You Know the Dirty Little Secret?

            Families, communities, and nations are stronger when parents inform themselves before granting permission to children. This statement can apply to various situations, but tonight it applies to children, teens, and young adults who seek help for gender distress.

Walt Heyer is a biological man who submitted himself to cross-sex hormones and surgery about thirty years ago. He lived as a woman for eight years before switching back to living as a man. He is a public speaker and author who seeks to inform other people of the dangers cross-sex hormones. 

A dirty little secret withheld from people who seek help for gender distress is that cross-sex hormones are anabolic steroids and addictive in the same way that daily consumption of alcohol can lead to addiction.

Gender clinics, now including Planned Parenthood, routinely prescribe cross-sex hormones on the first or second visit, and they neglect to disclose that steroids are addictive and distort one’s ability to make decisions. Steroid use makes people easy marks for the next step: surgery, such as mastectomy and genital reconfiguration, both of which mutilate healthy tissue.

I am a biological man who submitted myself to cross-sex hormones and surgery and lived as a woman for eight years. Looking back now, about 30 years later, I can testify to the physical addictiveness of hormones and the psychological addictiveness of appearing as the opposite sex. Addictions at their heart are destructive.

By looking at transgender treatment protocols through the lens of addiction, we might just find a better way to help people to wholeness.

            Heyer used a definition for addiction from The Meriam-Webster Dictionary: “a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence: the state of being addicted.”

            The definition fits alcohol, drug, and steroid addiction. Thirty-five years ago, Heyer recognized that he was addicted to alcohol. At first, he denied that he had a problem. Later, he applied “the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous” and learned to rely on Jesus Christ. He gradually concluded that he was addicted to alcohol. His need “to consume alcohol was compulsive, chronic, and harmful.”

In retrospect, I see the powerful parallels between alcohol addiction and cross-sex hormone use.

Like so many aha moments, once seen, they can’t be unseen. My eyes opened wide, and I could no longer deny that taking cross-sex hormones was just like alcoholism, an addiction. Cross-gender hormones are powerful steroids that alter the brain and one’s psychological outlook.

            Heyer sees this result “among young adults who are in the early stage of pursuing gender change.” Parents contact him for assistance in helping their children. “But unfortunately, once under the addictive influence of cross-sex hormones, people are as unreachable as I was when I was abusing alcohol, bent on self-destruction and deaf to any information that stands in the way.”

            Heyer saw his own addiction in his “need to present as a woman escalated over time.” Other people who regret transitioning “share a similar experience. Each habit-forming indulgence leads to the next. Cross-dressing leads to injecting cross-sex hormones, which leads to breast and genital surgery.” Heyer stated that “Cosmetic surgery itself can be addictive, and the physical harm done is mostly irreversible.”

I have 30 years of recovery from my ill-advised pursuit of a trans identity. I applied the same 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to the trans-addiction that erases and destroys a person via hormones, surgery, and a new identity.

            Realizing that “applying the definition of addiction to transgenderism” will not be popular with “the enablers who benefit financially” from gender distress, Heyer wants his message to reach the people “who are pursuing this quixotic path with the hope of saving even one person. This is his message:

Consider that, like me, you could be addicted to cross-sex hormones, surgery, or even your own self-destructive behaviors because something happened to you, such as abuse (emotional, physical, or sexual), loss of friends or family through death or divorce, or whatever circumstance felt traumatic.

Escaping into an addicting, alternate identity is not the solution and can lead to harmful consequences, sadness, and depression.

Like any addiction, taking cross-sex hormones to identify as the opposite sex results in harmful consequences, sadness, and depression. My website sexchangeregret.com is a source of helpful information.

If you are a teen struggling with your gender identity, read my book “Kid Dakota and the Secret at Grandma’s House.”  

If you’re an adult feeling the tug to live a transgender life, read my book “Trans Life Survivors” and break free from the addiction of transgender identity just as I did. It will be the happiest moment of your life—that I can tell you.

            If you are a parent of a young person seeking to transition to the other sex, check out the sources cited above and inform yourself. Well-informed parents can save their children from much pain and heartache as well as strengthen their family, community, and nation.