Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 186 | Sex Change Regret: Walt Heyer

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

Walt Heyer is a former transgender woman who now dedicates his time helping others who regret sex change and those who struggle with body dysmorphia. We discuss his experiences and ways to better treat those who suffer from this.

Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. I hope everyone has had a wonderful week. Happy Friday. Today I'm talking to Walt Heyer. You might have heard of him. He used to be transgendered. Then he transitioned. And he detransitioned. And he helps people who regret their transition mostly, but also people who are struggling with body dysmorphia, the different things associated with transgenderism. So I am going to talk to him today. Amazing conversation. Amazing person. I'm so excited for you to listen to it without further ado. Here he is. Mr. Hire, thank you so much for joining me. Sure. Can you tell everyone who might not know, although I think a lot of people, especially recently, have become familiar with your story. Can you just tell an overview of who you are and now what

you do? Yeah. Well, I started out as a four-year-old, what we would call trans kid and went through that whole thing. And they didn't have any terms like gender dysphoria and all that stuff in those days were just confused kids. Yeah. And so, but by the time I was 42, reached out for help, actually 38 and reached out for help. And the gender clinic or gender guide that I went to said, well, you need hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery. And there's nobody else around saying anything different. You couldn't find anybody. They just sort of scratched their head and say, oh, okay, well, maybe that's it. You know, this was 1981.

So it was quite a long time ago. Right. So after two years of being on hormone therapy, divorcing my wife and leaving my kids and job and all that, I underwent tender reassignment surgery in April, 1983. And then I spent my life working for the federal government at that time, FDIC and the Postal Service, and lived in San Francisco and went to UC Santa Cruz. studied psychology and it began to realize from looking at the psychology books that people identify as a transgender even many years ago they found that they had mental disorders of some type. And some of them were sexual, some of them were social, some of them were psychological and some were emotional, and some of them resulted from abuse or neglect or broken homes or all kinds of

different things. There's not any one thing that you can put your thumb on and say, you know, if this happens, you're going to be a transgender. It's not like that. It's just that the people who end up identifying as transgender and you really don't like who they are. They don't feel comfortable in their body. And then I'm one of those people. I was cross-dressed. And as a result of being cross-dressed, I was sexually abused, emotionally abused, and physically abused. So you wouldn't like yourself. when I was young, you know. And so people who have those things happen to themselves don't particularly like being the person who's being abused.

So you want to be somebody different. The only problem is now that I've worked with hundreds, probably more than hundreds, but worked with hundreds of people, I realized that if we really gave some time to these people who are really struggling, that we could probably uncover what's going on and help them understand why they feel the way they feel

and actually spend some time with them and avoid unnecessary hormone therapy and surgery. So that's what I do. Mostly I get people who've already been through it and wish they had not done it and want help to detransition. I've got one right now that I'm working on who's just a year after he's 19, had surgery at 18, and he regrets it.

And he said it never should have happened. They started him on hormones when he was 15. And his life is ruined. His body's ruined. They've completely reconstructed his body. And so, and then I've got a 21-year-old girl. Same thing. She transitioned at 18 and she regretted it at 20.

And so I'm getting a lot more young people. who've thought they were transgender, guided to think so. Because there's really nobody out there saying, maybe you should kind of reconsider that and think that it may be something else that we really can't have that many people who really need to have their body remade and readjusted and all that. So there's got to be something behind it.

So I help people every day. And I try to raise awareness on it. with the publications that I write and the six books, about to be seven books. And so that's what I do. I help people and I do it for free. They contact me and I work with them as best I can. And I work with people all over the world. Right.

And when you were a child, it was your grandmother, correct? Yeah. Who cross-dressed you. At what point when you were that little, obviously you probably didn't really know what was going on or you didn't have the words to her? particularly what was going on. When did you start feeling confused about your gender? When did you realize, okay, something's not right.

I'm not really comfortable. Probably, you know, after a few months or a year, you start to wonder, you know, was I born wrong? What's white is grandma only like me when I'm dressed up? And I think people become addicted to the affirmation. You know, who doesn't like to be affirmed? Right. Especially children.

Oh, absolutely. And, you know, children are delightfully narcissistic. You know, they like to be the center of attention. They're wonderful that way. That's not a harp on them. They need that attention. But they need good attention. They need positive attention and not somebody telling them that there's something wrong

with you and you need to change gender. So I think that's the real point to this is. is that when we tell somebody that they can change genders or that they could be a different gender, what we're also saying at the very same time is, without realizing it, we're telling there's something wrong with you. Right.

And I think that's where I become quite disturbed about people telling their children or something wrong with you. You know, Johnny can become Judy. And, you know, it's really kind of insane. and, you know, I just want to slap the parents' face. It's like, stop it. Yeah.

Do you have any idea why your grandmother had that idea to cross-dress you? Well, she made dresses. That was her job, her business. And so she just made me a purple chiffon dress. I mean, that's what she did for a living. She had her sewing machines in the house, and she had women coming over, and she'd measure them and make dresses for them,

and she just decided to make me one. So I think we got to really in a climate, even in the 1940s where it wasn't so power-driven by gendered issues, the influence on a young child of putting them in a dress is really child abuse. And I think any parent who puts their kid in opposite gender clothes and affirms them, tell them how cute they look,

oh, yeah, you can do it. I personally think it's child abuse because the consequences of doing that causes them to move on to maybe hormone blockers, surgery and other things. And what we know is today that people who actually transition are 18 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population. We really need to spend a lot more time talking to. these young individuals and older ones is for that manner, which I spend time do in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and even 70s who think they've been troubled by this. But what we're really dealing with today, I'm afraid to say, is, Allie, is that there's, it's a social contagion.

What we've developed is this whole community of people who want to join the transgender movement. and they don't have gender dysphoria. They're really not transgender, but they can get access to hormone therapy. And that's what's happening to the young people who are sort of crashing and burning after they go through these, you know, surgical and hormonal operations.

They're out of school. They're off on their own. And then they look in the mirror and they go, man, what if I done to my life? And my community of support, which was at school or maybe college, is gone. And now they're left with the consequences of being a guided, affirmed, supported,

and given all these direction to change genders. And they go, that was a mistake. And so I think I'm seeing a lot more people detransitioning or wishing they hadn't done it. And some of them are just staying, you know, without detransitioning. You're just saying, man, it was a mistake. And I don't know how to go back. I don't feel like I can go back, you know, my body's. been torn apart and psychologically and emotionally, that is far worse than if they never had

anything done. Why do you think it is? Because I think you're right. There is actually a study out of Brown University that talked about rapid onset gender dysphoria and talked about the possibility of there being a social element to it, especially in teenagers, that usually it starts with someone who feels misunderstood in general. A lot of times these people are on the autism spectrum, they find some kind of community online on places like Tumblr, and it's almost like it becomes a trend or it becomes a new identity for them in which they feel understood in being misunderstood, if that makes sense. Why is it that this is scandalous to bring up? Why is it scandalous to talk about? Why don't doctors say, hey, we need to be a little bit patient with this,

especially while this person is young, and look at the different factors that could be. leading to it. Why are we so quick to say, okay, hormone blockers in surgery? Yeah. Well, there's a real powerful group of people who are guiding this in the schools. And if you'll notice in our schools, there's no opposition to giving kids books and trying to help them transition. So the same thing's happening today really has happened to me. I couldn't find any opposition to what I was doing when I went in 1981 to a psychologist. And they've sort of held their ground on not allowing anybody to come in and have a different voice. And frankly, that's why they dislike me so much, which I don't particularly care.

That's kind of wonderful, actually. I feel like if they dislike me, I must be doing something right. Yes, definitely. So the rapid onset thing, I look at a little differently. It's just a social contagion. Kids want to join group. I mean, you can go back and look at the goth period. And, you know, kids were running around with all black and they lived in.

Kids like to join groups. I mean, this is how they, I did. You know, when I was in school, you know, kids wore leather jackets and we all looked the same. You know, isn't that, I always say this is so interesting. Everybody's trying to be different. And trying to be different, they all end up looking the same. Right. Right.

And I'm hoping that the pendulum will swing that direction to wear something like being transgender is no longer, no longer gives you the same political and social capital as it does today. It's no longer quite as unique or attaches you to this kind of marginalized group so it doesn't give you the same kind of benefits. I'm hoping that as that happens, it will be less attractive for people, especially people who don't have gender dysphoria at all and are just looking for a social group to be a part up. That's my hope. I'm wondering for you, in your life, you, so you were cross-dressed as a child, and then you lived, though, as a man, dressed like a man, until you were 38 to 42?

Well, I crossed dressed from the time that grandma put me in that dress. Publicly? Yes, sometimes, yeah. And did your parents have anything to say about that? They didn't like it. And, you know, but that was about all they could say. I didn't, they don't like. And you got, but you got married and you had kids.

Yeah, and I still was cross-dressing. And when did you realize, okay, I'm just too uncomfortable in my body, or you felt like that? What made you seek out help? There's this, when you're sexually abused as a young child, and you've been cross-dressed for a period of time, and you're confused about who you are, there's a situation which I've run into with a vast majority of the people that I work with who have been sexually abused. And while this may be uncomfortable to say, it's just a fact that happens. Kids who are sexually abused at a young age all the way up into their early teens, when they're abused, whether it's a boy being abused by a man, his defense mechanism is to remove his genitalia so that he won't be sexually abused again.

So it's not so much that they want to change genders. It's just that they want to remove what's being attracted to them as abuse situation. Girls, on the other hand, who are sexually abused, want to look like a man or dress like a man as a way to show defense against anybody thinking that they're beautiful or attractive so that they won't be sexually abused. So in many of these cases, I would say nearly 50% of them, this is actually not that they want to become a different. gender, it's more of a way to have a defense mechanism against being sexually abused again by a predator who thinks it's fun for them to use you as a sex toy.

And why aren't other people in your field picking up on this and saying this? I mean, it's some, for some people, it's literally a matter of life and death. We know that this is what's happening, that you can transition and still not feel comfortable in your body. Suicide rates stay about the same after you transition is when, as a, before. So why? What's, I mean, I know you said that there are powerful people that are pushing this in schools, but it seems to me like there would be more doctors at least saying, hang on. This is a little bit too crazy. This is not healthy. Children are permanently maimed because of this. Let's at least take a step back and have a conversation about whether or not

we are pursuing the best solutions. But it seems like you are the voice crying out in the wilderness and everyone, even this video, will get censored. People will talk about this interview as being hateful towards the trans community. Yeah. Why? Yeah. Well, here's the thing. You take as an example, a professor at a university, I've been there for years.

He's a child psychologist and psychiatrist. And he did just what you said. He came out and said, you know, this, what we really need to be doing is trying to identify what's causing them to think that they're different. and that they want to change. Now, this guy has got credentials that are about 10 feet tall. The guy's brilliant. He's probably one of the best in the country.

They fired him. So that's why people don't speak out. I had an endocrinologist I communicated with on Monday and Tuesday, who I want him to help with someone who is detransitioning. And he says, you know, now that I've come out and said that I'm not an affirming endocrinologist, my practice is dying because they're coming after me. So they use the two, the reason why people aren't speaking out is because their practices are being ruined, their reputations are being ruined, they're being fired

from jobs that they've had. I know two or three personal people that I've actually spoken with. There are probably some of the brightest minds in the country have been fired or removed from their job in this community so that they can't speak out against it. And this is what is happening throughout the world on this. And the difference with me is I don't have a job. My boss is Jesus and nobody's going to fire him. So if they want to go get him, go get him, you know.

So, you know, I can speak out. I don't have a job. I can't get fired. I make as much money off of doing this as you're paying me to be on here. Yeah, which for the record, by the way, is nothing for people listening. He graciously has donated his time to this podcast. Can you talk to me at all about what you know about this James Younger case in Texas? It was actually, I think you wrote the article for the Federalist last year that I first read about that brought to my attention what's going on. And obviously, you've probably noticed it's blown up in the news over the past few weeks. And there is. a joint parenting agreement now between the two, but she seems to not be relenting. I mean, she is continuing to assist that it's abuse that the dad is allowing James to dress like a boy, not calling him Luna and things like that. Do you have, I don't know, any insight or analysis

that you can share with us? I have a great deal insight on it. I was actually in Texas when the father came up to me. I was at a conference and he came up to me and said, can you write an article about my son and this divorce thing that I'm going through. And I said, yes. And that was in November of 2018. I wrote the article. He said he was trying to raise some money for legal fees because his wife had called up his job and had him terminated.

There's another one where he got terminated. They said that he was, she told his company that he was working for, that he was abusing his child, so they fired him. Wow. And so I wrote the article. raised 60,000 with the first article published in November of 2018. They got a million hits to the server of Save James, and it crashed the server.

I remember that. I've been following Jeff Younger and James and his brother, Jude. I've been to the house. I've had dinner with them. My wife and I have spent time with him. I've ridden in the car. I've gone over to the mother's house with... the father and spend time.

The kid doesn't have gendered dysphoria. He doesn't want to be a girl. The mom's a pediatrician who wants her practice to be a rainbow trans kid practice. And she wants to use James as the poster boy to show how you can do this. And James really doesn't want any part of it. So recently with this new thing where they're shared custody, which never had happened before, James goes to school as a boy. He never wanted to be lunate.

That was mom's idea, not James' idea. So this is probably one of the most egregious child abuse cases that I've seen. And the mom really should be, I think, should lose her license to practice. She's not fit. Anybody who does this to a child and deliberately, is persuading him and to go to school beforehand she was as Luna.

And you know where the word Luna came from to give you an idea of what the mother's like? Keep in mind these are in vitro kids. She's never had childbearing has always been in vitro for her. So she has other children in vitro as well. The other children are always called James a lunatic. You're a lunatic. You're a lunatic.

So the mother decided that she would take the word lunatic and use Luna as his girl name. How encouraging. Isn't that wonderful? I mean, if that should tell you pretty much the mindset of mother who thinks actually she's the lunatic in my view. So yes, I think this is still a horrible case because the guy. kids thrown between mom and dad. And mom is going to pursue this. And she probably has unlimited funds from the LGBT to fight dad in court, which dad doesn't have. So I think mom potentially, if a lot of people don't get behind Jeff Younger, potentially has a much greater war chest to battle this in court.

Probably so. She has a louder one. I mean, there are a lot of people, if you have noticed it all in the last few weeks that have talked so much about this, that even got the attention of Governor Greg Abbott. The conservative side is just incensed over this. I mean, it's one thing. We already disagree with this idea that gender reassignment surgery is the answer and the solution to people who are confused or uncomfortable with their bodies, but especially when it comes to children.

And conservatives have talked a long time about this fear of the sexualization of children and even the normalization of things like pedophilia. And we really see this as one step in that direction. It's not the exact same. But as you said, it is sexual abuse of a child. And what bothers me is not just this mother, who I agree with you, seems to be completely off, but also the people on the left who are either silent about it or who are celebrating it when it comes to a child.

It's one thing for you to have the view that an adult can transition when they want to, okay, whatever. But a child who just by nature of their developmental stage can't really consent to this. And like you said, it's just doing whatever he is affirmed to do, just wants to be loved by his parents, just wants to be encouraged by them. I mean, I don't see how even if you have the ideology that tells you transgenderism is fine, how you can condone that for a child. I mean, that is really troubling to me. Yeah. Well, the people who started, we have Kenzie, Benjamin, and Money, and some others that started this issue back in the late 40s, early 50s.

And you can, you know, cheap plug for my book, but there's a great book, Paper Genders, that really explains what happened, how it got started. So if you want to go back and look at how this got started, don't take my word for it. The documents are there in that book. And they believe those three men who were the pioneers, Benjamin actually coined the term transsexual, transgender, back in the day. And they believed, all three men believed that it was perfectly okay for adult men to have sex with young boys. And all the better if you could make them look like girls. I mean, that makes sense. That makes sense when you think about it.

When you think about where this movement goes, I mean, we see there's something called Drag Queen Story Hour that happens at local libraries that seems to be happening more and more, even at elementary schools where, you know, drag queens, they'll dress up and they'll go and they'll just share some kind of story or even the sex education that we're seeing for kids as young as seven to 10 years old about gender fluidity, homosexuality, and things like that. what can parents do? I get that question a lot and sometimes I just don't know. I don't have school age kids yet. What can parents do that are afraid of what their kids are learning in school are afraid that maybe they're going to run into a situation where their, you know, I don't know,

their child pretends to be identifying as gender or seems to be confused. They're maybe afraid that if they teach their kids the wrong thing, CPS is going to be called. What do parents do in the face of all of this insanity. Yeah. Don't put your kids in public school. Yeah. Period. You know, homeschool them.

You know, start something at your church or with a group of people in the neighborhood, find somebody that's responsible because the public school systems have just become an indoctrination center for LGBT sexualization, whether it's transgender, lesbianism, homosexual, you name it. These drag queens are all homosexual. They're all over the top. And they're really not transgender. I mean, that's why we call them drag queens because they're not transgender.

And people need to understand that the people who identify as transgender, many of them are what we call autogynophiliacs. And autogynophilia is a whole separate condition. They will identify as transgender. They're not. They're suffering from autokinophilia, which is a sexual fetish disorder. Yeah. Is it attraction to the self? Is that what it is?

It's attraction to self if and when you're dressed up in the opposite gender. You become aroused by what you see in the mirror, and what you see in the mirror becomes the object of your sexual affection. And is that being treated any differently in mainstream psychology than transgenderism? No, no, because we have this cabal that says they're all transgender, so nobody ever goes for treatment until they contact me. and they've gone through this and they've had their body destroyed. And then I ask him, did you get sexually aroused when you put on women's clothing?

And they go, yeah. And I said, well, that isn't transgenderism. That's auto gynafilia. And just for the record, so that you and your audience knows, a real woman does not get sexually aroused when she puts on clothing. Right. Only people with auto gynafilia. And that represents a huge portion of the population. of men who identify as transgender.

They don't want to admit that it's a sexual fetish disorder. And then you have a transvestic fetish, which is similar, except they're aroused by a particular piece of clothing or an article of clothing or shoes or whatever. And so they will identify as transgender, but in fact, they're not. They're suffering from a sexual fetish disorder. But because they say they're transgender and want to transition,

nobody questions him. nobody talks to them about, well, you know, if you've got therapy, you could deal with this and understand that actually going through the surgery would it cause you to not be able to become aroused again. So why would you want to do that? So once they get the information to go, oh, I see it's not a good idea. Then you actually have people who are transvestites who are not transgender. They're just people who, you know, for the fun of it, like to dress up and go out in public. Then you have people who are suffering from body dysmorphy or dissociative disorder like myself

or some other emotional or psychological disorder that is never being addressed, treated, or diagnosed prior to giving somebody hormones and surgery. They only find out after the fact because once they have the surgery and they go through it and they've lost their job, family and everything, they go, wow, I still have gender dysphoria. don't feel good in my body, what was wrong, then you go for therapy and realize, oh, you didn't need it. You actually had bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or something else. And if we were to treat that disorder properly, you could have avoided hormone therapy and surgery. And so this is why today that for the proper research is unavailable because 90% of the people who go through

that or unavailable to even question about why they went through it. And so I'm trying to speak for the people that I know personally who are afraid to come out after they've detransitioned and say that it was a mistake. And I do it because I know that I've helped a lot of people who've written me and said, you know, I looked at your website. I didn't have to talk to you. I just read the articles you've written. And I realized that, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I've, have auto gonophilia, so I'm not going to transition. Or I was sexually abused. I'm not going to. So once a person takes some time, some quality time and begins to understand what happened to them that caused them to not like who they are, then they can avoid going to the gender clinics who won't look at

anything and just give you hormones the first day you're there and surgery whenever you want and not ruin their life. So that's really what I'm about. I don't dislike, I have a lot of friends who are transgender people who, you know, tell me, please keep doing what you're doing because I know people who are suffering a great deal. And so somebody needs to speak out. I'm glad you're allowing me the opportunity to share this, even though some people won't believe it. The people who are really hurting will believe it and will get help. Yes. And thank you for taking the time. could you, just two more quick questions, could you paint a picture of what the future looks like if we keep going this direction, if voices like yours are silenced, if our only recourse for people

struggling with any of these disorders that have to do with discomfort with the body or disordered thinking about the body, the only recourse is gender reassignment surgery. If we keep on going this direction of not being able to even define what a man or a woman is and having a million different genders and pronouns and things like that. What does the future look like, especially for those who are suffering? Yeah, we're going to see a lot more people committing suicide young people, especially. The confusion's not good. I mean, growing up, I don't care what year you grew up in, whether it's a 50s, 60s or the 2000s is tough.

And kids do not need any additional confusion added to them at school about gender books and pronouns and this crazy nonsense. So I think what it's going to look like is more suicides. I do really believe that someone with a much stronger, more powerful, more significant voice than mine is going to come forward and blow this thing to smithereens and it's all going to crash. That's what I believe. That's what I hope. I saw some comment the other day. There was something that went viral that mom had her young, four-year-old son holding up a a sign. She shared on social media went viral that said men can have periods too. Went viral. She was saying how awesome and wonderful it is. But I saw a comment on there. Of course, people who were

outraged. And someone said, I cannot wait until the pendulum swings back in the other direction. Absolutely. And to me, my husband and I talk about this, that's got to be what happens. I mean, it's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. And so it's got to be that unfortunately, there are going to be victims and casualties, fatalities due to this. But eventually it will be enough to where society has got to at some point before we reach some kind of extinction or just absolute anarchy before we say, oh, okay, this isn't working. We've got to swing back. That's my hope.

My last question is you mentioned Jesus being your boss. During this time, did you become a Christian or were you raised a Christian? Yeah, I went to church from the time I was seven years old. So, you know, I didn't really understand what that was about when I was seven, just like I didn't understand all the things that happened when I was seven. So you mature with that. And yeah, I had abandoned the idea of knowing what a relationship was like with my lord. And so when I went through this whole process,

I was an alcoholic and a drug addict and a transgender and a wacko nut job. homeless at one time. And so the only reason why I'm a quite young, handsome, 79-year-old man today is because I stopped drinking in 33 years sobriety and because I got my life back. And so that's what I do. And I just believe that, you know, this is going to swing the other way. And I write the books that I write so that people will read them long after I'm gone and they'll go, geez, that old guy was right.

Yeah. I think so. That's what I hope and that's what I pray for. I don't know if you've ever read the book, I Love Thy Body by Nancy Piercy. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. But she talks a lot about what you're talking about and having really a loving view of your own body and how we should be teaching that to our kids. And it goes in not just to transgenderism. It also goes into issues like abortion and promiscuity and things like that, an honorable view of the body. is what we should be teaching ourselves and teaching our kids and anything outside of that that says exactly what you said earlier that something's wrong with you and that you're

only affirmable if you change. That is child abuse. So it's my prayer that science, that already affirms that, but that the scientific community swings back in that direction and hopefully our moral landscape changes with it. So is there anything else that you would like to add or at least tell people where they can find you? Yeah, it's sex change. regret.com, but to help support what I do, because I do everything for free to help support what I do, buy my books. Go to the website, Sex Change, Regret. They're good books. Translife survivors, paper genders. All those books are great resource books. So buy them, buy them in large quantities and read them because you'll love them, I'm sure.

Sexchangeragrette.com. I'm sure that's going to be a huge resource for people who either know someone going through this or who just wants to get more educated on it. So thank you so much for what you do, for the books you write, for the interviews you do, for the articles you write. You are appreciated a very necessary voice and I'm thankful to God for how he's used to you. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it very much. Thank you.