One transsexual's regret

I started training with the Citizens Advice Bureau earlier this year as I wanted something interesting and useful to do while my son was at school. At the interview I was asked if there were any situations I wouldn't be able to deal with and I was pretty upfront - thinking that this would be 'curtains' for me. I stated plainly - that if someone came in and wanted to get an abortion or the "morning after pill" I would not in conscience be able to help them. The interviewer said - "we have never been asked that before". So I was accepted.

Working at the CAB is an eye opener as each person who comes for advice has a unique problem - no two are the same.

Anyway - one person who came in was a transsexual - 'she' was very open about this and how it had destroyed 'her' life. The issue 'she' came in with, was to do with benefits.  Due to the operation 'going spectacularly wrong' - which was on the NHS, this person couldn't manage to hold down a job. The sex-change operation was in 'her' eyes a "disaster". She had been pressurised to go "the full monty" by the surgeon, rather than a half-way house operation. I got the grisly details which I will spare this blog!

'She' said if she had known all this, she would have just carried on being a cross-dresser which wouldn't have involved a full scale operation. ‘She’ said the hormone pills had terrible side-effects and she had to stop taking them. ‘She’ also said the public only get to hear about the "successful ones" - and that there is no voice for those, when it has gone badly wrong. ‘She’ wanted to tell her story so that others don't follow this path. ‘She’ also said she was worried about schools now telling primary school children they have to think about their genders - putting ideas into their heads! ‘She’ thought this was downright dangerous. ‘She’ says she thinks the sex-change operations should be banned.