Free Republic

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Cross-dressed by his grandmother as a child, abused by his uncle, confused and hurting, Walt Heyer sought to become a woman. As a young man, he underwent attempted gender-reassignment surgery, lived as a trans-identifying woman for eight years, and ultimately detransitioned. Heyer, now 83, has spent the past few decades offering support to men and women who also have been taught to believe they were born in the wrong body. As part of that effort, he told The Daily Signal, he’s written a number of books and answered “thousands” of letters from individuals, often men, who...

“There are a few reasons we are allowed to deny requests for building use,” the Addison Northwest Supervisory District superintendent said. “Disagreeing with a group’s views is not one of them.” On June 20, conservative activist Walt Heyer, who previously identified as a trans woman and now advocates against gender-affirming care practices, will speak in Vergennes. At an evening seminar — titled “Transgender ‘Care’/Helpful or Harmful?” — Heyer will outline his criticisms of gender-affirming treatments, according to an event flyer, including an argument that using trans people’s preferred pronouns can be damaging. The venue? A public school — specifically, Vergennes...

As I learned through my painful experience, ‘gender affirming treatment’ is medical fraud and malpractice.This April marks 40 years since my therapist told me a “sex change” was the only answer to my persistent mental difficulties. Unfortunately, I followed his advice, obtained cross-sex hormones, and underwent surgery. As I learned through my painful experience, “gender-affirming treatment” (GAT), also known as “gender-affirming care,” is medical fraud and malpractice.A person’s sex cannot be changed. I know. I lived and identified as a woman for eight years. Hormones and surgery didn’t change my sex. I was a man before surgery, and I remained...

"I haven't found one person that actually has gender dysphoria," Walt Heyer said. "I have found that they have generalized dysphoria." Walt Heyer, one of the first transgender women when he transitioned four decades ago, has long since transitioned back to male. Today he rejects the notion that there can be a transgender person, arguing a person struggling with gender dysphoria almost always an underlying issue. "People who identify this way are struggling with either bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, body dysmorphia, depression, or some underlying comorbid issue," Heyer said on "The New Foundation for American Greatness," a Just the News special...

The Florida Board of Medicine voted on Aug. 5 to advance a plan that would ban doctors from providing gender-affirming treatments such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers to youth under the age of 18.Florida Department of Health Secretary, Dr. Joseph Ladapo acknowledged at the public hearing in Broward County, that there were “strong feelings about the issue,” but argued that current standards of care are a “substantial departure” from the “level of evidence and data surrounding the issue.”“It is very clear that the effectiveness is completely uncertain,” Ladapo said. “I mean, maybe it is effective, but the scientific studies...

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...

'Our hate speech policy prohibits videos which assert that someone’s sexuality or gender identity is a disease or a mental illness,' YouTube said in a statement. Information provided exclusively to The Federalist shows YouTube removed a Heritage Foundation video featuring testimony from a former transgender-identifying woman for violating the company’s hate speech policy. YouTube confirmed the decision in a Thursday email to The Federalist.Now Heritage is fighting back with a new video, released first to The Federalist, in which Federalist contributor Walt Heyer doubles down.“I said that children suffering from gender dysphoria should not be encouraged to try experimental hormones...

In a closely watched Dallas, Texas, child custody case, Judge Kim Cooks put aside the disappointing juryÂ’s verdict of Monday against the father and ruled Thursday that Jeffrey Younger now has equal joint conservatorship with the mother, Dr. Anne Georgulas, of their twin boys.The mother no longer has unfettered authority to manipulate her 7-year old boy into gender transition. Instead both mother and father will share equally in medical, psychological, and other decision-making for the boys. Additionally, the judge changed the custody terms to give Younger an equal amount of visitation time with his sons, something that had been...

A man who underwent a sex change and now regrets it is urging people to resist transgender medicine and related therapies, saying we are medically "manufacturing" children as transgender and abusing them. Speaking on a panel before a small crowd gathered at the Heritage Foundation Thursday, Walt Heyer, a man who formerly lived and identified as a transgender woman named Laura for eight years. He underwent surgery in 1983 and spoke of his experience of being psychologically abused and how that contributed to significant discomfort with his body. This is now playing out on a massive scale, he said, and...

Fourteen years ago, school teacher Herb McCaffrey made the local news by deciding to live as a female with the name Kerri. After much soul-searching, however, this teacher says, “Since then I have come to the realization that I made a mistake. I am living my life as honestly as I can. I am working as ‘Ms. McCaffrey.’ I have learned to love both the reading and writing of poetry. I try to be as graceful in life as I can. I put my heart and soul into being the best I can be. God is there for me...

....Obama, the titular head of the LGBT movement, has added to the firestorm of confusion...by threatening schools with loss of federal funding unless they allow students to join the sex-segregated restroom, locker room, and sports teams of their chosen gender, without regard to biological reality. ....As someone who underwent surgery from male to female and lived as a female for eight years before returning to living as a man, I know firsthand what it’s like to be a transgender person.... What has arisen is a new breed emerging among young people that falls outside the purview of the LGBT: the...

President Barack Obama, the titular head of the LGBT movement, has added to the firestorm of confusion, misunderstanding, and fury surrounding the transgender bathroom debate by threatening schools with loss of federal funding unless they allow students to join the sex-segregated restroom, locker room, and sports teams of their chosen gender, without regard to biological reality. I know firsthand what it’s like to be a transgender person—and how misguided it is to think one can change gender through hormones and surgery. His action comes after weeks of protests against the state of North Carolina for its so-called anti-LGBT bathroom bill....

The Transgender Bill hearing included a lot of well-rehearsed stories of discrimination and anguish by transgender activists because they're not accepted by society. Thus, they say, a law is needed to force that. (See our analysis of the Transgender Bill H502.) But there's another, much darker side to that story that doesn't get out: The fraudulent and destructive nature of the transgender movement and the harm it does to vulnerable people. But MassResistance was at the hearing to tell that side of it. As we mentioned in our last email, we were submitting testimony from the daughter of a man...