My conversation with Hank

What I learned from a 70-year-old man who detransitioned after hormones and surgery and after living as a woman for 40 years

I’ll call him Hank.

Hank is in his early seventies, and until a few years back, he used to identify as a transgender woman. As a young man, he fought in Vietnam. The war left indelible scars in his psyche, so much so that upon his return, he went “straight to a psychologist” to get a handle on his PTSD. Several years later, Hank got married. He and his wife had children.

And then, in his early thirties, Hank identified as a transgender woman.

I met Hank fortuitously. One year and nine months back, our life had turned upside down. Our adult son came out as transgender – specifically, a lesbian, transgender woman. Last month, he started on hormones prescribed to him after a single visit to a social worker followed by a visit to a registered nurse, all within his university’s clinic.

Initially, after our son first came out as transgender, I believed him. I went down many rabbit holes online to find information about gender dysphoria. I also kept looking for someone older who has identified as a transgender woman for many years: someone who had gone down the path that our son has embarked on and could give me a first-hand account of what our son could expect in the coming years.

A couple of months earlier, I came across Hank. When we met over Skype. Hank looked quite a bit older than 70. I gently mentioned it to him, and he laughed. “That’s what these chemicals do to you,” he said. I asked whether I should address him as a man or a woman. “For the last several years, I have realized that I am a man and have been a man all along. I am finally old enough to be at peace with who I am.”

I asked Hank why he agreed to talk to me. After all, I was a stranger. (The cynic in me was thinking, what’s your angle?) “For my mother,” he replied. “When I identified as a transgender woman and told her, she did not know what to do. I put her through a lot of pain. She is long gone. I cannot apologize to her anymore, but I hope I can help some parents in the same position as her.”

At the same time, he cautioned that since our son was already an adult, the options for us are limited. “He’s in a position to ruin his life completely, and there’s very little you can do.”

I asked Hank about the events before he identified as a transgender woman. “My wife left me,” he said plainly. “And it was then that I started thinking, what is it that was lacking in me? And the feeling continued till I found another woman. But when she also left me, those thoughts came back. At the time, I was still dealing with my PTSD. I was still dealing with several unresolved issues from my childhood, which included sexual abuse. Around that time, I came across several people at the margins of society, people who today would be identified as L, or G, or Q, or T. Talking to them made me feel that I was in the wrong body and that I was a woman. My friends told me about hormones that could make me feel like one, and I got started on them soon after. But the demons in my mind refused to go away. And so I finally decided to go for surgery. Those days, it wasn’t easy to find information, but through my network, I came to know of a surgeon in …” [Hank mentioned the city and state where he went for the surgery].

“I finally got rid of my penis,” he said.

I asked Hank what had all changed after all these medical changes.

“Everything,” he replied. “Within less than a couple of years of hormones, I started having brain fog – I just couldn’t remember anything. My memory became progressively worse. By the time I was forty, I had already had my first heart attack, and I have been on a cocktail of heart medicines ever since. I had a stone in my liver, of the type my doctors had never seen. [As a vet, Hank has access to VA healthcare.] I have had kidney stones. I have had gallbladder stones. I had stones in my saliva glands, the size of lemon seeds, and they had to operate inside my mouth to get them out. I have low back pain and rheumatoid arthritis. I have asthma. I have hypertension. I have scleroderma. I have had a retinal detachment in one of my eyes, and I have to get it reattached every few years. [Hank mentioned retinal detachment as something he has seen with several other male-to-female transitioners.] I have lost quite a bit of my sight in that eye. And I will soon lose sight completely in the other one.”

“The only part of my body that is still okay is my little finger,” he joked.

“After my surgery, I lost all my sex drive. I have not been intimate with any woman for over 35 years now. I'm a eunuch without sexual desires.”

“And here’s the thing. After I had started taking hormones [but before surgery], I still went after women like I always did, like a man. None of my male instincts changed. In fact, I impregnated four women after taking hormones. But after the surgery, I lost every bit of my sexual drive.”

“It took me many years to come to terms with my trauma, my mental issues,” Hank continued.

“Did something happen to change your outlook?”

“Yes. Many of my friends – all transsexuals [Hank mentioned that that was the term used those days] – died or committed suicide. One of them, a trans woman, was my closest friend. A couple committed suicide because they could not deal with the constant barrage of physical and mental complications they were going through. These hormones and surgeries turn people into lifelong medical patients. It’s a constant drain on our lives – mental, physical, emotional, financial. I constantly forget things. I forget what I am doing or why I am doing something. I feel so sorry for the kids going into this for no reason.”

(I was reminded of my conversation during a recent meeting with fellow parents of adult male children who have started hormone therapy. One common theme many parents mentioned was how their previously extremely bright children have suddenly become somewhat less capable in mental activities.)

“I realized that I would go down the same path as my friends and die a horrible death or commit suicide unless I did something different. And that led me to look at my life. Look at my issues. It took me nearly forty years, but it made me realize that what I was seeking is a fantasy. No amount of hormones or surgery could change my body how I wanted it to. Whatever I did, I could not become a woman. All that I did was put on more and more “makeup.” Inside, I was still a man. I realized I had to love myself as I am in my body. I realized what an impossible situation I put my single mother in when I told her I am a trans woman.”

I told Hank about my son’s desire to freeze his sperm before starting his “journey.” Hank began to laugh uproariously. “This is exactly the kind of delusion I used to have when I was young. We did not have sperm freezing back then, but can you imagine any woman in her right mind agreeing to impregnate herself with the sperm from an obviously disturbed man? Someone like me? I have been with many women, even those who became pregnant by me and subsequently got an abortion. They still like me. However, as much as they like me and wish me well, the only reason they had [unprotected] sex with me is that they thought I wouldn’t be able to impregnate them. None of them ever wanted to have a child with me.”

We spoke for over one and a half hours. “Best of luck,” he said. “Your son will come to his senses one day. But – and it’s a huge but – I have no idea whether it will happen after a few months, a few years, or nearly forty years like me. When he is a broken man who can no longer delude himself.”