{"id":180510,"date":"2018-12-15T05:33:35","date_gmt":"2018-12-15T05:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=180510"},"modified":"2018-12-18T05:54:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T05:54:02","slug":"im-proof-no-man-can-truly-become-a-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=180510","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m proof no man can truly become a woman’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sue Reid \u2013 Daily Mail Dec 13, 2018<\/h1>\n

On the phone, Leanne Mills\u2019s voice is gentle and could never be mistaken for a man\u2019s. When she opens the front door of her neat house in a quiet English village, I am greeted by a trim blonde with feminine hands and a perfect complexion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet a few minutes later, as she serves coffee in her sitting room, Leanne says with feeling: \u2018I can never be a woman. I was born male and it has taken me years to accept the truth that I am biologically still a man, whatever female hormones I swallow and whatever bits have been cut off me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Today it\u2019s trendy to be trans, especially among the young. I want to warn them that a man can never become a real woman, or vice versa. They are being oversold an impossible dream. They are being tricked.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Leanne<\/a>

Leanne Mills<\/p><\/div>\n

Leanne speaks with emotion. She is a transsexual who, at 34, had sex reassignment surgery \u2014 as it was then called \u2014 on the NHS at a clinic in Hove, East Sussex, after years of dressing sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman. She is now 57 and says that, since then, she has lived in a twilight world where \u2014 despite being bright and having passed the 11-plus \u2014 she has had only a string of dead-end jobs, has never found the love she craves, and remains to this day (as male or female) a virgin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although she says she doesn\u2019t regret having had surgery herself \u2014 what else, she reasons, could she have done? \u2014 she advises others not to rush into it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Born a boy and called Lee Antony, she began to feel she was in the wrong body at the age of four, when she tried on a Native American woman\u2019s costume at a children\u2019s dressing up party because \u2018it made me feel like one of the girls\u2019. At seven, she was being bullied at her all-boys primary school because she appeared so feminine and loathed football and playground rough-and-tumble.<\/span><\/p>\n

By her early teens, she was secretly rooting through the wardrobe of her mother, Mavis, trying on her clothes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I hated my male self and couldn\u2019t even look at my body naked in the mirror,\u2019 she says. \u2018Dressing as a woman made me feel happy.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

By her 17th birthday in January 1978, her \u2018girly feelings\u2019 were overwhelming. It was a day she will never forget. She blurted out to her astonished parents that she didn\u2019t want to be a boy any more.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Leanne<\/a>

Leanne as a boy, Lee, aged 11. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

At the family\u2019s dormer bungalow in Nottinghamshire, first came the tears, then profound shock.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her father Geoff, a police officer and former traffic warden, put his arm around his then teenage son and said: \u2018Oh Lee, all the doctors can do for you is cut it off.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, of course, these sound like harsh words. But Leanne says: \u2018I realise now my father was right. He knew, as I do, that I could never become a biological girl. I am only a facsimile of a woman.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Leanne \u2014 then still Lee, of course \u2014 buried her head in those delicate hands and wept at her father\u2019s pronouncement. The teenager had learnt about transsexualism \u2014 a term coined only a decade or two before \u2014 from a Seventies book by a U.S. psychiatrist that was on her parents\u2019 shelves. It was called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) and contained a short reference to transsexuals.<\/span><\/p>\n

To the horror of her distraught parents, Leanne then threatened to commit suicide if she couldn\u2019t become a girl. Her determination to change sex marked the start of a rift with her parents that lasted, on and off, until they died.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I have seen my family torn asunder, friends turning away and my hopes of ever finding love dashed,\u2019 she says. \u2018I have been denied children and, therefore, grandchildren \u2014 the important relationships that other women enjoy at my time of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I want to warn others of the reality of being a transsexual, and the tragedies it can bring.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Leanne is speaking out now and is in a unique position to do so. At 19, having moved away from home and living on benefits in a friend\u2019s flat in Birmingham, she was chosen to star in a groundbreaking TV film called What Am I?, which explored the then new phenomenon of transsexualism. It was aired again recently and, by chance, she saw it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The film, made in 1980, shows her experimenting with wearing skirts bought from a charity shop, and walking elegantly down the street in a woman\u2019s mac and high heels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tall, wafer-thin and pretty, with long hair, she talks about her hopes for the future. She is also filmed with a doctor, discussing her chances of getting sex reassignment surgery and her plans to live the rest of her life as a woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I guess I must have been the first \u201ctrans\u201d teenager to speak publicly,\u2019 she says. \u2018But knowing what I know today, watching the young me starting out on my long road made me feel profoundly sad.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Leanne wrote a moving letter to the Mail recently in which she voiced her concerns over the proposed Gender Recognition Bill, which is under scrutiny by the Government and is backed by trans activists as well as by Parliament\u2019s Women and Equalities Committee.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bill would make it easier for transgender people to \u2018self-identify\u2019 and, therefore, live as the opposite sex to the one they were born into.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Equalities Committee says it is key to trans people being \u2018treated equally and fairly\u2019. Under the plan, adults will be able to change their birth certificates without a doctor\u2019s diagnosis, while non-binary gender people \u2014 those unwilling to identify as female or male \u2014 will be able to record their gender as \u2018X\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

It means there will be no medical assessment necessary to legally become the opposite gender.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under current laws, anyone who wishes to transition must apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate. This requires a doctor\u2019s diagnosis of gender dysphoria \u2014 where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

It means lots of form-filling and the certificate is granted only if the person applying for it has lived in their chosen sex for two years. In the UK, only 5,000 people have managed to obtain one in a process hampered by red tape.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the Equalities Committee estimates that there are now between 200,000 and 500,000 trans people living in the UK (compared with only about 1,000 in 1980) and waiting times for treatment at gender identity clinics, particularly among under-18s \u2014 some aged just 11 and 12 \u2014 have grown hugely.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights charity Stonewall says 41 per cent of trans men and women have experienced a hate crime or incident in the past 12 months.<\/span><\/p>\n

A quarter have been homeless at some point in their lives, and many, even today, avoid being open about their chosen gender identity because of a negative reaction from families and friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Leanne warns that the proposed Bill, with its new legal entitlements, is unlikely to be a \u2018magic wand\u2019 bringing public acceptance of trans people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Trans success stories are widely publicised, yet failures seldom are,\u2019 she wrote in her letter to the Mail. \u2018I have the gravest concern regarding the implications of the Government\u2019s proposed trans self-identification Bill and its effect on confused young people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Today\u2019s rather reckless and, if I may say, irresponsible \u201ctrendy to be trans\u201d culture (which social media helps to promote) is pushing many of them towards making life-changing and irreversible surgical decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I cannot stress enough that it is absolutely essential to have in place medical checks and adequate preparation (which the Bill seeks to remove) before \u201ccrossing over\u201d. What if he or she discovers too late that they are not trans after all but, in fact, gay, a cross-dresser or asexual?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

She added: \u2018I once had high hopes of realising my teenage dream when I left hospital after surgery in 1995. All was well for some \u201cgolden years\u201d when I went clubbing and living life as a woman. However, it all unravelled because I cannot entirely escape the chains of my male origins.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t want others considering an irreversible transition to end up like me, lost in a twilight world of loneliness.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Leanne<\/a>

Leanne pictured after surgery in May 1979. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Leanne\u2019s life story is a sobering and salutary one. She lives alone now in the house where she grew up, having moved there after her mother\u2019s death five years ago. Despite her well-groomed appearance, she rarely goes out \u2014 and then only to do the shopping. She didn\u2019t attend her father\u2019s funeral in 2000 because she didn\u2019t want to embarrass her mother, who had told so few people that her son Lee was now Leanne.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Even though I reconciled with my mother after my dad\u2019s death, she would ask me to pretend I was a niece, or even still her son called Lee, if I phoned her up when friends or relatives were with her.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

When her mother died, Leanne found herself ostracised at the funeral she had arranged so carefully. Friends from her mother\u2019s line-dancing group (her mother had a fatal heart attack at 80 while on holiday with the group in Norfolk) didn\u2019t realise the son, Lee, whom Mavis had talked about, did not exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Even at the grave, some of those line-dancing friends turned their backs on me when \u201cLee\u201d turned out to be a woman called Leanne,\u2019 she explains.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are other sad stories, too. After her operation, Leanne began to hope she would make female friends to chat and spend time with. She went to a gym to inquire about membership and saw that some of the women were wandering about naked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I just had to leave. If I\u2019d joined, how could I not have told them I was biologically a man?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

She became wary of joining women\u2019s groups because the Women\u2019s Institute once turned her down for membership, saying \u2014 at the time \u2014 that they did not accept trans women.<\/span><\/p>\n

She also began to see boyfriends. That raised the thorny question of when to tell her date she\u2019d had sexual reassignment. Should it be on the first date or later, after the relationship had begun to grow?<\/span><\/p>\n

She remembers two occasions, both at a bar near her then home in Birmingham, when dates walked out on her after she told them the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019d met the first guy through a singles group. When I said what had happened to me, he just started shouting at me in front of the other customers before driving off, leaving me there with everyone staring,\u2019 recalls Leanne.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second date \u2014 a man with whom she was \u2018getting on great\u2019 \u2014 suddenly said to her: \u2018Wouldn\u2019t it be funny if you turned out to be a bloke?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

When Leanne confessed that she had indeed been born male, he got up and departed, too, saying he needed time to think.<\/span><\/p>\n

A third beau \u2014 an Australian man she met in Sydney on holiday \u2014 also left her high and dry. The pair went camping together and walked along the coast but soon<\/span><\/p>\n

the truth trickled out and he said his goodbyes, leaving her to fly home to the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

She admits relationships have been almost impossible.<\/span><\/p>\n

She has had post-operative complications, as many trans people who have reassignment surgery do. \u2018The doctors offered to re-do the surgery, but I thought it was too dangerous.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there is the social stigma, which has not gone away despite the UK\u2019s generally more enlightened attitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was out shopping recently when she saw a man who used to be a pupil at the same school as her when she was still Lee. The old schoolmate was standing in front of Leanne, who said: \u2018Hello, don\u2019t you recognise me? It\u2019s Lee.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

She explained she had transitioned and was now a woman. His response was to shake her hand, after which he turned on his heel and walked off.<\/span><\/p>\n

No wonder Leanne says her life now is lonely. When I visited, she\u2019d not had a caller at home for five weeks. So it is little surprise that she warns others who feel they were born in the wrong body not to make hasty decisions, especially when young.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018The propagandists tell them it\u2019s a bed of roses and they will be accepted by society. They think they\u2019ll find the right partner, that it will all be wonderful.\u2019 She shakes her head sadly. \u2018<\/span><\/p>\n

Source \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leanne Mills had sex reassignment surgery at 34. Now 57, she says that been living in a lonely, twilight world ever since and wants to warn others. A genuinely sad tale <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180510"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180561,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180510\/revisions\/180561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=180510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=180510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}