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EDITOR'S NOTE: This story contains explicit content.

September 9, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The idea that you can change someone’s sex is a lie, an Alabama-based plastic surgeon said, and pursuing this avenue with children amounts to child abuse.

“It's a form of tyranny, exercising a form of tyranny over our own bodies,” Dr. Patrick Lappert said. “And in the case of children, it's child abuse.” 

Appearing on a recent broadcast of Relevant Radio’s Trending with Timmerie, Lappert said the view that the human body is something that someone owns, that they can do things in order to provoke happiness in themselves, is a self-reverential view divorced from the objective reality of the human person.

Lappert briefly touched on the negative physical effects of same-sex sexual activity, and he also explained in detail the disturbing reality of what happens when a person undergoes so-called sex-change surgery.

He called it “utterly unacceptable” on moral grounds for a plastic surgeon, because it disregards the surgeon’s call to balance respect for both form and function of the body in his or her work.

Regarding children, Lappert said, sexualizing them at a young age with these ideas is grooming them for later abuse. 

“It's atrocious,” he said. “And no one even knows how that's going to play out. There's no body of scientific evidence to even support the safety of doing that to children. But it's being done.”

“Children do not have the capacity to consent to those sorts of treatments,” Lappert said of sex-change procedures. “You cannot tell a pre-adolescent child anything about their adult life and expect that they're going to understand what you're telling them.” 

“Their concept of themselves is in the formative years,” he continued. “And to ask a child to think of their sexuality when they're pre-adolescent is utterly insane. And it's in fact another great evil that's being inflicted upon children because it's the sexualization of normal chaste friendships of childhood.”

Lappert also explained how suggesting to pre-adolescent children that they may be gay sexualizes chaste friendships and prompts them to think this way. 

‘They will never be the other sex’

Asked “What is a sex change?” Lappert responded, “Well, to begin with, the idea that you can change someone's sex is a lie.”

“Many people have been led to believe by a lot of very clever programs and advertising from plastic surgeons and whatnot that you can actually change a man into a woman or a girl into a boy or anything like that,” he said. “You cannot. Essentially all you can do is you can modify people's bodies both with medicines as well as with surgery to make them appear to be the other sex, but they will never be the other sex.”

Lappert, a board certified general surgeon and plastic and reconstructive surgeon, is a Navy and Marine veteran, as well as a permanent deacon for the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama. He is also chaplain for the Courage apostolate in the Birmingham diocese.

Experts have said for years that surgery or hormone treatment for gender-confused individuals, and certainly encouraging transgender ideas in children, is not the solution, and can result in exacerbating their condition

Nonetheless, sex change surgeries have been on the rise, transgender ideology continues to be pushed in schools, civil government, and healthcare associations and institutions, while gender confused-individuals are also appearing more and more in pop culture, sports, media, and advertising.

The beginning stages

Lappert said gender confused individuals will typically begin by adopting a lifestyle and persona, change their name, hair and other aspects of their looks, and then move onto other identity components such as changing their driver's license and so on. Then hormonal medications are often introduced, and while sometimes these may initially make someone feel better about their gender confusion, this gives the false impression that surgical intervention will result in success, and taking hormones of the opposite sex over time can have a negative physical impact. 

Irreversible

Most of the chemical interventions and cosmetic procedures done to alter a person’s face or neck are to a degree reversible. However, Lappert warned, more invasive surgeries, such as mastectomy and procedures involving genitalia, are not.

A counterfeit vagina

In the case of men seeking to present as women, after they've had the other initial interventions performed, a definitive genital surgery includes castration, removal of the testicles, and the opening of the penis and removal of the erectile tissue, which is a procedure called penile inversion. This is where the penis is turned inside out and suspended up in the pelvis, turning it into “a receptive structure,” Lappert explained. 

The tissues of the scrotum are then turned into labia, meaning the external genitalia portions of the phallus itself are used to create the labia minora. In creating the receptive structure, the surgeon is trying to preserve the nerves, so that those parts of the genitalia that provoke erotic sensation can do so. 

“Which is a very challenging thing to try to do when you're essentially mutilating the penis,” he said, “to try to preserve the neurological support for it, so that the person can have erotic sensation from this counterfeit vagina that you've created.”

“The problem is that this counterfeit vagina doesn't want to keep its dimensions,” said Lappert. “And so you're constantly having to attend to the dilation of it to try to preserve its dimensions and so on. You also are taking the urethra that was in the penis and shortening it down so that it essentially is just an opening at the top of this counterfeit vaginal orifice that you've created.” 

This is the most commonly performed operation for males trying to present as female, he said.

A counterfeit penis

In the case of women trying to present as men, it begins with the removal of the ovaries and the uterus, removal of the vagina and the creation of a neo phallus, or a counterfeit penis.

This can be done a couple of different ways, he said, one being a high dose of testosterone, which will produce an enlargement of the clitoris, and then when you have exhausted those very high levels of testosterone, and they've had this effect on the clitoris, an operation is done to lengthen the urethra so that the urethra is extended along the underside of this enlarged clitoris, so that the urine empties at the tip of this structure. 

That operation is called a metoidioplasty.

“And essentially what you get there is a small phallus,” said Lappert, “and that's usually supplemented by creating a neo scrotum into which are placed two prosthetic testicles.”

For women seeking a more developed physique, Lappert continued, a neo phallus is produced by what's called a flap operation. 

This is where an area of tissue, typically from the leg, is raised up and surgically turned into a cylindrical structure inside of which is a urethral tube. That urethra tube is then connected to the native urethra, which appears at the base of the clitoris. The clitoris tissue itself is draped over the base of this neo phallus and then, again, a counterfeit scrotum with prosthetic testicles. 

“And then in that whole apparatus you can also implant malleable or inflatable prosthetics that can produce the appearance of an erection,” explained Lappert. “So that's called a phalloplasty by flap operation.”

The most common flap operation done today is to harvest the skin for the neo phallus from the forearm, said Lappert. 

“It's called a radial forearm flap and it's a tremendously disfiguring surgery on the forearm,” he said. “And so these women who are presenting as men will tattoo their forearms to conceal the disfigurement.” 

“And then so (ultimately) what you wind up with is a counterfeit phallus or a counterfeit vagina,” stated Lappert.

Why are these counterfeit?

“Because they don't function the way those structures function,” said Lappert. “It’s obviously the case with the reproductive organ that what you're doing is you're robbing the person of an essential human capacity of the reproductive faculty. And that's not reversible or retrievable.”

“You cannot preserve the procreative function when you do these operations,” stated Lappert.

A sterile act

The doctor then touched on the spiritual component with these procedures.

“As Catholics, we recognize the human sexual embrace that's having two aspects, its unity and its procreative,” said Lappert. “It unites the two persons in an emotional-spiritual bond. But it's also a fruitful union.” 

“Well, (with sex change procedures) you've robbed it of its fruitfulness,” he said. “It's now become a sterile act.” 

The erotic sensation is never fully preserved

“The other thing that people don't understand is that because of the surgeries I’ve just described the desire to preserve erotic sensation from these structures that you're mutilating is never fully met,” said Lappert.

In the nature of our nervous system there is a thing called neural mapping, he continued, meaning even though the physician works to preserve those nerves, the nerves continue to recognize sensations from their original form and function.

“The brain is still thinking that, even though you've turned your penis into a counterfeit vagina, whenever it is stimulated the brain is still thinking that there is a penis down there,” said Lappert. “So here's a person trying to live as a woman hoping that they're going to be able to conduct their lives as women, who enters into a relationship with a man, and then in a sexual act is constantly being reminded by their own bodies that they are in fact still men, and that's a hard one to get over.” 

The malpractice of medicine

Lappert also warned that a whole generation of children is being raised whose psychosexual, physical, and neurological development are being stunted in hopes of supporting this cross-sex idea of themselves – pushed by the transgender industry. 

He pointed out that if you took 100 children with cross-sex idea of themselves, 91 percent of them will desist. 

“Ninety-one percent of them will stop thinking of themselves as the other sex,” said Lappert. “But if you take the same hundred children to a transgender clinic at your local urban center, 100 percent of them will persist in it, which on the face of it tells you that this is this is the malpractice of medicine.” 

“If 91 percent of them would have gotten over the disease and 100 percent of them persistent and obviously you're doing something wrong here,” he added. “But nonetheless that's how it's being presented.”

“People are being led to believe that if you have the surgery your sorrows will go away,” said Lappert. “But what's called gender dysphoria, this interior sense of sadness that the persons who suffer with transgender feel, they're being told that if they have all of this medical and surgical therapy, that those bad feelings will go away. And the best study looking into that tells us that that is not the case.”

After a period of observation beyond some eight to 10 years, the suicide rate goes right back to where it was if nothing had been done for these people. 

“If you didn't offer them any care at all, you'd have the same suicide rate that people have now after all of the surgical interventions,” said Lappert. “And after the excitement dies down, and eight, 10 years later, they're right back to a 40 to 42 percent suicide rate. So that's a huge misrepresentation of benefit that is just not true.” 

Advocates for gender-confused individuals continually say these individuals need authentic psychological help that focuses upon the source of the confusion.

This kind of surgery is utterly unacceptable

Lappert called sex change surgery “an intentional destruction of a human faculty,” and  “so on moral grounds from the perspective of a plastic surgeon this kind of surgery is utterly unacceptable.”

The language of slavery

Because these procedures result in sterilization, they are tied to assisted reproductive technology, Lappert explained, with patients asked how they want to “preserve their fertility,” donating either sperm or ova, should they want children later.

“Those things will be put aside and for future assisted reproductive technology, essentially turning human persons into commodities,” Lappert said.

A huge evil

“Because they will be told, you have a right to have a child even though you're having this transgender surgery,” he said. “You have a right to have a child. So we're going to do these things for you. Well, that's the language of slavery, to speak of a person that's having a right to another person is the language of slavery.” 

“It's leading us to seeing the human person as a commodity that is regulated by the government, by government institutions, universities, and by laboratories,” Lappert continued. “And that is a huge evil. It's a huge evil and never forget, that transgender surgery is right at the heart of that evil.” 

“First of all because it utterly perverts our sense of human sexuality,” he said. “It internally divides the human person from their very own bodies. And now it's separating the human community from their reproductive faculties, in the era of assisted reproductive technology. So this is diabolical in every sense of the word. Diabolical.”

Rejecting objective truth

Encouraging people to pursue sex-change surgery rejects understanding of who the human person is, said Lappert. 

“One of the mistakes that people are making in contemporary life is viewing themselves as sort of a spirit creature and their bodies as something that they own or something that they possess,” he said. “They view their own bodies as something that they can do things to in order to provoke happiness in themselves. It's a very self-referential view of the human person and it has at its heart this division of the nature of the human person.” 

Plastic surgery can never divorce itself from objective reality just as no form of medical care can separate itself from the objective truth of who the human person is, he said.

“So if I aim to be a good surgeon, then the very first thing I have to understand is the subject upon whom I am working,” Lappert stated. “If I have met grave misunderstandings about the objective reality of that of the person, I'm going to be making some serious mistakes when I embark on medical or surgical care.” 

“To view the body as a thing, but somebody that a person owns, to view themselves, their personhood is something separate from their own bodies, is a very grave mistake,” he said. “And then to set about modifying the body in ways that you hope will bring about a lasting happiness can't possibly succeed, because it begins with a lie, it begins with an error about the objective truth of who the human person is.” 

The full interview with Dr. Patrick Lappert is available HERE.

Two positive resources for gender-confused and same-sex attracted individuals featured in the discussion were the Roman Catholic Courage apostolate and Walt Heyer’s outreach titled Sex Change Regret. Heyer had transitioned to living as a woman and then returned to living as a man, and now performs outreach for gender-confused people.

Information on Courage is available HERE and HERE.

The Sex Change Regret website can be accessed HERE.

James Shupe, formerly Jamie Shupe, ex-transgender and former non-binary person, writes about his experience and chronicles transgender issues HERE

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline provides free and confidential help and resources to individuals in distress 24/7. The number is 800-273-8255.

Additional resources are available here, here and here.