A man who underwent sex change surgery at a cost to the NHS of £10,000 now wants the operation reversed.
Speaking to Closer magazine, Matthew Attonley, who is now known as Chelsea, said that since the operation he feels like he is “living a lie”.
Attonley also spoke of his struggle with anxiety and depression as a result of the hormones he was prescribed.
Lie
It has been seven years since Attonley had the operation but he feels that he “has never been fully accepted as a real woman”.
Attonley told Closer: “I have always longed to be a woman, but no amount of surgery can give me an actual female body and I feel like I am living a lie.”
He added: “I have realised it would be easier to stop fighting the way I look naturally and accept that I was born a man physically.”
Pretending
Attonley went on to say: “I thought the surgery would make me feel complete but it didn’t.
“I knew deep down that, even though I had had surgery, I had still been born a man.”
“I could not keep up the act of pretending to be a woman anymore. It was making me miserable.”
Ridiculous
Attonley said: “No matter how much make-up I put on or how I dressed, I knew people would not know me as a real woman.”
Attonley hopes that the NHS will pay for the necessary surgery to physically become a man again.
Alex Wild, research director for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “The NHS must prioritise crucial frontline services over ridiculous vanity operations.
Suicide
“This whole saga has simply cost far too much. If the Health Service is to be properly funded, this sort of waste must be cut out.”
Last year, a woman in Belgium ended her life by euthanasia after a sex change operation did not meet her expectations.
Research has shown that a high number of people who undergo sex change surgery go on to commit suicide.