Two divorced fathers who became a transsexual ‘lesbian’ couple have been allowed to legally marry after one of the men had a sex change operation.
Paul, 65, now known as Jenny-Anne Bishop, and Alan, 68, now named Elen Heart, initially divorced their wives and lived together as a gay couple.
They then both became transsexuals and lived as a ‘lesbian’ couple.
Transsexual
The two men, who between them have five adult children from their original marriages, lived together in Clwyd, Wales, for six years as transsexual ‘lesbians’.
In the UK same-sex couples cannot legally marry but Paul underwent a sex change operation last year.
Under the Gender Recognition Act a transsexual with a gender recognition certificate can marry according to their assumed sex.
Harm
Critics of sex change operations say that gender dysphoria is a psychiatric problem, not a physical one, and radical physical surgery does more harm than good.
Last year a transsexual won the right to be treated as a man in the marriage system and a woman in the pension system.
Also last year a man who underwent sex change surgery to look like a woman – then changed back – said the NHS should halt all sex change operations.
Regret
Charles Kane, who spent £100,000 on operations to make him look like a woman, says he needed counselling, not surgery.
In 2002 doctors from the NHS Portman Clinic – an internationally acclaimed centre – stated, “what many patients find is that they are left with a mutilated body, but the internal conflicts remain”.
Many transsexuals regret their decision to live in the opposite sex. A Home Office report on transsexualism said: “Many people revert to their biological sex after living for some time in the opposite sex”.