MCKEESPORT, PA. Woman describes what brought about castration situation

Sex-change operations are costly and rarely covered by insurance companies.
McKEESPORT, Pa. (AP) -- It would have been easier, Catherine Watson says, if her body and mind were the same gender.
Biologically, she said, she was born a male, but as a child she identified with being a girl and began dressing as such at age 9. She eventually went to counseling, accepted who she was and had her name and gender legally changed.
"For some reason, God screwed me up. That's how I look at it," said Watson, 45. "I consider it a birth defect because I have never functioned as a male. ... I have been a woman all my life."
Unable to afford a traditional sexual reassignment surgery, Watson said, she turned to a man who offered to do it at her home.
Frustration
Though exact numbers are difficult to determine, doctors and advocates who work with transgendered people say the frustration felt at being in the wrong body is enough to push some people to such ends, though cases are extremely rare.
Self or underground castration probably happens more than the few instances that appear in the media, according to transgendered advocates and doctors. It's also more likely to occur among men interested in extreme body modification than among transgendered women, they said.
"This is difficult for people to understand who are not transsexuals themselves, but our bodies are prisons," said Jessica Xavier, a transgendered health-care researcher in Washington, D.C.
Jennifer Boylan, a Colby College professor who underwent sexual reassignment surgery last year, said she can identify, somewhat, with the drastic step Watson took.
"It seemed to me one step short of suicide. That's not to say that I don't fully understand the melancholy and agony of people out there with this condition," Boylan said.
Performing surgeries
So-called "cutters" -- people who perform castrations or penectomies -- generally operate in the country's heartland, Xavier said, and prey upon transgendered women who can't afford legitimate sexual reassignment surgery.
"Usually what happens is, a small practitioner will come to a small city, quietly put out the word that he's in town and can do [the procedure]," she said. "He will perform as many procedures as he can before word gets out that he's a butcher, and he quietly leaves town."
Sexual reassignment surgery is expensive and rarely is covered by insurance, Xavier said.
Male-to-female sexual reassignment surgery can cost between $10,000 and $25,000, said Bean Robinson, executive director of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association Inc. in Minneapolis. Female-to-male surgery can cost upwards of $80,000. She could not say how many sexual reassignment surgeries are performed annually.
Dr. Eugene Schrang of Neena, Wis., is one of a handful of doctors who do sexual reassignment surgeries in the United States and said he has performed about 1,000.
The risks of self or underground castrations are great, he said.
"You can get so much scarring," Dr. Schrang said. "You could hurt yourself badly" or die, he said.
Watson said she planned to undergo proper sexual reassignment surgery. She took estrogen and medication to suppress testosterone as part of her preparation. But after a financial setback when her former partner developed cancer and another when a doctor said he wanted more money, Watson became desperate.
One day several months ago, she saw herself in the bathroom mirror, with a body that didn't match who she was.
"I got so depressed, I wanted to kill myself," she said.
She turned to the Internet looking for someone who would castrate her and make her look "more feminine."
The castration
She found a man who she said told her he was a doctor and had performed 23 castrations. On Sept. 12, on the dining room table of her home in suburban Pittsburgh, she said, he castrated her in a procedure that went awry when she wouldn't stop bleeding.
"I think he cut some of the arteries," she said. "I was screaming at this point. I was out of my mind."
He had given her pain medication and anesthetic spray, but they were wearing off, she said. The pain was horrible, she said.
"I went into survival mode. I said, 'We need to call an ambulance,' at which point he packed his belongings and left," she said.
The man, Doug Lenhart, is charged with practicing medicine or surgery without a license, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. His attorney said Lenhart was trying to help Watson.
Still, Watson said she is happier after the procedure and hopes to complete sexual reassignment surgery.
A doctor has agreed to donate his time, and Watson, who has been unemployed since the incident, is trying to come up with the estimated $5,000 needed for the hospital operating room rental, anesthesiologist and technicians. She's even selling her BMW motorcycle and whatever possessions she can, she said.