Transgender surgery regret: 7News Spotlight airs claims medical industry is ‘violating’ vulnerable young people struggling with their identity

A woman who had her breasts removed in an attempt to become a man now feels “violated by the medical industry” and has made a “mistake” that has left her “worse off.”

Born a girl, Mel Jeffries grew into an unhappy, depressed teen who, like many teens, was confused about her identity and sexuality.

She thought her life would be better if she transitioned into a man, living as a man named Mason from the age of eighteen.

With the testosterone treatment, Mrs. Jeffries had a deeper voice, facial hair, more muscle and weight, but it wasn’t enough.

‘All my hatred of being a woman was just focused on my chest,” she said Channel 7’s spotlight program – so at age 26, he had her breasts removed, something she now considers one of the biggest mistakes of her life, as she returns to being a woman.

Spotlight claimed there are “thousands” of vulnerable young Australians who regret moving from male to female or female to male.

Ms. Jeffries describes her life as a “clusterf***” and said she will always bear the scars, physical and mental, of the choices she now regrets.

When she was 16, she said she was “just looking for a sense of belonging” and found solace in online communities.

“And then it’s, when you do a transition, it’s, oh, everybody gives you so much love,” she said.

Before she made decisions she now regrets, she had been through “quite a lot of experiences.”

“I was sexually assaulted and I feel like that was a big fuel for me to transition and not want to be a woman anymore,” she said.

Mrs. Jeffries thought that being a woman made her vulnerable and an easy target, and that she would be better off as a man.

“The magical thinking was, I could be anyone and I didn’t have to be myself. I wouldn’t have to deal with everything that happened in my life,” she said.

“Perhaps all my unhappiness is because I was born in the wrong . . . sex.”

The online community was almost like a new family’s love in supporting her transition.

She was told ‘there’s your biological family. They are the family you don’t choose. And then there’s your logical family. They are the ones who choose you.’

Getting started on testosterone was easy: She was prescribed it in a diagnosis that took less than an hour.

Ms. Jeffries felt she had been encouraged to begin the process because she had been ‘encouraged’ by others to think, ‘If you don’t switch, you will kill yourself.

“You’re just preparing people to do this, to hurt themselves.”

Ms Jeffries (pictured) said she will always bear the scars, physical and mental, of the choices she now regrets

She realized she had made a big mistake after the double mastectomy when, ironically, someone called her Mason, the name she had lived by for eight years.

“That just felt so strange and otherworldly,” she said, “that name just feels so disorienting to me.”

She wants other people to know the pain she went through. ‘I’ll never get over it. They’re wounds, they’re not even scars.

“It’s like I’m still bleeding. I’m still… processing and grieving… I’ve literally been violated by the medical industry.”

Mrs. Jeffries isn’t sure if she wants to be a mother, but is eager to meet someone she can share her life with.

For now, she focuses on her health and is comfortable as a woman.

‘Well, I’m a woman… it’s not just that I’m a woman. It’s like my sex is inherent in my experiences. Being a woman is inherent to who I am,” she said.

Earlier on Sunday, Channel 7 was criticized for using photos of transgender influencer Grace Hyland in a promotion for the Spotlight episode.

Transgender influencer Grace Hyland (pictured) criticized Channel 7 for using pictures of her in a promotion for the Spotlight episode

Ms Hyland, 20, used her TikTok account to criticize the network for giving the impression that she regretted changing her gender.

“I transitioned at age 13 and I don’t regret it at all,” adding that she had a breast augmentation two days earlier.

“And even though my face is in this, I don’t agree, I don’t stand for this story, I don’t stand for the sensationalism of this whole thing. Don’t twist Channel 7,” she said.

There are approximately 1,000 adolescents on gender treatment waiting lists across Australia.