A trans woman who was tried for murder during her life as a gangster is pleading with the NHS to fix botched gender reassignment surgery.
Lisa Docherty said that anatomically she was left “like a child’s doll” in 2007 after a series of infections ruined the gender reassignment operation she’d had five years earlier.
The 52-year-old says she has been written off by the NHS and is desperate for help to become “a complete person” again.
She added: “I’m not asking for special treatment. I just want a chance to be the woman I always felt I should be.”
She claims the Sandyford Clinic, in Glasgow, Scotland’s major centre for gender-related issues and health, seems to have “washed its hands” of her even though she is desperate after being unable to have an intimate life for 16 years.
In an exclusive interview with the Record, she explained genital surgery was all she was given in 2002 and none of the work that would have made it easier to be accepted as a woman had been done.
She added: “Nothing was ever done about the fact that, like many male-to-female transsexuals, I have male features.
“That was the root of my gender dysphoria and that’s what still makes me uncomfortable when I look in the mirror.
“I had the surgery and took the hormones to transform my body but I still look in the mirror and see a man’s face, with facial hair and body hair also a massive problem.”
Lisa was charged over the murder of Francis McMillan in 1995, even though she was cleared of any involvement and a man was convicted.
She made headlines 20 years ago when she fathered a child with her female partner but continued with plans for full gender reassignment.
Later the relationship fell apart and Lisa no longer sees her daughter.
Her early life as a woman was troubled with infections, which she says were caused by the failure to give her electrolysis to remove hair follicles in her genital area before surgery.
Lisa says she was bullied at school. This hindered her academically, despite a high IQ. In recent years, she has been diagnosed with autism and ADHD.
She said: “I was beaten up throughout childhood for being different and, as an adult, was attacked weekly because of the way I looked.
“The minute I said enough was enough and fought back, always as a last resort in
self-defence, I was a gangster.”
She added: “What everyone ignored was that I had saved people’s lives, created jobs when I ran my own company, did unpaid work in the community but the gangster label is hard to shake even if it’s not deserved.”
Describing the hell of the reassignment aftermath she said: “Before my operation I was given gel and a razor and told I had to have a really close shave, there should be no hairs left at all.
“The operation involves male parts being inverted to create female parts, so the area where hair grew that had been external became internal, and the hair follicles were left intact and hair continued to grow.
“Anyone who has suffered an ingrowing hair after a bad shave knows how painful it can be, and often a pus-filled boil results. Imagine having 100,000 hairs growing through your flesh inside you, and that’s what my life was like.
“I was constantly on antibiotics but the symptoms were always there, so I didn’t get better and the reconstruction just broke down completely. From 2007, I’ve had no male or female parts.”
She said: “I’ve had no intimacy for 16 years and that’s no way to live. I want to be able to live life like most people my age.”
Lisa added: “People object to public money being used to fund ‘cosmetic’ surgery. I can understand that but when the NHS has already used public funds to, in my case, mutilate healthy organs and then refuse to address the failings, I take issue.
“They sent me for surgery to make me better and actually made me worse, and now refuse to do anything about it.”
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC), which runs Sandyford, said: “While the Sandyford service can make the diagnosis of gender dysphoria and refer patients on for surgical opinion, gender reassignment surgery is not a service offered through NHSGGC or the Sandyford.
“As such, any advice in relation to specific surgery would come from the surgical team involved and this would include pre and post-operative care plans.”
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - sign up to our daily newsletter here.
