Gender incongruence in surgeon who amputated legs

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/surgeon-neil-hoppers-twisted-world-10476298

'The case of double amputee surgeon Andrew Neil Hopper, who infected his own legs with dry ice so they could be amputated because he had a fetish for amputations has opened a window into a truly bizarre world of dark web pornography and weird sexual fantasies for cut-off limbs and "stumps that look so sexy".
At a sentencing hearing at Truro Crown Court today (Thursday September 4) it was heard how Hopper had throughout his life felt that he was in the wrong body and wanted to be a woman, but could not talk to anyone about it in the small rural village in Wales where he grew up.
The court was told how Hopper went to medical school where met his wife and future mother of his children and confided in her about his gender issues but never to his colleagues for fear he would be cast out out and left isolated. Neither did he confide to anyone about his body integrity disorder and the deep-rooted loathing he had for his legs and feet.'

Well congratulations @BettyBooper you must have said something right! 😬

I read these things and think JKR was ahead of this in her books. It's almost like she took all the 'go and educate yourself ' stuff literally, it's just she learned a little too much.

My thoughts exactly.

What's most concerning about this story is that he is a vascular surgeon who has performed limb amputations in the course of his work, with a sexual fetish for limb amputation...

That is beyond grotesque and if you or your family had been operated on by this man you’d be feeling sick to your stomach.

Edited to add that the web is increasingly demonstrating the terrible toll it’s taking on society.

Its almost like we're not showed to look for or refer to patterns.

No, no patterns, nothing is predictable!

The queening of everything 🙄

Yeah, nothing is predictable except men's ability to turn literally anything into a fetish

Still...

Hopper.

Sado masochism is a paraphilia. Over 150 million copies of 50 Shades of Grey were sold and overwhelmingly read by women.

I'm not saying th treatment includes that, just that it likely feels highly distressing for people who experience it.

I don’t understand what his sexual identity had to do with his offence / this story.

Although it feels alarming to have both gender dysphoria as well as such a weird and dark fetish.

I reported my own post above pointing that out and asked mumsnet to reinstate your post. I think we've got a malicious reporter 🙄

In one message he said: "It's going to be awesome being a double amputee", which he completed with a picture of his erect penis.

Is this the sort of distress you mean?

@BettyBooper No dice from MNHQ for me I'm afraid, maybe you could ask for it to be reinstated too? They won't discuss it with me because it wasn't my post but said they can discuss it with you

Really struggle to see how this is wildly different from having your penis lopped off to satisfy an identity delusion? Both are absolutely absurd.

This is a stop the world level of wtf.

A severed limb fetish isn’t comparable to reading 50 Shades of Grey is it.

I can't help wondering why he and/or his legal team have been so open about his fantasies. Wouldn't he have been better off just pretending it was insurance fraud and was mainly driven by money? It's also hard not to question if the gender identity comments are just an ill judged attempt to help extenuate what he has done. Or maybe not so ill judged. His sentence seems remarkably lenient, given his position.

I'd also like to know how the truth emerged. It's reported that he was even interviewed on TV as a brave disability campaigner.

I totally agree with the other posters about the distress that will have been caused to some of those on whom he performed surgery.

And pretending you're a girl and having your penis cut off ... isn't fraud?

Well it would be if you’d insured your penis for £400k and told the insurance company a pack of porkies about the circumstances necessitating its removal. Financial crimes have always been taken more seriously than crimes of violence in the UK.

@nettie434 Completely agree. I think most of us feel like we would die rather than let people know we had this kind of extreme sexual fetish. And yet there do seem to be many cases where men with these strong feelings do want to talk about them and be open about it. It's almost as if they can't help themselves, or involving others in it is part of the compulsion.

Plus, in this case I think the evidence spoke for itself about his grim fantasies eg the messages and so on, although agree, I'm unsure why they, presumably voluntarily, brought the gender issues into it. I suspect as you say in an attempt to garner sympathy.

Instead, people might start to ask things like, 'What's the difference?', 'Why is it OK when it is a penis but not legs?', 'Why is one a mental health issue and one your true identity?', or even 'Why are the surrounding patterns of behaviour so similar if these things really are so different?'. And most of those people probably won't want to square that circle by concluding that the desire to live as a double amputee is a true identity worth celebrating.

Surely it’s a fetish not an identity issue. The message sent along with pic of erect penis supports that!!

Sorry meant gender identity not sexual identity

I assumed that disclosing the identity/distress part was all part of a “woe is me” defence strategy to convince the judge he’s just a poor sad man suffering massively under the strain of such mental health distress he should be subjected to some form of leniency 🙄

It’s gross, absolutely gross

Can it be a fetish AND an identity issue? Why would it be an identity issue when a man believes he is / should be female but not if he feels the same way about being an amputee? Do you really believe there is no connection between this man's negative / fetishistic feelings about one aspect of his body and the rest? How is dressing in your sister's clothes an identity? Does he think he is his sister? And was sexual identity for gender identity a typo, or just a good example of a Freudian slip?

So he was too scared to tell people about his body dysmorphia when younger but not to scared to lop his legs off and then become national news?

the very thought of leg amputation gives him a hard on. I await the scandal of operating nurses saying they noticed but no one noticed.

who makes the call that a leg is non viable? I imagine the operating vascular gets a say. How many people are involved. How much weight does the surgeons opinion carry. I’m guessing he was pretty keen. I assume some one will review every single case?