Nathan Verhelst

There are many things I should be working on. I can't get anything else done until I somehow mark that Nathan Verhelst mattered.



It's not that I am against euthanasia. It's that I hate that we failed Verhelst. I mean we as a society and we as gender mental health and medical providers.




Nathan Verhelst suicided through euthanasia on the grounds of "unbearable psychological suffering." He reportedly said, " when I looked in the mirror, I was disgusted with myself. My new breasts did not match my expectations and my new penis had symptoms of rejection. I do not want to be a monster."



That was excruciating to read. Verhelst must have suffered so much that this was the only solution Verhelst could identify.



Now I know that newspapers and media misrepresent things so it's hard to trust what is said to be 100% accurate. Still, if his mother said any of what she is reported to have said, she should never have been permitted to parent children. As a parent, I can't help but be judgmental. We never know what child we will get, but the fact the child was ugly to her from birth? We are to guard, and develop our children regardless of who they are. That she wanted sons and not a daughter? It is appalling. Any child of hers would be doomed from the very beginning. Even if Verhelst had another parent all they could do is get the children away from their biological mother.



Reading what his mother reportedly said "When I saw 'Nancy' for the first time, my dream was shattered. She was so ugly. I had a phantom birth. Her death does not bother me," Verhelst's mother told Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper.



This is an individual who may be an example of a woman for whom a misogynist world may have created gender dysphoria. It certainly seems plausible. "I was the girl that nobody wanted." "While my brothers were celebrated, I got a storage room above the garage as a bedroom. 'If only you had been a boy', my mother complained. I was tolerated, nothing more."



Her mother reportedly said, "I will definitely read it but it will be full of lies. For me, this chapter is closed. Her death does not bother me. I feel no sorrow, no doubt or remorse. We never had a bond."



No, they could never have had a bond. All children deserve to have parents who want them. It certainly seems possible that this was a girl who believed she was a failure from birth and her mother suggesting she could have had a different life if she had been born a boy. It's not hard to imagine a girl desperately wanting to do anything to be accepted and loved, even changing her body to be the boy her mother wanted..



I still believe the exception proves the rule. By and large, most people who transition report transitioning was a good choice for them, even if it is an imperfect choice. But there are those who have been harmed by their families, by society, by homophobia, and by misogyny. It certainly seems possible Verhelst's whole life was an attempt to become someone loveable in the eyes of his deeply disturbed parent.
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