Target 11 Investigates Internet Castration Services
Local Cases Put Two People In Jail
Karen Welles, Target 11 Investigator
POSTED: 5:59 PM EST November 25, 2003
UPDATED: 10:31 AM EST November 26, 2003
PITTSBURGH -- Home castrations may sound bizarre enough, but the Pittsburgh area has had two such cases recently. Both times, those who performed the procedure ended up in jail.
First, Tammy Feldbaum -- she is the transsexual who was convicted of killing her husband during a botched castration. And more recently, Doug Lenhart, who is accused of pretending to be a doctor and castrating a transgender who nearly bled to death.
Target 11's Karen Welles investigated and found home castrations are an underground cottage industry.
Catherine Watson told Target 11 she wanted to be castrated, so she went on the Internet looking for someone to do the procedure. Target 11 went looking, too, and the investigators were amazed at what was found.
"I was born what they would consider male but my male sexual organs were not ever fully developed, they never functioned," Watson said.
Watson said she always felt like she was a girl, so she legally changed her gender to female but didn't have the money to have her male sexual organs removed.
"I was desperate, I was at my wits end and I just wanted to be whole," she said.
So, she turned to transgender Internet Web sites, where she said someone put her in touch with Lenhart.
"So that gave me some hope because at that point I was suicidal," Watson said.
In his Yahoo profile, Lenhart goes by "PGH Chemist." In one group, Target 11 found him corresponding with people who are looking to be castrated saying, "I'm a cutter/castrator." Cutter, Target 11 found, is what home castrators are called in this underground community.
Lenhart said "as a provider of castration services" he does an "average of three per month." Although Lenhart is not a doctor, Watson said she thought he was.
"I believed him. I believed him when he said he wanted to help me."
Watson said Lenhart offered to perform the surgery for $800 and take payments, which was a lot less than what the surgery would cost in a traditional setting.
"He gave me the hope I needed and it was a false hope," she said.
So in her home, with tools and no anesthesia, Watson told police Lenhart removed most of her male parts in a painful procedure and half-way through she realized he couldn't stop the bleeding. She was rushed to a hospital and Lenhart was later arrested.
Now, Watson goes online to warn others seeking castrations of her near-death experience.
"They just want to make their body who their mind and soul are," she said.
And she's asking for donations to a reconstructive surgery fund that's been set up at Irwin Bank in White Oak to help fix what's been done to her body. She said a local doctor has donated his services, but she needs to come up with $5,000 in hospital fees.
She said, "If you if you feel you're out of place and you're a transgender person, you have to be a rich transgender person. People who go through the measures of hiring a person off the Internet do so because that's a last resort. I felt it was a last resort for me."
Target 11 found other people on the Internet looking to be castrated, not to change their gender but to curb an out of control sex drive.
:nono:
Local Cases Put Two People In Jail
Karen Welles, Target 11 Investigator
POSTED: 5:59 PM EST November 25, 2003
UPDATED: 10:31 AM EST November 26, 2003
PITTSBURGH -- Home castrations may sound bizarre enough, but the Pittsburgh area has had two such cases recently. Both times, those who performed the procedure ended up in jail.
First, Tammy Feldbaum -- she is the transsexual who was convicted of killing her husband during a botched castration. And more recently, Doug Lenhart, who is accused of pretending to be a doctor and castrating a transgender who nearly bled to death.
Target 11's Karen Welles investigated and found home castrations are an underground cottage industry.
Catherine Watson told Target 11 she wanted to be castrated, so she went on the Internet looking for someone to do the procedure. Target 11 went looking, too, and the investigators were amazed at what was found.
"I was born what they would consider male but my male sexual organs were not ever fully developed, they never functioned," Watson said.
Watson said she always felt like she was a girl, so she legally changed her gender to female but didn't have the money to have her male sexual organs removed.
"I was desperate, I was at my wits end and I just wanted to be whole," she said.
So, she turned to transgender Internet Web sites, where she said someone put her in touch with Lenhart.
"So that gave me some hope because at that point I was suicidal," Watson said.
In his Yahoo profile, Lenhart goes by "PGH Chemist." In one group, Target 11 found him corresponding with people who are looking to be castrated saying, "I'm a cutter/castrator." Cutter, Target 11 found, is what home castrators are called in this underground community.
Lenhart said "as a provider of castration services" he does an "average of three per month." Although Lenhart is not a doctor, Watson said she thought he was.
"I believed him. I believed him when he said he wanted to help me."
Watson said Lenhart offered to perform the surgery for $800 and take payments, which was a lot less than what the surgery would cost in a traditional setting.
"He gave me the hope I needed and it was a false hope," she said.
So in her home, with tools and no anesthesia, Watson told police Lenhart removed most of her male parts in a painful procedure and half-way through she realized he couldn't stop the bleeding. She was rushed to a hospital and Lenhart was later arrested.
Now, Watson goes online to warn others seeking castrations of her near-death experience.
"They just want to make their body who their mind and soul are," she said.
And she's asking for donations to a reconstructive surgery fund that's been set up at Irwin Bank in White Oak to help fix what's been done to her body. She said a local doctor has donated his services, but she needs to come up with $5,000 in hospital fees.
She said, "If you if you feel you're out of place and you're a transgender person, you have to be a rich transgender person. People who go through the measures of hiring a person off the Internet do so because that's a last resort. I felt it was a last resort for me."
Target 11 found other people on the Internet looking to be castrated, not to change their gender but to curb an out of control sex drive.
:nono: 
