WEBVTT - Part Two: John Ronald Brown: The Worst Surgeon Ever 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:06.760 M episode start Begin now, Robert Evans, Behind the Bastards 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:12.160 Podcast Part two, John Ronald Brown, Sophia, Alexandra Guest, private 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:16.800 parts unknown, introduction bad, How are you doing, Sophia good? 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:24.920 Just you can mention my other podcast work with mild Gray. 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:29.720 It's I forgot to include of the actual words necessary 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.000 to make that salad not gibberish. So of course I 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.440 forgot your second podcast too. That was a disaster. A disaster, um. 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.120 I think you will keep having a disaster until you 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.920 commit to going back to the old ways what I 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:47.120 have my wise, I have committed to getting fired and 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.080 then becoming a corrupt small time cop. I think that's 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.279 the path I want to go with. Did you if 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.520 you watch Jaws recently, there's a scene in the second 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:01.320 Jaws movie where Sheriff Brody gets at oh man, it's great. 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:03.720 There's a scene in the second Jaws movie where Sheriff 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.680 Brody gets out of his police car and is preceded 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.520 by forty or fifty beer cans tumbling out onto the 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:15.479 ground around him, and like, that's exactly what I want 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:17.800 to do for a living, just rolling around in a 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.039 police car, drunk as ship with a gun. No accountability 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.160 on some beach town in the middle of nowhere. I'm 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:26.119 glad that you're going to be a corrupt small town 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.959 cop because, as as we discussed in the previous episode, 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.880 I will be performing unauthorized surgeries and at that point 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:39.160 I'm gonna need a friend in the police department. Friend, Yeah, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.640 this is the plan. Hey, would you like to be 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:47.760 the non doctor con man veterinarians doctor Spence to my 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:58.760 doctor Ronald und Yeah, no not, you're the cop. You 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:01.680 already have a role to play. Would you so feel 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.120 with you on anything? My friend? Perfect? We got a 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.360 clinic going, Robert, keep us out of the papers, all right, 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:12.680 Well that's good, you know, Sophie, it's complicated. I feel 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.040 like I want to know more about Spence because this 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.440 is not just a simple man pretending to be a doctor. 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.960 This is a man pretending to be a veterinarian who 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:21.960 pretends to be a doctor. And that's like a whole 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.680 different layer of scamminess. And oh, it's hilarious that he 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.120 needed to first fool himself to step one. He's like, no, 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.520 pretending to be a doctor. He's like, I can't do that, 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.480 that's too much lying. First, I'm gonna pretend to be 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:36.919 a vet and out of there pretending to be a doctor. 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.200 That's not that far. I can do that. Yeah, it's amazing, 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:42.840 It's really amazing. Can we put up a picture of 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:49.160 him too, because I'd like to, But the faces of 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.600 that firm were not for doctors clinic. He died in 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.200 a ditch like that is my assumption that he died 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:01.280 in a ditch overdosing on something horrible. If the world 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.120 it isn't any way, just in which it's not, he 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:12.200 would have died in a dish. So let's start part two. Um. Now, 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.240 As I mentioned in the first episode, John Ronald Brown 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.440 didn't only have sad stories in terms of his patients. 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.680 He had some happy customers. One of them was Patrese Baxter. 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:25.600 She was a longtime client and she calls him one 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:27.880 of the best surgeons in the United States, even though 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:29.520 by the time she met him, he was no longer 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.200 legally allowed to practice surgery in the United States. Still, 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.120 Dr Brown illegally gave Patrise a tummy tuck, a facelift, 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.760 and breast implants. She was so happy with the results 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.960 that she had him cut into her granddaughter's ears. Quote 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.200 they stuck out. The kids on her track team called 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.480 her dumbo, why don't you just fly? He did her 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:49.400 nose too. Patrese claims the surgery went well enough that 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.360 her granddaughter went on to work as a model, So 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.360 she clearly admired the man, But even Dr Brown's number 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.480 one fan acknowledged that he had some faults. She's also 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:02.840 not a good person if she's getting years of fucking granddaughter. Cut. 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:05.640 We haven't even gotten into what a bad person she 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:11.160 is right away. So she said he was brilliant, but 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.280 he had no common sense. He would walk through plate 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:20.640 glass doors. He couldn't balance his checkbook through a screen 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:27.320 door before. That is embarrassing and shameful. Um, now, just 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:32.880 t whis bring me to and it's very cute. Tut tusk, 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:36.479 tut tut tusk tusk who says that no one she 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.200 acknowledged that his bedside manner was not exactly great. Uh. 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.839 Sometimes he would grab a magazine mid conversation and start reading. 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.320 He mumbled frequently, and he never held his patient's hands. Still, 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:49.799 Patrese insists he was more of a hero than a villain. 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.320 He only charged for a sex change, and half the 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.960 time they didn't even pay. Now, before you take Pat 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.719 Baxter's commentary too seriously, you should know that she wasn't 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:04.120 just satisfied customer. She was also a surgical entrepreneur, which 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.320 is one of the most terrified phrases I've ever heard. 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.000 I lived in San Diego and ran a shady as 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.560 clinic in Mexico. She and John Brown became business partners 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.400 and worked together for years. She urged John to expand 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.479 his repertoire beyond basic plastic surgery and gender reassignment. There was, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.320 she told him, a vast untapped market in men who 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:27.600 wanted bigger dicks. Oh man, I'm kind of excited about 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:29.520 where this is going. Oh yeah, yeah, I know this 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.560 is going in a fun direction. And it's one of 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:35.560 those things we've just been talking about the most vulnerable 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:37.640 people in the world been getting screwed over by this guy. 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:48.960 Yeah about this, Yeah, I mean, I'm societal of this. Yeah, okay, yeah. 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.599 So Dr Brown got into the penix extension business in 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.520 Penthouse Forum sent a writer to to Wanta to investigate 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.200 Brown's practice. Now, the good not a doctor had started 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.080 claiming an advertise spence that he could add one to 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.679 two inches to a dick by cutting the suspenser ligament 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.400 that held the penis root to the pubic bone, which 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:08.600 I wrote as public bone, which is not a thing, 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.360 but I found funny. Um. The article, titled The Incredible 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:16.679 Dick Doctor, portrayed Dr Brown actively as a horrible driver 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.880 who frequently backed into other cars. It pointed out that 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.760 his pants fell down once in the o R at one. 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:31.080 Oh my god, that's like a cartoon. That's imagine, right 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.720 before doctor starts cutting into you, his pants fall down. 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.800 You're like, Okay, I have to cancel the surgery if 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:44.600 you know aeal. Next, I am fucking telling everyone an 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:50.280 anvil just falls on his head. That's ridiculous, dude. At 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.240 one point in the article, he accidentally cut a patient's 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.680 penile shaft, sending blood spurting all over the room. His 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:59.400 quoted response to this funk up was I made a 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.839 boo boo. I was gonna guess it was oops. But 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:07.160 this is worse. Yeah, that's definitely worse than oops. So 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.000 someone from Inside Edition must have been reading Penthouse for 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.400 the articles, because three years later they sent a team 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.960 to investigate Dr Brown. The resulting documentary, The Worst Doctor 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.920 in America, was filmed with Brown's oblivious consent. At one point, 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.800 it showed him performing scalp surgery on a transwoman who 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.840 was supposed to be sedated, but the sedation didn't take 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.320 and the patient screamed and cried while the team recorded. 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.240 Brown called this nothing unusual. There's a special segment of 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.520 one interview that I think is worth me reading in 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.800 full inside edition. This is them narrating. But to Brown, 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.120 failure is no reason to proceed with caution, and he 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.800 continues to experiment on humans whenever he develops a new procedure. 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:48.280 And this is Brown talking back in the developmental stage. 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.800 I remember several times asking myself, is it really right 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.000 for me to be doing what amounts to experiments on 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.200 some of these people? After thinking it all through, these 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:56.840 people knew what I was doing, They knew I wasn't 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.200 It wasn't a proven experiment. They were all willing. So 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.880 He's like, I thought about whether I have any morrible responsibility, 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.640 and I decided no, No am I a SOULI school? Yeah. 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.160 Um so, Cherry, the young woman who's uh sister got 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.760 a sex change with Dr Brown, definitely considered him to 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.400 be a dangerous kook, but acknowledged he gives you a 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:24.480 vagina at a fair price. Competent doctor's charged twelve thousand 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.920 to twenty tho dollars for a vagina. At the time, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.080 Brown's fees were reasonable enough that hundreds of women chose 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:31.880 to gamble on him, in spite of the fact that 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:35.320 his new nickname, Butcher Brown was by far the worst 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.480 yet not as good as tabletop Brown. Not as good 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:42.040 as tabletop Brown. Now, during my research, I came across 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:46.520 a tremendous resource called the Digital Transgender Archive. This wonderful 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.600 site includes pictures, articles, and scans of entire issues of 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.040 various znes and newsletters distributed by the trans community, going 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.160 you know, back like decades, and I came across one 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.760 from nine called twenty Minutes and a few pages in 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.360 it featured a cartoon drawn by someone named Radia. Uh 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.640 and Sophie. You want to show her the political cartoon 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:14.960 of Dr Brown. It's a little small, so creep on it. 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.240 Yeah that chucks out. Yeah, it's just it's it's pretty 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:25.040 much just a portrait. Yeah, he's dressed as like Jason 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:27.560 from the Friday the Thirteenth movies, with a hockey mask 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.040 covered in blood and a chainsaw of a patient on 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:36.280 its back. Yeah. Um now. That cartoon was followed by 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.600 a furious article about Dr Brown titled Mac the Knife 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.640 and I'm going to quote from it now a patient 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.120 no more like a victim of the nefarious Dr Brown 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.200 presented herself with the aid of a companion at the 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.600 emergency room of San Francisco General Hospital today November four, 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.760 for life saving medical assistance. Just a week earlier, in Mexico, 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:56.800 she had the misfortune to fall into the not so 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.520 tender clutches of Dr Brown. By the time she arrived 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:01.480 at s F General, she'd lost more than four pints 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:03.040 of blood and was well down the road to being 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.959 another and not so fortunate statistic of the infamous meat cutter. 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.040 From information available, she's but one of ten recent victims 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.720 of Brown's. For those of you contemplating surgery, don't go 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.480 to Mexico for it, and above all, don't let Dr 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.360 Brown do it. Admittedly, his price of three thousand dollars 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.800 is attractive, but the pain, anguish, and post surgical complications 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.480 are not worth the trivial amount of money saved. So 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.640 twenty Minutes had written warnings about Dr Brown before, and 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.960 he'd actually had someone from his office respond to them. 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.599 Since his potential clients read this magazine, and since he 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.120 knew no one from the a m A. Or law 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.640 enforcement was reading trans community newsletters, he felt secure in 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.040 just lying shamefully to these people to try to convince 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.480 more of them to let him commit surgery on their groins. 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.440 And here's his representatives response. Many of you have heard 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.320 about doctor John Ronald Brown, m D, some of it positive, 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.760 some negative. This letter is intended to set the record 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.240 straight and to inform those interested in his work. It 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.920 goes on to account Dr Brown's educational history all the 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.640 different hospitals he worked at, notably leaving out his repeated 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:03.960 failures to actually pass his surgical exams. Then it gives 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.280 this justification for the fact that his clinic had to 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.560 be in Mexico rather than the United States. Due to 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.840 the temporary rivocation of his license to practice in California. 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.440 His clinic has been moved to Plus, Mexico. He's currently 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.719 preparing for reinstatement of his California license, but states that 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.680 even when he is eventually vindicated, his practice will probably 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.920 remain in Mexico for various reasons, especially the reduced problems 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:29.000 of doing transsexual surgery, the reduced problems, meaning like the 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.480 reduced laws governing what you can do to people you're 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.760 performing surgery on now. In that letter, Dr Brown's representative 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.040 also brags about a revolutionary new technique he developed, taking 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.920 bowel tissue to make the new vaginal canal for his patients. 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.720 That's ensuring them a self lubricating vagina. Twenty Minutes notes 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:48.760 that as a result of his failure to actually do 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.040 this competently, more than seventy of his patients had received 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:55.080 permanent colostomies, and I found a quote from writer Dallas 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.760 and Aenny on all this. In the nineteen nineties, Brown 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.200 came to favor invasive surgery, in which you would aft 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:02.719 the neo vagina to a section of resected colon. His 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.080 results had never been good. The growing area of a 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.280 Brown patient typically looked as if the penis had been 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:09.720 split lengthwise and sutured to the growing with a simple 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.080 hole between the split halves. Patients often wound up with colostomies. 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.120 Several of Brown's girls dance topless, using scarves to conceal 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:18.760 the bags attached to their sides. When he started going 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.959 into the peritoneum. Things got really scary. Patients would return 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.600 home smelling of rotting flesh. Often they would return to Brown, 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.200 going again and again for revision, each time paying large 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.040 sums of money. Many eventually wound up in emergency rooms, 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.839 and I dare say some ended up dead. Now it's 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.800 hard to imagine just how fucking horrifying receiving surgery under 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.000 these conditions would have been. And there are very few 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.440 first person accounts from Dr Brown's victims, and none that 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.040 go into a tremendous amount of detail. I did find 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:47.080 the experiences of one transwoman, Canary Cohn, who received her 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.720 gender assignment surgery in Tijuana, and she went with a 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.040 better doctor than Dr Brown, one of the better doctors 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.520 in the area. So as I read this story, I 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:56.920 want you to remember that what Brown patients would have 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.160 woken up with was actually worse than this um. So 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.959 this is like a better case scenario than Dr Brown, 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:07.800 and it's still pretty fucking horrifying. Somebody, please please come here. 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:09.680 I cried and reached for the button, keeping it in 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.600 my hand. A peculiar wet feeling was gathering around my legs. 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:14.840 At first, I was too frightened to peer under the sheets, 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:16.760 but as the chill increased, I reached for the chain 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.320 over my head. With the light on, I lifted the sheets. 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.319 Then I panicked. The sheet under me was a pool 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.640 of blood, and more was flowing from between my legs. 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:25.840 I pressed the button again and again and began to 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.480 scream for help, thinking about detaching myself from the bed, 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:30.640 I propped myself on one arm, but then fainted and 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:32.880 fell back. When I woke up some ten or fifteen 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:34.880 minutes later, the blood had made its way down one 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:36.880 side of the bed to the floor. I was weaker 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:39.920 now and the pain didn't matter. I was bleeding to death. Sobbing, 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:41.920 I began to pray aloud. Then I screamed again and 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.720 again until my voice faded into hoarseness. Grabbing a book 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.520 from the table, I tried to throw it through the window, 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:48.600 but it fell from my fingers into the pool of blood. 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.160 The chills had changed to small convulsions as I tried 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.520 to calm myself. Bending my head, I looked once more 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:55.080 at the side of the bed, half covered with my 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.880 life's liquid. It looked pretty, somehow, red on white. I 0:13:57.880 --> 0:13:59.800 couldn't help thinking how ironic it was that I had 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:01.560 we con saved all this time to pay for my 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:05.160 own death. I would be my own executioner. And again, 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:08.080 this is someone waking up in a clinic. So this 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.200 is someone getting surgery from one of these doctors who 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.920 actually does provide doctor aftercare. Dr Brown's patients typically woke 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.800 up in hotels or cars undergoing the same thing, not 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.200 attached to a bed, not in like obviously Canary eventually 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:25.000 did get medical help, but just took a while for 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.440 I think the clinic to realize what was going on. 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:30.720 But what a nightmare. You're bleeding to death and you 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:32.800 know it, and you paid for your surgery and it's 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.320 just like sober, yeah, yeah. And in the case of 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:38.720 Dr Brown's patients, this is happening like the back of 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:44.080 a Ford Fiesta. Um, it's it's hard to imagine. So 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.360 despite the fact that he had moved his practice to Mexico, 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:49.880 presumably because he couldn't legally perform surgery in the US, 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.600 Dr Brown still repeatedly performed surgeries in the United States 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.760 throughout the nineteen eighties. In nineteen four, he was arrested 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.000 for giving a presentation where he offered penile lengthening surgery 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.480 to a group of men in San Diego. He only 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:04.600 received a slap on the wrist for this and continued 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:09.720 traveling around California to perform minor surgery. Cherry recalled He'd 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:12.440 shoot silicone anywhere you wanted it for two hundred dollars. 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.040 He do breast surgery for five d He'd do cheeks, breasts, 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.480 and hips. After injections, you had to lie flat on 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:19.960 your back for three days so the silicone wouldn't go anywhere. 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.160 He plugged the holes with crazy glue. He's a big 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.560 fan of crazy glue. Yeah, I was saying, these are 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:27.960 like the people that have been busted for doing this stuff. 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.400 In Los Angeles County, one patient filed to complaint against 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.280 Dr Brown for a breast enlargement procedure he had performed 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:38.840 on her. It turns out that rather than performing any 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.320 kind of surgery, he just shoved a needle into her 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.320 breasts and injected them with raw silicone. He then closed 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.440 the holes with crazy glue. Another patient, a genetic female 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.560 named Mona, complained that after Dr Brown gave her a facelift, 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.440 face peel, eye job, and breast implants, he did not 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.200 do a good job. During the facelift, he severed a 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:58.480 nerve in her face, leaving her with a permanent crooked 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.760 smile her implants face, which caused the breasts to rot 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.160 and leak a fluid her boyfriend described as smelling like 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.960 cat piss. Then they fell off. To his credit, Dr 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.880 Brown performed some aftercare for Mona. She recalled that at 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:12.680 some one point he showed up to inject her with 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:18.040 painkillers wearing only one shoe. Oh my god, Wow, what 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.040 a good sign to not let someone doctor on you 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:25.000 when they're wearing just one shoe, Like you're going to 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.080 inject someone with medicine and you couldn't get your shoe 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.720 game on point for the day. Let's just go ahead 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.400 and extend it to the whole outfit. If you're missing 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.960 anything from the outfit, you're you're you're on a time 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.480 out for doctoring for the moment. It's like a guy 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:42.280 trying to shoot you up with insulin while wearing board shorts. 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:47.360 Like no, no, I'm gonna go ahead and pass. Yeah. Now. 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.120 Despite all this horror, it was the Inside Edition episode 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.600 that finally drew some serious legal attention to John Ronald Brown. 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.040 The FBI went after him, confiscated his money, shut down 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.000 his clinic and charged him with practicing medicine without a license. 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.800 He had previously been convicted for prescribing narcotics with revoked 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.280 license and practicing under a false name. With all of 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.720 that on his record, you might expect him to serve 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.520 some serious time. That seems like a significant crime, right, 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.080 m hm. He was sentenced to three years in prison 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:22.440 and served nineteen months. Oh my god, yeah, nineteen months. Um. So, 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.000 for a brief period of time, about a year, he 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.840 worked as a cab driver on Coronado Island, which is 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:29.040 possibly the only job he ever did that he might 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.119 have been qualified for. He remember, they said that he 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.600 got a constantly rearended people and got into car accidents. 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.960 He actually went into the only other profession he could 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:46.639 kill people. Like, that's not okay, that's not okay. You're 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.520 absolutely right, Like he picked the one other job that 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.680 he was dangerously bad at. I mean, we really could 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.280 he We have gotten him to be like a Walmart Greater, 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:01.920 just something where you're just harmless, you know. I feel 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.359 like as a Walmart Greater, he would have gotten people 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:09.840 killed just directing them to the wrong aisles, just throwing 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:16.320 peanuts at kids with allergies. So Paulciati interviewed John about 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.040 this period in his life, and Dr Brown insisted that 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.720 the time in jail didn't deter him from his chosen calling. 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.320 In the least. He said that he decided long ago 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.080 to rebel against what he saw as the unjust medical establishment. 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.080 I didn't like some of the things that organized doctors 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.480 were doing, so I rebelled. Later, I didn't like what 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.320 the government was doing in support of the medical organizations, 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.680 so I rebelled. I chose to ignore the laws. He's 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:46.560 a hero. He's a hero, Sophia. After a year, John 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:48.679 was able to put together enough money to reopen his 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.520 surgical practice in Tijuana. For a couple of years, he 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.440 continued chopping into whoever would pay, primarily servicing the trans community, 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.040 if you can call what he did a service. By night, 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.680 he had carried out an estimated six hundred gender reassignment surgeries. 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:08.359 That is the year he met Greg Firth. Now Greg 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:14.800 was a psychlo No Greg with two gs three. Actually 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:19.040 this is even worse than the regular Greg. There are 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.640 five letters in Greg's first name, and three of them 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.760 are G. It's a it's a disaster, It's gonna not end. Well, 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.960 it does not now. Greg was a psychoanalyst from New 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.520 York City. In addition to being a well respected mental 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.120 health expert, Firth also suffered from a rare condition known 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:40.600 as a potemnophilia. Have you ever heard of epotemnophilia? The 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:43.800 person who coined that term in ninety seven, John Money, 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.720 described it as an extreme sexual fetish wherein victims desire 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.880 to sever their own limbs so they can have better orgasms. 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.440 What yeah, wait, why DoD, Why do the limbs get 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.520 in the way of a good orgasm? That's a great question. 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:01.240 And we're gonna talk about appet nephelia a little bit 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.800 more in a minute. But you know what won't sever 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.040 your limbs to give you better orgasm? Sofia the following 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:10.719 goods and services. That's exactly right. That is the guarantee 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:12.840 we make is that none of these products will sever 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:21.080 your limbs in the pursuit of an orgasm. We're back 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:23.240 and we're talking about how there should be a legal 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:25.400 limit on the number of g's allowed in a name. 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:27.879 And I'm going to put it. I'm gonna say zero. 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:39.680 All rights are just ad That's what I'm saying. They're 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:46.560 just raised now yeah exactly name yeah, just reth deal 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.840 with it. So um Apa tem nephelia is usually described 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.040 as an extreme sexual fetish about, you know, wanting to 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.159 sever your own limb for a better orgasm. That is 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:01.520 not how many sufferers of describe it. What are they say? Yeah? 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.160 Firth and a lot of other people with it argue 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:07.200 that the sexual angle is either minor or non existent 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.800 in a lot of cases. Um Greg doesn't even like 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:14.119 the term appotem nephelia. He prefers body identity transfer. Um 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:17.040 One sufferer I found interviewed in Salon described the way 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.439 her condition made her feel in this way quote, For me, 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.320 sexuality is being comfortable with my body inside. I feel 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:25.960 my legs don't belong to me and they shouldn't be there. 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:29.120 There's just an overwhelming sense of despair. Sometimes I don't 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:30.960 want to die, but there are times I don't want 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.639 to keep living in a body that doesn't feel like mine. 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:36.400 Now First seems to agree with this more or less, 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.280 insisting in interviews it's not about sex, it's not about 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:42.240 getting off with someone. This is about becoming able bodied. 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:45.720 So these the people suffering this will claim that like 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:47.520 it's not I don't want to get it removed because 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:49.520 I think it's hot to have to lose a limb. 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.359 I feel like, this isn't my body part and I 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.800 can't be comfortable in my own body while I have 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.919 this armor leg because they're not an alien limb. But 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.560 they're not capable of realizing that that's like good disorder, 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.440 or are they. I think they are, But I think 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:05.240 a lot of them would say that the treatment for 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:09.399 the disorders to have the fucking leg removed or whatever. Um, 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:10.919 I'm not going to come down on this one way 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.040 or the other. This is just what they will say. Yeah, 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.919