” Butcher Brown : The Dr. Frankenstein Of Sex Changes ” I Bizarre Buffet Podcast
The worst surgeon in the world, the story of Butcher Brown. By the early 1970s, Brown was carrying out sex reassignment surgery on transgender patients[1] at a small clinic he set up in San Francisco.[2] He would later claim to have performed 600 such surgeries during the course of his career.[2] Most of his patients were trans women who were too poor to afford the fees of reputable surgeons. This episode features many accounts of former patients who suffered as a result of the infamous Butcher Brown.
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” Butcher Brown ” – Episode Credits
Hosted By Mark Tauriello , Jen Wilson , & Marc Bluestein .
Original Episode Art By Mark Tauriello
Original Episode Content & Production By Marc Bluestein
Released On October 9th, 2021
” Butcher Brown ” – Episode Show Notes
John Ronald Brown
John Brown is perhaps one of the most notorious doctors in Americas history. A self-appointed sex change specialist, Brown carried out hundreds of operations. Once hailed as a saviour, Brown claimed he had found the key to total sexual transformation. In reality, that wasn’t even close to the truth, he never even qualified as a surgeon! He operated from garages, hotel rooms and trains and left many of his patients horribly maimed and disfigured.
To give you a full view of this dude before we get started, Penthouse Forum did an article called “The Incredible Dick Doctor,” that according to Paul Ciotti “portrayed Brown as a wildly inattentive driver who backed into other cars, an absent-minded dresser whose pants fell down in the operating room, and a blithe spirit of a surgeon who, when he accidentally made a cut in the penile shaft that sent blood spurting everywhere, casually declared, “I made a boo-boo.”
He worked as a general practitioner for about 20 years…however after almost killing a patient during a thyroidectomy, Ronnie was like “Oh, shit..maybe I should go for formal surgical training?”
Butcher Brown I The Early Years
Now, despite doing well in the written portions of the certification for the American Board of Plastic Surgery, he failed the oral assessment. Ronnie blamed his domineering daddy for his short comings, and ultimately said “Fuck it, I’m just gonna do me and see how this pans out anyway !”
By 1973 Ronnie was already performing sexual reassignment surgery on his Transgender patients, after all, he was a self proclaimed specialist in the field.
it would take all of four years before Brown would have his medical license revoked in 1977 by the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance. His license was revoked based on “gross negligence, incompetence and practicing unprofessional medicine in a manner which involved moral turpitude”.
What Is Moral Turpitude?
The charge of gross negligence was based on his practice of carrying out sex reassignment surgery in his office on an out-patient basis, rather than in a fully-equipped surgical theatre.
He was also charged with allowing patients to work as unqualified, medical assistants (allegedly as barter for their own subsequent surgery), failing to hospitalize a patient who had developed a life-threatening infection and making false claims on medical insurance forms.
You would think that with all that transpired in this dudes “Medical career”, up until this point that he would have perhaps closed up shop. But, Ron was determined ! He was on a mission from God! Of course he was!
Paul Ciotti For Los Angeles Weekly I Butcher Brown
After he lost his license in 1977, he says, he went to live on a 550-acre Mexican ranch. As he was walking up a hill one night carrying a kerosene lantern, God spoke to him, clearly and distinctly. “Words started pushing into my mind,” says Brown. “The words kept coming up for two days. The message began, ‘Why do you kick against the traces?’ It went on: ‘You should know that the details of your life have been arranged so that you would be where you are now, doing what you are doing.’ I knew that meant working with the transsexuals. It went on: ‘What you are doing is appreciated, because these are my children, too.’”
Now in my own opinion there are many ways one can look at this. One way would be that he really thought he was helping people which very well could be the case, still, not a fucking surgeon! The flip side being he was suffering from some kind of untreated mental illness while being an unqualified/unlicensed surgeon /who had psychopathic tendencies / also maybe still helping? Let us know what your thoughts are on this!
Now lets get back to the story….
Butcher Brown Marketing I The 1980’s
During the 1980s Brown was still out there doing his thing, despite losing his license in 1977. Brown began soliciting and advertising surgical services in the USA, whilst performing surgical procedures in Mexico. Just to give you an idea of how charming the guy was, some of his “advertising “ materials would later be discovered, and in part went as such:
The prettiest pussies are John Brown pussies.
The happiest patients are John Brown patients.
Because . . .
1. Each has a sensitive clit.
2. All (99%) get orgasms.
3. Careful skin draping gives a natural appearance.
4. Men love the pretty pussies and the sexy response.
Now just as a reminder, most of Browns patients were Transgender people who simply could not afford reputable surgeons.
Butcher Brown I Increasing Penis Length
In 1986, an article in the magazine Forum reported on his procedure for surgically increasing penis length. And, yes…you heard that correctly. Ron was also known to provide Breast Augmentations, facial fillers, nose jobs, face lifts, etc. He would pretty much do anything requested of him, and I do mean anything. Ron willingly amputated a healthy limb, a leg to exact…from someone suffering with a syndrome called apotemnophilia…. but we’ll get into more about all of this later on.
Butcher Brown I The Worst Doctor In America
This article from 1986 and a subsequent television documentary (“The Worst Doctor in America“) portrayed Brown as an incompetent and inept surgeon. His poor reputation eventually gained him the nickname “Butcher Brown” amongst the Transgender community. Despite this, desperate individuals continued to seek him out. Ronald Brown offered California’s marginalized, transgender community a complete sex change service…which was a highly uncommon thing. Not only that, but his prices were within reach for those who so desperately wanted to live as themselves, who otherwise may not have had or felt as though they had any other option or opportunity to achieve this life goal.
Heres a description provided by a a woman named Cheree, who you’ll hear more about later, describing Browns services in a nutshelll. Originally published by Paul Ciotti for Los Angeles Weekly
“He gives you a vagina at a fair price.” Whereas with other doctors you had to take hormones, wait up to six years, live as a woman, undergo psychological evaluations and then pay $12,000 to $20,000 or more, with Brown it was good old-fashioned capitalistic cash-and-carry.
Butcher Brown I Horror Stories
At this point I should warn everyone listening, including Mark & Jen that from this point of the episode on is where we’ll be getting into some quite graphic and potentially disturbing content & descriptions. You’ve been warned !
Despite the concerns of his peers, many of Brown’s patients appeared to be happy. One of his early patients, called Elizabeth, had been thrilled with her surgery, but that only lasted about a year… Her vagina started to tighten and close up. Brown was abandoning his patients once the service was complete, leaving them for other qualified surgeons to clean up the mess he created.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that I’m so sure his “success stories” are very few at best….and that also depends on what one defines as “success”, so lets talk about some of both sides, then get into a little information about what these surgical procedures consisted of.
Butcher Brown I Positive Stories
Lets start off with Ron Browns positive Yelp review’s! I’d like to add that these are statements made by the patients themselves. We do not recommend or condone engaging in life threatening procedures or opening yourself up to dangerous situations. In my personal opinion, a lot of the wording or circumstances regarding these stories are most certainly dated & from a much less progressive time…though current day is still up for debate as well.
One 33-year-old “manager for a major airline” said she had Brown do her gender- reassignment surgery in 1985. It was so successful, she said, that when she later got married, her husband never guessed she’d been a male.
To simulate a period, she used to prick her finger to leave bloodstains on the sheets.)
Ann, a Cambodian refugee said that Brown changed her “suffering, painful life” from that of “an ugly worm to a beautiful butterfly.” her surgery turned out so well, she says, that she got a job as a stripper in Las Vegas’ Chinatown.
So now I’m gonna bring you all into the actual shit that went and the real fucked up aspects of all of this, its about to get real dark.
Jack Fisher I The Surgeon Who Fixed Butcher Brown’s Work
A UC San Diego plastic-surgery professor Jack Fisher personally repaired 12 to 15 of what he called Brown’s “pelvic disasters.” “He’s a terrible, appalling technical surgeon,” says Fisher. “There’s just no other way to describe it. He doesn’t know how to make a straight incision. He doesn’t know how to hold a knife. He has no regard for limiting blood loss.” Basically, says Fisher, the man “had been committing crimes against humanity for years.”
Dallas Denny, an Atlanta-based transgender author and activist said “Some of these people, expecting vaginoplasties, received simple penectomies, leaving them looking somewhat like a Barbie doll,” she wrote in a 1995 attack on Brown’s skills. “Others ended up with something which looked like a penis which had been split and sewn to their groin – which is essentially what had been done. Some ended up with vaginas which were lined with hair-bearing scrotal skin; these vaginas quickly filled up with pubic hair, becoming inflamed and infected. Some ended up with peritonitis, some with permanent colostomies. Some ran out of money and were dumped in back alleys and parking lots to live or die.”
Describing Butcher Brown’s Unethical Practices
The following information is provided by a woman named Cheree from northern California who went to Mexico in 1984 to have dual sexual-reassignment surgery with her brother at Brown’s Tijuana clinic. “He ran specials – ‘bring a girlfriend, two for the price of one.'” But after Cheree saw the conditions there, she was like…yeah, no thanks I’m good.
Cheree said that “Brown would sip coffee while doing the operation.”
But the thing that most bothered her was Brown’s “brusque” attitude. After surgery, he would grab the dried, blood-clotted bandages and rip them right off. He was always so dishevelled, too. “His hair went in different directions. His shoes were scuffed and worn down. I remember him walking down the hall eating raw weenies right out of the package. A fucking package of weenies!”
Its also worth mentioning that Brown had many video recordings of his depravity. One of them, entitled “Jack Has a New Pisshole Behind His Balls,” It showed Brown cutting an opening in Jack’s urethra just behind his testicles so Jack could urinate sitting down.
Butcher Brown
Cheree, who we just mentioned, spent 11 days at Brown’s clinic caring for her (new) sister, in which time Brown operated on an HIV-positive patient who still had pins in her arm from an auto accident (she used the insurance settlement to pay for her surgery). In another, he used too much erectile tissue to construct genital outer lips. As a result, whenever the girl got excited “her labia got hard.”
Everyone keeping up so far? More to come!
The Ileum Loop
Brown did an operation called an ‘ileum loop, in which he would take a piece of intestine, leaving it attached to the blood supply, and diverts it to make a vagina. The issue being, your intestines digest food, secrete enzymes, they smell bad. He almost killed a patient, who ended up being a witness in one of his trials, by doing that to her. They said “He pulls all your guts out on your stomach. Your intestines are connected to your vaginal lining. In many cases he stitches it back to your stomach, and you get peritonitis.
Mona I Butcher Brown Patient
There was another patient, a genetic female named Mona, who had gone to Brown for breast implants and a face-lift.
Mona said that Brown accidentally cut a nerve in her face, leaving her with a crooked smile. Her implants failed too, causing her breasts to rot, turn black and leak a fluid that her boyfriend said smelled like “cat piss.” Mona also stated that when Brown dropped by to inject her with pain killers, he’d be wearing only one shoe.
Camille Locke I Butcher Brown Patient
Camille Locke is another person Brown performed a sex-change surgery on
To keep her vaginal opening from growing shut while it healed, Brown gave Camille a phallus-shaped stent made of the same kind of foam used to cushion furniture. “He told her to put a condom on it. I had to hold it in place with little white bra straps. Otherwise it would fall out when I stood up.”
She developed a recto-vaginal fistula that caused feces to pour out of her vagina. Camille stated “My bladder was blocked, my lymph glands swelled up and my skin turned yellow,” she says. She was hiccuping constantly, unable to stand, and near death.
Butcher Brown & Phillip Bondy
So many fucked up things happened to so many people as a result of this asshole, but lets finish this story up with what ultimately put Ronald Brown in prison for good….the leg amputation
Brown performed the operation on Phillip Bondy on a Saturday morning. Bondy was happy at first, even though, as he would later tell a friend, he had felt Brown “sawing” on his leg. As it was just as illegal to amputate a healthy leg in Mexico as it is in the United States, right after the operation Brown drove 15 miles out into the desert on the old road to Ensenada and threw the leg out the window for the coyotes to eat. Then, before driving Bondy to the National City Holiday Inn, he gave his patient some lessons in walking with crutches. (“He kept falling down, ” Brown says in some exasperation. He couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of a three-point stance – he’d put his remaining foot between the crutch tips, not in front of or behind them.)
Butcher Brown I Conviction
A 77-year-old former doctor has been convicted of murder for fatally botching the surgery of a New York man who wanted his healthy leg amputated to satisfy a bizarre fetish.
Apototemnophilia
The story gave the name of the fetish as apotemnophilia – “sexual gratification from limb removal.” It said that “only 200 worldwide are known to suffer the fetish.” It reported that the victim, 79-year-old Philip Bondy, had paid $10,000 for the operation, after which he died in a “suburban San Diego hotel” from “gangrene poisoning.”
The ever eloquent Brown stated “In cosmetic surgery we do things all the time for which there is no need. We are constantly rearranging what God gave us.”
Butcher Brown I Final Thoughts
When Brown was asked “But what about your own liability?” The patient, pointing out the fact thats he was a frail old man, still recovering from pneumonia, with a history of heart disease and bypass surgery. Even in ideal circumstances, his post-operative prospects were far from great. “Weren’t you worried that people would ask questions if he died?”
Brown shrugs. “I didn’t spend much time thinking about it,” he says
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