Tiamat Legion Medusa has spent at least £61,000 on cosmetic surgery and body modification.
But we’re not talking about your average obsession with boob jobs or tummy tucks.
Tiamat has spent her money on castration, ear removal and tongue splitting, all to become a genderless reptile.
There are still many procedures to go, as Tiamat plans to have a penis removal along with further tattoos.
They hope to show a positive representation of people who have undergone body modification surgery.
‘People think that modified people, especially those who go to great extremes to look like something in a sci-fi film, are losers and dumb as dirt,’ says Tiamat.
‘In my past life as a man, I was a banking Vice President at one of the nation’s largest financial institutions.
Tiamat identifies as nonbinary.
‘I want people to know that modified people are just as intelligent, kind, loving, and good as anyone else.
‘Just because I had my ears removed, does not mean my brain just rolled out and I’m just a blithering idiot.’
Born Richard Hernandez, Tiamat had a tough upbringing.
‘When I was five years old I was being physically and verbally abused by my stepfather,’ they say.
‘I was eventually abandoned by my parents in the middle of the woods, at night, deep in the heart of South Texas, where the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake abounds.
‘It was then, when my human parents shoved me out of the car to leave me there like unwanted trash that I adopted the venomous rattler as my parents.
Tiamat has had partial nose removal, total ear removal, horn implants, and tattoos.
‘They left me and two of my other three siblings close enough to the family farm so that my maternal grandparents would find us.
‘My grandfather, sadly, would continue to abuse me verbally, emotionally, and physically, all because my grandfather hated my father and since I was named after my father and the spitting image of him.
‘It should have been an honor to be named after my dad, it was for me a curse.’
At 11 Tiamat came out as gay, but kept their desire to be a girl hidden. Eventually this need transformed into a wish to be free of gender and become a reptile.
‘I could not tell anyone,’ said Tiamat. ‘I would secretly put a towel on my head and pretend to be Cher who was and is one of my greatest inspirations.
‘The people I lived with were homophobic and so was most of the little town I lived in.
‘I felt alone and outcast by my family.’
They want to show that people with body modifications aren’t weird or dangerous.
After graduating high school in 1979 Tiamat moved to Houston and took a job at JPMorgan Chase. Slowly they rose to become a banking vice preisdent and client manager.
Tiamat’s first body modification came in 1997 with a pair of £330 horns. They were motivated by a diagnosis of HIV and then AIDS.
‘Because I thought I was going to die, I started modifying my body as I felt I was in a race against time,’ said Tiamat
‘I was the fifth person in the world to get horns on their cranium and at the time the modern-day body modification movement was just in its inception.
‘Getting them was what set the wheels in motion for what has become the greatest journey of my life, my reptilian metamorphosis.’
Tiamat evolved into a woman then a human dragon, and currently goes by the name of ‘dragon lady’.
Tiamat plans to undergo penis removal next.
The transformation has involved 18 horn implants, the remove of both ears, a partial nose removal and reshaping inspired by Voldemort, the removal of 32 teeth, the sharpening of six teeth to points, staining the whites of the eyes green, and splitting Tiamat’s tongue into a forked shape.
Tiamat has also had nine chin scarifications, five lines branded into the wrist and chest, and nine piercings including a Prince Albert.
Reactions to Tiamat’s appearance have been mixed.
‘On the street, everywhere I go I am met with smiles and people wanting to take a photo with me,’ says Tiamat.
The dragon lady with Caitlyn Jenner.
‘A tiny percentage are afraid because they think that I am the devil. Then there are others who have verbally assaulted me and even spat at me. One lady even went to the extent of physically assaulting me with her cane.
‘Regardless of all the ugliness people fling at me, what gives me the courage to keep on being me is the looks on the children’s faces. They gaze at me with wonderment in their eyes.’
Despite currently referring to themselves as a ‘dragon lady’, Tiamat ultimately wants to remove all their gender labels and become a reptile.
‘Being true to my reptilian nature, I am an androgynous creature,’ Tiamat explains. ‘When people ask me if I am male or female, I tell them that I am both and I am neither.
‘I am happier today than I have ever been in my life because I mustered the courage to live my life on my terms and to march to the beat of my own drum undaunted by hardships, overcoming challenges that may arise and slaying the naysayers and anyone that dares to meddle in the affairs of a dragon’.
‘I am in the process of going genderless, so I prefer they, them pronouns. My ultimate preference is to simply be called an ‘it’, just like my own kind, the snakes.
‘It is my goal and mission to shatter the gender binary and to inspire others out there to embrace being non-binary by sharing my story of going genderless.’
Tiamat hopes to be entirely transformed into a genderless reptile by 2025.
‘I have zero regrets and I do not foresee anytime in the future where I would ever regret any of my mods or any of the changes I have made to my body or my life’.
Next year they plan to tattoo rainbow scales all over their skin, add to their 18 existing horn implants, and get purple ink added to their eyeballs.
They also want to remove their penis.
‘Top of my priorities is to say goodbye to Mr. Bojangles, my penis, as soon as possible,’ says Tiamat.
‘Anyone considering doing what I am doing must have their thoughts in order including the realisation that once started, there is no going back.
‘I have zero regrets and I do not foresee anytime in the future where I would ever regret any of my mods or any of the changes I have made to my body or my life.
‘I am happier today than I have ever been in my life because I mustered the courage to live my life on my terms and to march to the beat of my own drum undaunted by hardships, overcoming challenges that may arise and slaying the naysayers and anyone that dares to meddle in the affairs of a dragon.’
