Tiamat Legion Medusa has spent at least £61,000 ($75,000) on more than 20 procedures over two decades including castration, ear removal, tongue splitting and 18 horn implants.
But the fantastical makeover isn’t over with the pre-op transexual planning a penis removal and more tattoos next year to morph fully from male to female and from human to reptilian.
The ultimate aim is to become a genderless being, referred to as “it”, who defies labels and proves people who undergo abnormal plastic surgery are not freaks and weirdos.
The 58-year-old said: “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.
“In my past life as a man, I was a banking Vice President at one of the nation’s largest financial institutions.
“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, the heavily embellished American had to survive child abuse, self-harm and AIDs and on the journey to happiness.
The Los Angeles resident said: “When I was five years old I was being physically and verbally abused by my stepfather.
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.
“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.”
Tiamat struggled with being born a boy from age 11 years and came out as gay which resulted in bullying and self-harm. But dreams to be a girl had to be kept hidden.
The self-titled dragon lady said: “I could not tell anyone. 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.
“In high school I would use a protractor to scar myself because I was depressed, I felt alone and outcast by my family.
After graduating high school in 1979 Tiamat escaped the small town of Bruni to live in Houston and life took a positive turn when a position as entry-level clerk opened up at bank JP Morgan Chase.
“Through my 15-year tenure, I rose to become a banking vice president and client manager in the bank’s Corporate Banking Division where I managed a diverse portfolio of corporate clients for the bank including on of the bank’s top ten clients.”
The decision to get modified for the first time in 1997 with a pair of £330 ($400) horns came following a diagnosis of HIV and then AIDS which back then was thought to be a death sentence.
“I went from being an employee that never missed a day of work to missing two and three days because the treatment was so harsh my body had a difficult time with it.
“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 who made a full recovery and today is classed as undetectable and untransmittable.
“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.
“I am a Capricorn the sign of the Greek God Satyr so becoming Pan was the first stage of my transformation. I would later evolve into a woman and a human dragon.”
Tiamat, named after the Mesopotamian goddess who is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation, has 38B breasts which grew as a result of hormones and has had a prostate removal and castration as part of the change from male to female.
The wannabe dragon also has 18 horn implants, both ears removed, a partial nose removal and reshaping inspired by Harry Potter character Voldemort, 32 teeth removed and the six remaining sharpened to points, the whites of both eyes permanently stained green, a tongue bifurcation to mimic a snake’s fork.
Embellishments include nine chin scarifications, five lines branded into the wrist and chest, nine piercings including a Prince Albert and fake dimples created using piercings.
The Instagrammer, who has more than 14,000 followers, said the results evoke a mixed reaction from strangers.
Tiamat, who is single and looking for love said: “On the street, everywhere I go I am met with smiles and people wanting to take a photo with me.
“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.”
Although Instagram account @tiamatdragonlady implies a female persona, Tiamat’s ultimate dream is to shake off gender labels.
“Being true to my reptilian nature, I am an androgynous creature. When people ask me if I am male or female, I tell them that I am both and I am neither.
“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 the full transformation will be complete by 2025 and in the next year plans to embellish the tattooed rainbow scales which reach from head to toe, add to 18 existing horn implants and get purple ink added to the green staining on each eyeball.
The parent-of-one said: “My metamorphosis is nowhere near done.
“Top of my priorities is to say goodbye to Mr. Bojangles, my penis, as soon as possible.”
Tiamat has an estranged son and hopes transforming may help them reconcile.
“When my son was young we always watched and played Pokemon; it was one of our favourite things to do together and my favourite Pokemon were Dragonite, Dragonair, Charizard, and other dragon type creatures.
“I hope that by me becoming a real-life dragon that my son will see me in a different light instead of just seeing the human father that made mistakes.”
The founder of global organization the Mod Squad Modified Street Team also hopes to spread a message of tolerance for the transgender and modified community.
“Our goal and mission statement is to change the world one mind at a time by educating society about the modified subculture, and by creating greater awareness through visibility, creating greater acceptance of modified individuals in the world with our message that
underneath our skin we are all the same.”
So does the dragon lady have any regrets?
“Anyone considering doing what I am doing must have their thoughts in order including the realization that once started, there is no going back,” said Tiamat.
“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.
“In fact, 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.”
Have you seen the man dubbed a “beautiful monster” who has tattooed most of his body!
