A former she-male hooker, only a year out of jail on a fraud conviction, just received a full “sex change” operation, courtesy of the American taxpayer. His story is loving told over more than four full pages in Sunday’s edition of the New York Times.

The initial cost of the surgery to the taxpayer was reported to have been roughly $25,000, though the final cost is estimated to be higher.

Jerome Nimmons tells his story of growing up effeminate, childhood humiliation, sexual seduction by a much older male, HIV infection, eventual family rejection, and a life turned to prostitution and other forms of crime.

Jerome’s story, however, eventually becomes yet a newer iteration of what Ronald Reagan called the “welfare queen.” Though Jerome was living with other transvestites in Atlanta, in what he calls his “gay family”—complete with “gay kids”—Jerome was lured to Brooklyn by a friend because New York has become something of a welfare haven for transsexuals.

Arriving by bus with only $200 in his pocket, within only a few weeks, Jerome scored a state-supported apartment, monthly disability checks, obtained food stamps, and proceeded to spend his leisurely days watching television.

Jerome also joined a Medicaid program called Amida Care that caters to those with HIV. Through the program, he started receiving treatment for his HIV infection and his health improved.

He found a pro bono lawyer to help him get a new transsexual name. The New York Times reports this is a new and booming pro bono area in the law. Though Jerome had used various names in his transsexual life, including “Magnolia Thunderpussy” and “Meeka,” the name he settled on was “Kricket,” inspired in part by one of his favorite characters on The Young and the Restless.

The new surroundings, vast government support, a new name, and—most importantly—a change in insurance put Jerome on track to go all the way with his change of “sex.”

Major corporations led the change in paying for so-called transition surgery. According to the anti-Christian Human Rights Campaign, fully one-third of Fortune 500 companies now offer such coverage. A year ago, Medicare ended its ban on such payments, and in recent months, nine states have dropped their exclusion for transsexual health care. Last March, New York became the latest, and Jerome stepped up for his.

Jerome already had substantial work done on his body. In his group house in Atlanta, he and the others would shoot each other with hormone and silicone injections. He also had a breast augmentation up to a whopping DD cup, all the better to ply his trade as a she-male hooker.

Jerome began the process in earnest this fall, traveling to a clinic on the Main Line in Philadelphia. The first step was something called an orchiectromy, the castration of the testicles in order to stop production of testosterone. This fall, he was wheeled into an operating room and had lopped off what he calls “my friend.” The doctors also sculpted a rudimentary vagina.

Jerome says he is now no longer a “chick with a wiener” but “a woman in mind, body, and soul, before the Lord and before the law.”

American taxpayers may want to know where their money has gone. Jerome gives the impression of not being entirely stable. He is only a year out of prison. Moreover, at various times, to the New York Times reporter who lavished praise on him, Jerome described himself as a “make-up artist” and a “motivational speaker” who wants to be an undertaker.

Not too long ago, the psychiatric establishment recognized those like Jerome as disordered. Dr. Ray Blanchard of the University of Toronto says transsexuals fall into one of two basic categories: homosexual transsexuals who want to attract other men by posing as women and autogynephilic transsexuals who find it sexually exciting to think of having breasts and a vagina.

Dr. Paul McHugh, longtime head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Hospital who closed the Johns Hopkins sex change unit, says such interests demonstrate underlying psychological disorders that will remain and perhaps be made worse by such drastic surgery.

Walt Heyer, who lived as a woman for many years and now runs a website called Sex Change Regret, says there is an inevitable hangover from such surgery. The euphoria will give way to further depression, which is why the suicide rate among post-op transsexuals remains significantly higher than the general population even in such trans-friendly places as Sweden.

As for Jerome, he now considers himself a “heterosexual woman” and is now dating a “transgender man,” that is, a woman who thinks she’s a man and who may want the facsimile of a “penis” surgically applied. Jerome says he is surprised since he has never been attracted to a woman, even one who wants to be a man. Jerome also says he is now a “whole new being.”

Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter @austinruse.