Deborah Rudacille - The Riddle of Gender

Freud admitted that he, too, had undergone the Steinach operation Benjamin, “Reminiscences.” As did the poet William Butler Yeats and scores of other men who “had recourse to the operation in the belief that it would ‘rejuvenate’ them physically and mentally.” Sengoopta, “Tales,” 1. “Benjamin was diligent beyond belief in spreading his master’s word but soon held back because of Steinach’s wrath and unfair imputations.”

Broadly speaking, the Steinach Operation strengthens the endocrine system Harry Benjamin in the introduction to Paul Kammerer, Rejuvenation and the Prolongation of Human Efficiency: Experiences with the Steinach Operation on Man and AnimaL (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923).

This study group, which beganmeeting in 1916 Charles Ihlenfeld, in “Memorial for Harry Benjamin,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 17, no. 1 (February 1988): 3.

Harry believed that the urine of young men Leah Cahan Schaefer in “Memorial,” 13.

Still determined to find some cure or satisfactory compromise Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen, 73.

Once out of the store, I headed for the car Ibid., 77.

the present wonder is not that intersexual conditions occur Victor Cornelius Medvei, ed., A History of Endocrinology (Lancaster, Boston: MTP Press Ltd., 1982), 406.

The great feeling of listlessness and fatigue Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen, 79.

after powing out “the whole story of my perplexing life” Ibid., 92.

There are several questions about the interaction of the hormone Ibid., 93.

Thus began a period in my life Ibid., 96.

Miraculously, the complex I’d had for years Ibid., 98.

The hormone tablets were discontinued for several weeks Ibid., 101.

I felt you could not be cured, psychologically Ibid., 103.

which her doctors were alternately calling “genuine transvestism “ and “psychic hermaphroditism” Christian Hamburger, Georg K. Sturup, and E. Dahl-Iversen, “Transvestism: Hormonal, Psychiatric, and Surgical Treatment,” JAMA 152, no. 5 (May 30,1953): 391-96.

To return to my old way of life Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen, 104.

As you can see by the enclosed photo Ibid., 107.

I admit the question didn’t take me by surprise Ibid., no. 80 Nature has made a mistake, which I have corrected Ibid., 115.

Filled with a kind of unknown dread Ibid., 128.

To me that message was a symbol of a brutal and cruel betrayal Ibid., 128.

Kinsey had never seen a case like this Haeberle, “Transatlantic Commuter,” 4.

after reading about “operative procedures that feminized men” Lean Cahan Schaefer and Connie Christine Wheeler, “Harry Benjamin’s First Ten Cases (1938—1953): A Clinical Historical Note,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 2./, no. 1 (February 1995): 79.

Note: Although “Barry” was Benjamin’s first “immediately recognizable” transsexual patient, Benjamin had earlier encountered other individuals in his practice whom he later admitted were probably transsexual as well. Schaefer and Wheeler call Otto Spengler—a patient of Hirschfeld’s whom Benjamin met in the twenties and began treating for arthritis in 1938—his first transsexual patient. In the introduction to Green and Money’s Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, Benjamin recounts the story himself, describing Otto Spengler as “an elderly transvestite … separated from his wife … who had his home together with his business establishment. He lived there completely as a woman.” This patient had read about the “newly discovered female hormone, Progynon” and asked Benjamin if use of the hormone would enlarge his breasts. “With some hesitation I agreed to investigate, and after a few months of parenteral therapy, a mild gynecomastia was produced to the infinite delight of the patient and with emotional improvement.” In this introduction Benjamin also notes his encounters with two medical students in the thirties whom, in retrospect, he believed to be transsexual persons. Because none of these persons requested sex reassignment surgery, they would not be considered “true transsexuals” if the typology Benjamin later developed were used.

Benjamin’s first inclination was to send the boy to a psychiatrist Author interview with Wheeler.

He invited me for drinks at the Sulgrave Hotel Virginia Allen in “Memorial,” 26-27.

The papers here are full of the Jorgensen case Schaefer and Wheeler, “Harry Benjamin’s First Ten Cases,” 86.

encountered a mountain of mail Christine Jorgensen in “Memorial,” 24—25. Jorgensen spoke to the assembled guests by telephone from her home in California.

The transsexual (TS) male or female is deeply unhappy Benjamin, Transsexual Phenomenon, 13—14.

the three-to-one estimate of Christine Jorgensen’s physician Christian Hamburger, “The Desire for Change of Sex as Shown in Personal Letters from 465 Men and Women,” Acta Endocrinologica 14 (1953): 361—75.

Like male-bodied transsexuals Benjamin, Transsexual Phenomenon, 149.

Fifty years ago, when I was a medical student in Germany Benjamin, Transsexual Phenomenon, 118.

facilitating another kind of “passing” — from Jewish to German See Sander L. Gilman, Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999). “The key visual stereotype of the Jew that had to be unmade was the feature nineteenth-century scientists labeled ‘nostrility’ At the close of the nineteenth century, the size and shape of the Jew’s nose were signs that everyone, including Jewish physicians, associated with the Jew’s character and permanent visibility within society. The means to change the nose, and perhaps the character, was supplied by Jacques Joseph (1865-1934), a highly accul-turated young German Jewish surgeon practicing in fin de siecle Berlin. Born Jakob Joseph, he had altered his too-Jewish name when he studied medicine in Berlin and Leipzig. Joseph was a typical acculturated Jew of the period, and he understood the cultural signification of marks of honor and dishonor” (122).

Benjamin “understood that you couldn’t separate the bodyfrom the mind” Author interview with Wheeler.

Treating the gender dysphoric person Schaefer and Wheeler, “Harry Benjamin’s First Ten Cases,” 74.

a genial old paternalist Author interview with Stryker.

a number of patients went into prostitutional activities Benjamin, Transsexual Phenomenon, 131.

Leslie Feinberg describes a series of such encounters Leslie Feinberg, “I Can’t Afford to Get Sick,” in Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), 79-80.

Without her courage and determination Benjamin, Transsexual Phenomenon, viii.

As you know, I’ve been avoiding publicity Schaefer and Wheeler, “Harry Benjamin’s First Ten Cases,” 86.

When I got to the carnival in Stroud Hedy Jo Star, My Unique Change (Chicago: Specialty Books, 1965), 26.

To use the Pygmalion allegory John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, Man and Woman, Boy and Girl (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), 152.

Money’s research thus combined radicalism In a 1995 article in the Quarterly Review of Biology, Professor Milton Diamond described Money’s theory as “psychosexual neutrality at birth” to clarify the distinction between Money’s view and his own. Diamond believes that humans are “predisposed psychosexually at birth” and that behavior is ultimately the result of an interaction between this predisposition and environmental influences. Milton Diamond, “A Critical Evaluation of the Ontogeny of Human Sexual Behavior,” Quarterly Review of Biology o (1965): 147—75.