Greater Acceptance: Some Information for Those Who May Not Have Followed this Issue

[Jamie Ann]

I go all the way back to the 1950s. When I first came out to my mom at 5 years old, in 1960, she was terrified that if anyone found out they would give me electroshock or a lobotomy - that was the standard therapy for transsexuals back in those days.

The public image of Cross-dressers was Milton Berle - dressed as a very ugly woman, with a mostly Bass voice.

In 1969, you could still be arrested in most states just for appearing in public dressed as a woman. The Stonewall Riots started when Police tried to round up a bunch of drag queens and cross-dressers (hard to tell which was which back in those days).

In the 1960s and early 1970s, we saw cross-dressers on Monte Python, with falsetto voices, and bad make-up, but almost looking like matronly women.

In 1979, we had Sulka, one of the first transsexuals to make movies as both a She-male and post-op. It was easy to see that things weren't quite right.

...

Compared to the costs of those radical and debilitating treatments, or the very high suicide rate, the cost of HRT and SRS is a bargain.

Hi DebbieL,

Thank you so much for your informative post. I urge others to read the full post, not just the part I have quoted. Treatment by HRT and SRS is a bargain for many people. For years, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) took the position that treating schizophrenia was the proper approach. According to them, if you could control the schizophrenia through drugs or other methods, then the cross-gender dressing would no longer be pursued. Transsexuals and other transgender persons strongly objected. All human beings have mixtures of feminine and masculine feelings. Genetic males/females that have strong feelings skewed toward the feminine/masculine side are a normal part of the gender variance among human beings. They don’t have an illness. They are part of the normal spectrum.

I applaud you and others who have made very important contributions on this issue. Harry Benjamin was a good man, who had good intentions; but the APA has recognized that transgender persons may know what they’re talking about, whereas WPATH still clings to the disease model.

Best regards,
Jamie Ann