Transgender Childhood

 The TRANSSEXUAL PHENOMENON (1966) by Harry Benjamin, M.D.
 https://transreads.org/the-transsexual-phenomenon/

 Childhood of a Transsexual by Ava [1]

 EDITOR'S NOTE: Ava, a fictitious name as are all those used in the following autobiographies and case histories, is a male transsexual. In his late twenties, he has not yet had the sex conversion surgery that was his main objective in life. Not every transsexual has, of course, a childhood as obviously unfortunate as Ava's - broken home, promiscuous mother, series of foster homes, and so on. A good many such persons come from average or above-average homes and have been well treated and loved by their parents about as have other children. Much more typical here are the experiences with other children and with cross-dressing, and the feeling of being female rather than male. Ava's remarks, part of a considerably longer autobiography, follow.

 I was born twenty-seven years ago to parents whose marriage was already breaking up. My mother was still married at the time to her first husband, but he was not my father. This fact caused various problems as to how I would be registered, and it explains why, to this day, I have never been able to obtain a birth certificate.

 Shortly after my birth, I was placed in a foster home, owing to my mother's inability to take care of me. Before my birth, my mother had been sentenced to the county workhouse for 60 days, for neglect of minor children. As I understand it, this charge grew out of her leaving her two children by her first husband with irresponsible people while she went around to taverns with the man who was my father.

 About a year after my birth, mother obtained a divorce from her first husband and later married my father. By this time she again was pregnant, with my sister. After this second marriage I was removed from the foster home to go and live with my mother and father. My situation was not improved by this, since at home there was always trouble, mainly caused by my father's drinking all the time and my mother's constant stream of boyfriends. My father would come home drunk, the two of them would begin quarreling, and soon the argument would lead to violence. Very often, my father would beat my mother, she would call the police, and they would come and haul him off to jail.

 One time, I remember, my father came home in his usual drunken state and he had a chicken with him. He made mother cook the chicken, and then she had to sit at the table and watch him eat it. He dared any of us to touch the chicken. I asked for a piece and mother tried to get it for me, but my father jumped up from his chair and hit mother so hard that she fell and cut her head, so that she had to be rushed to the hospital to be sewed up. For that, father was sent - again - to the county workhouse.

 Another time, when he came home drunk and began to beat my mother, I picked up a bottle of shoe polish and threw it at him. This so infuriated him that he picked up a big glass bowl and threw it back at me; but mother jumped between us, the bowl hit her and shattered, and again she had to go to the hospital. There are many such incidents, and although I was not even three years old, I remember them vividly. It was during one such family brawl that father slapped me on the ears, causing a partial deafness that is with me to this day.

 Because of these constant marital difficulties, they eventually separated. Mother then found an apartment for us, and I remember the place very well since it was there that I first became aware of my feminine inclinations. I was just a little past three years old, and I remember the date because it was about at the same time that I put my hand through a window and cut it very badly.

 While we lived in this place, mother, when she wanted to punish me, would send me up to our third floor apartment while she and my sister would stay downstairs, sitting on the front steps. I used to do everything I could to be punished in this way, because upstairs, by myself, I would go through the pillowcase where mother kept our dirty laundry, take out one of her slips, and put it on. I would then walk around in the slip, pretending that I was a girl. Just what my mother knew of this practice I am uncert ain, but she claims that she has no memory of ever catching me.

 At about the age of four, I was again put into a foster home. I have very little memory of that home, and after a year or so spent there I was placed in a children's home that was run by the state. In this home there were a lot of children, both girls and boys, and for the first time my desires began to make trouble for me. I constantly yearned to be with the girls and play their games, but whenever the people who ran the place caught me playing with the girls, they would send me back to where the boys were. I remember being deathly afraid of the boys, because they were too rough and I was afraid of getting hurt. The boys in this institution didn't like me any better than I liked them. Although the girls' dormitory was off limits, and most of the boys never even went near it, I was there on many occasions and had lots of friends among the girls. This had nothing at all to do with sex so far as I was concerned.
 Although many of the girls were older than I was, they seemed to accept me. I don't recall how it started, but I would many times put on one of the younger girl's dresses. It was all in fun, and they laughed at me, but still I enjoyed this immensely. Of course, I was finally caught by the authorities and I was punished. I must have been a problem for them, just trying to keep me away from the girls.

 It was while at this home that I started to school. This was the worst time of my life. I wanted desperately to be like the other girls, and I resented being made to play boys' games, but no one seemed to understand or care how I felt. I remember that behind the school there was a graveyard and I would go there to hide and cry. I was so confused and unhappy that I was crying much of the time. My heart cried out to wear the pretty dresses that the other girls were wearing and it was a torture to watch them laughing and being so happy. At the same time the boys, realizing that I was a little odd, began tormenting me. They seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of pushing me around, and even the smallest boys would bully me because they knew I would never fight back. Then, it wasn't long before the girls began staying away from me too, and I was completely alone. I got to the point that going to bed at night was my only escape. I wasn't yet seven years old, and I wanted to die: to die and go forever to that graveyard where I went to hide and weep. Even today, whenever I see a child crying, I recapture the horror of that time. My heart goes out to the child, and I imagine that his is a problem such as mine.

 Just after my seventh birthday, I was sent to another home. This home had only four other foster children living there. One of them was a boy of about 14, and the rest were girls. All but one of the girls at the home, which actually was a small farm, were younger than I. My foster mother was a very fat woman who was disabled. Together with her middle-aged daughter, they took care of us for the state.

 I was very shy, and although these women tried to get acquainted with me on my arrival, I just sat on a chair without speaking. The older woman told me I should call her "mother," and gave me a lot of other instructions that frightened me so that I began to cry. She then told me that if I was going to act like a baby, I would be treated like one. They put a diaper on me, which shamed me no end. After this punishment, we went over to the school I would attend to pick up the oldest of the girls and bring her home. That was Margie, as I will call her, and we were good friends from the beginning.

 Each of the children had certain chores to do, and some of mine I hated. For example, I hated feeding the chickens because I was afraid of them. I didn't want to feed the pigs because they smelled so bad. I didn't like bringing in the wood for the fireplace because I got dirty carrying it. I kept envying the girls, who seemed always to be helping with the cooking and sewing, and playing little games.

 Margie seemed to sense from the beginning that something was wrong with me and did her best to help. She would take me for talks in the woods and read to me whenever she had the time. School was no different from before, The other children knew I was not like them and wanted nothing to do with me. If I was forced by the teachers to participate in games, I was always the last one chosen when sides were being picked. The side that was unlucky enough to be last in choosing was stuck with me. I can't really blame them for not wanting me, since I was always doing something wrong or was unable to hold up my part of the game, so that my side would always lose.

 Most of my recesses were spent sitting on a swing, and it was during one of these recesses that I remember actually saying to myself for the first time: I wish I was a girl! I was almost nine then, and in the third grade. This particular day I was standing near where the little girls were playing baseball. One little girl whom I had always envied greatly asked me to get the ball for her when it rolled over to where I was standing. As I handed her the ball, she smiled at me in a strange way. The way that she smiled at me and said "thank you" caused a peculiar feeling to come over me. All of a sudden, I wanted to be her. I wanted desperately and with all my heart to be as pretty and as sweet as she was, and I can remember my exact words, I said to her in a kind of mumbling voice: "I wish I was you, you are so pretty." I began to cry, and then all at once I was running, not to any place in particular, but just to get away. I kept running and running, and before I knew it I was almost home. There was a little woods near there, and on reaching it I went inside and sat down by a tree and cried until I thought my heart would break. I only new that I was aching inside. I wanted to be a girl, a real girl. I kept thinking of the little girl back at the school, and the more I thought of her the worse it got.

 When I finally arrived home, my foster mother was waiting for me. The school had called her and told her that I had run away and that I was crying. My foster mother asked me what was wrong, and I think that was the closest I ever came to telling anyone about my feelings until I was in my late twenties. I wanted so much to tell her my problem, but somehow I just couldn't. Instead, I lied to her and told her that I was sick. In a way, of course, it wasn't a lie. I was in fact very sick: heartsick. I was kept at home then for a couple of days, excused from my regular chores, and even allowed to help a little with the housework. That helped somewhat to raise my spirits.

 After that day in the playground, my life was one horrible depression. I began to spend my time alone in the attic, which was filled with all sorts of old furniture and boxes. The attic was very large, since this was a fifteen-room house. On one of my visits to the attic I began looking around in the boxes and I found in one of them an old blue taffeta dress that must have been worn in the 1890s. Along with some of the other things, I took the dress and hid it in a corner. I wanted to put it on, but fear of being discovered prevented me. I kept going back to the attic every day, just to look at the dress, never daring to give in to my heart's desire. It must have been a month before I got up the courage to try on my dress.

 I had decided that day at school I had to put on the dress, no matter what the consequences. After dinner, I hurried through my homework and told my foster mother I wanted to go up to the attic and play with the erector set, which I wasn't allowed to bring downstairs. Checking my homework as usual, and complimenting me for finishing that and my chores so promptly, she gave her permission. Knowing that the others would be busy for at least another hour, so that I would have privacy, I went up to the attic.

 My heart was almost bursting with anticipation as I rushed up those stairs. I took the dress from its hiding place and held it in arms as if it were a fragile doll. I removed all my clothing and slipped the dress over my head, letting it fall over my nude body.

 The sound of the rustling taffeta and the feel of its softness on my bare skin thrilled me immensely. A frightened, depressed, moody, unhappy child suddenly was transformed into a glowing, radiant personality: a personality that had been forced to lie dormant in a deformed, crippled body. A "feminine personality," that had been trying to grasp at a chance to come into being. I just stood there in that dusty attic, a supposed boy-child wearing an old, tattered dress, but feeling in my heart and soul that I was as much a girl as any other girl in the world. At last, I was that little girl back on the playground who unknowingly had caused me so much torture.

 I wanted to run downstairs and show the whole family. I wanted them to see just how little it took to make me happy. Of course, I knew I couldn't do this. I knew that now, as never before, I would have to keep my secret closely guarded. I began to walk around the attic, my skirt swishing and feeling divine against my body. Already I began wondering what it would be like to be completely dressed. I began to imagine that I was wearing panties and a slip under my dress, and even that I had long hair. I heard my foster mother calling me, and I hastily took off my dress, put the male clothes back on, and went downstairs.

 The others had now finished their homework and it had been decided that we would make some ice cream. I said something about going back upstairs and putting my toys away, and was told to do so. Once back in the attic, I carefully folded my dress and returned it to its hiding place. I knew that this was only the beginning of something that was going to give my life a little meaning. I went back down to join the others feeling happier than I had been for a long time. My foster mother noticed my sudden, obvious elation, and commented that she would have to send me up to the attic alone more often.

 Life, for a while, seemed easier. Even the other children at school didn't bother me. I was in a world of my own, and my moods of depression came seldom, my whole outlook was improved. My whole life was wrapped up in my visits to the attic, and they were almost all that mattered to me. At school, this caused a little trouble, since I spent so much time daydreaming and sometimes, when called on in class, would fail to hear my name, much less know what the teacher had been talking about. Notes were sent home to my foster mother on account of this, and my teachers would scold me, but I just couldn't pay attention. Instead, I would daydream that I was a beautiful princess, trapped in the hands of some villain, and that a strong, handsome prince would come on a big white horse to rescue me. This type of daydream was very frequent with me, and always I was the girl in distress, never the rescuing hero. I experienced these dreams so vividly that when they ended, and I came back to reality, I was terribly disappointed that it had been only a dream.

 Since my school work was suffering as a result of my fantasies, I was punished by my foster mother. At first, I was made to go to bed early. This did no good, because I would only lie there and pretend some more. Obviously, I didn't mind being sent off to bed, so it was decided I must have some other punishment to cure me of my "stubbornness." I was given Margie's room, which was very small, and she was moved downstairs to sleep on the sofa in the living-room.

 I was given that room because it could be locked from the outside. Also, in there I would have to sleep alone, and since I was deathly afraid of the dark, they removed all the light bulbs. I suppose my foster mother, all else having failed, thought that this worst of all possible punishments might persuade me to behave. But, locked up in that dark room, I was terrified. I would kick and bang on the door, screaming and pleading to be let out. Then, I would get a whipping, or several whippings, until finally I quieted down and would manage to go to sleep.

 I don't remember that these measures put an end to my daydreaming, but the notes from my teachers did finally stop, and this had the effect of persuading my foster mother that the most effective way to punish me was to lock me up in Margie's room. Sometimes, they would keep me locked up in there all day, bringing me my meals, and only at mealtime was I let out to go to the toilet. Then, I wasn't allowed to flush the toilet, so that they could see if I had been lying just to get out of the room.

 I didn't mind very much being locked in there during the daytime; particularly not when I learned that Margie's clothes were still kept in the closet. Soon, I was trying on her clothes - first panties and slip, then a dress, and after that I would look in the mirror and see the girl that I knew myself to be. I came to look forward to being locked up in the daytime. Dressed as a girl, I would play house and pretend that I was the mother. My pillow became a baby, and I would put her to bed, feed her, and talk to her just as if she were real.

 On one occasion when I was dressed in Margie's clothes, and was wearing a red satin dress I particularly liked, all of a sudden I heard someone unlocking the door. I pulled the dress off so fast that it ripped, tossed it under the bed, and hastily lay down and pulled the sheet up over me, still dressed in slip and panties. No sooner was I covered, than in came Margie, who wanted to know what I was doing and what was that ripping sound she had heard. Before I could even think of an answer, she pulled back the sheet and saw me lying there, still wearing her slip.

 All I could think of to tell her was that I put it on because it felt so nice and smooth. She said it sounded silly to her, but she wouldn't tell on me if I would show her what it was that had ripped as she was opening the door. Then I showed her the dress and admitted that I had been wearing that too. When I began crying, she put her arm around me and promised not to let anyone know what I had been doing. But she made me promise not to wear any of her dresses except a pretty yellow one that she said I could wear any time. She made me promise, too, that I would explain to her what it was all about.

 The first day after I went back to school, Margie came to my classroom at lunch time. We took a long walk in the field in back of the school, and there for the first time in my life I admitted to someone that I liked to wear dresses and to pretend that I was a girl. Margie, sweet and understanding as always, didn't laugh at me. She only told me that I would have to be careful not to tear her clothes, and she promised that the next time we played in the attic, she would dress me like a girl. Things were better after that. I had someone I could talk to, and who even seemed to understand me. For the next couple of years, sometimes in her presence and sometimes alone, I dressed up in Margie's clothes. But as she grew older, she began to run away to visit her mother, and one day a social worker came and said that Margie had gone back to live with her mother for good. Once again, I was all alone.

 The next few years, until I was twelve, were much the same as the preceding ones. I was continually loathing everything that was boyish and loving everything that was girlish. This was also a time when I began to have very bad nightmares, and this made my fear of the darkness even worse. I mention this especially because following such nightmares the desire to be a girl would become even more intense. I am still afraid of the dark, still have the nightmares, and with the same result.

 At the age of eleven and a half I was taken from the foster home to go once again to live with my mother. She had remarried for the third time, and her husband agreed to take me and my sister, who had also been in a foster home, in with them and to raise us as his own children. At first, things were not too bad. My new stepfather, who was over six feet tall, weighed 200 pounds, and gave the impression that he was the manliest man in town, was somewhat disappointed in me. He thought I was a coward, and frequently called me a sissy and told me that I should be more of a man, but I was not otherwise mistreated. And I was indifferent to such criticism, which I had been hearing all my life.

 I was sent to a Catholic school and did well enough until the other boys started to bully me. That I finished my assignments before most of the children and made good marks was a point against me. However, even worse was the fact that I was no good as an athlete and stayed mostly to myself. And the fact that I was a favorite of the nuns, probably because I was quiet and obedient, completed the case against me. Soon, I was being chased home from school every night, and if caught up with was usually given a beating.

 When my step-father learned about this, and how I refused to fight and would just shake with fear and cry, he told me that the next time I was chased home from school and didn't stand up and make a fight of it, and win, he would whip me with a strap. So instead of one beating a day, I began getting two.

 Mother realized that nothing would ever make me stand up for myself, and so she arranged to have me transferred to a public school. In this new school, as in all previous schools, I got along fine for a while. Then the same thing started all over again and I was regularly chased home and beaten. Finally this got so bad that my teacher would send me home fifteen minutes earlier, so that I could avoid the other boys.

 I never attended any of the social functions of the school. My homeroom teacher, being the art instructor and also the social director, always had me help her to prepare for these events which I never attended. I was now about twelve years old, and although I was constantly trying on my mother's clothes at every chance, there was never an opportunity to get completely dressed up as I wanted to do. I yearned to have long hair and to be able to wear a skirt and blouse. Watching the other girls walk down the hall would drive me almost insane. I would listen with envy as the boys made remarks about those girls as they passed. I wanted so much to hear those remarks made about me! I was also very envious of the girls who were beginning to develop breasts. I would picture myself walking down the hall wearing a skirt and sweater, with my breasts showing and looking completely feminine.

 One girl in particular, who was very well built, would always wear a sweater to school. It seemed that I was always where she was, and the more I saw her the more I wanted to be just like her. At night, when I was in my room, I would try to make breasts by putting articles of clothing, all balled up, under the slip I had stolen from my mother. It would give me a feeling of exaltation to look so feminine. This was the ultimate in femininity. I loved to wear the clothes, but to have a real girl's shape was my greatest desire. I craved to have the smooth skin, the well-rounded legs that were typically feminine. Finally, I wanted above all to walk down the hall at school and be looked at and respected as were the normal girls.

 Yes, normal girls; for I was a girl with all my heart, but I was not a normal girl. I was a freak of a girl, one who had to look like a boy. I couldn't look pretty or act dainty like I wanted to. I couldn't carry my books up in my arms or giggle at silly things, couldn't swoon over the latest movie idol and talk about the cute pair of shoes at the corner store; yet my natural inclination was to do exactly those things. I think that no pain on this earth can equal the pain that I experienced at that time of my life.

 I understood that I was different, but I couldn't understand why. I knew it was wrong to be always so unhappy, but there seemed to be nothing I could do about that. There was no one at school who I felt would understand. Moreover, my little sister, two years younger than I, caused me unending mental anguish. She was a beautiful girl with hair all the way down to her waist. Everyone admired her beauty and was always commenting about it. Her breasts began to develop, and I heard mother saying that she soon would be needing a bra. How I envied her, and she seemed so proud, just as I would have been. Then, there were all the pretty party dresses with 110 laces, ribbons, and bows. Mother would find a dress for her and have her try it on, and the family would be asked to express their approval. But a new suit for me was nothing to care about, just so it fit. I don't remember that ever in my life was I excited or happy about receiving any item of male attire. Because of this, mother always said I was ungrateful.

 So my life went until that eventful day that proved to be the most cherished day in my life for some years to come. My mother had told my step-father at the dinner table that she was going to town the next day to do some shopping, also that she would be going to a nearby city to attend to some business. Since she would be gone most of the day, she would take my sister with her. I was to stay home and do the housework. When I heard that I would be alone in the house all day, I knew that this would be the chance of a lifetime.

 I lay awake most of the night, thinking of the wonderful adventure that lay ahead, until finally it was morning. When I noticed it was raining, my heart nearly broke in two. But the business was urgent, and when mother announced she would make the trip anyway, my relief was so great I almost cried.

 Finally, after what seemed endless last-minute preparations, they were gone. My step-father had already left for work, and when my mother and sister were out of the door I quickly locked it behind them. Then I locked the back door, too, and went straight to mother's room. I opened the closet and feasted my eyes on all those beautiful clothes. I was so excited and thrilled that I didn't know where to start.

 I had made up my mind that for once I was going to dress completely, using everything that a girl would use. I took off my male clothes and put them in another room. I wanted nothing around to remind me of my hated male role. I remember feeling a little frightened, thinking that mother might have to come back for some reason, but there was no turning back for me now. I don't think I could have stopped myself if I had wanted to. I opened the dresser drawer and found a slip and a pair of matching panties. Then I began looking for all of the articles that would complete my transformation.

 After about an hour of adjusting and pinning, I was all dressed except for makeup. I had combed my hair in such a way that it looked a little like a short poodle cut. I then began trying to apply makeup. For some strange reason I had remained fairly calm until I began to apply the lipstick. I can't explain it, but even to this day I am able to dress completely without changing my mood too much, until I apply my lipstick. Just then is when I really begin to feel that I am a complete girl.

 As I applied the lipstick, I experienced a feeling that was complet ely new to me. I began to feel lighthearted and gay. All traces of depression and frustration seemed to vanish. Here I was, finally, after all these years, a girl, not only in my own mind but I actually looked like one. I was swooning with my new-found pleasure. I had never known such contentment. I felt perfectly normal. I had no feelings of guilt as I have heard so many others say they felt on their first complete dressing. I actually had nothing to feel guilty about, save for the fact that I was wearing my mother's clothes for the reason that I had none of my own. All the femininity that was within me came pouring out. I danced and twirled around so that my skirts would swing out. I felt as though I wanted to sing at the top of my lungs.

 I was so happy that I began to cry. I must have cried for an hour, for my eyes hurt when I was finally able to pull myself together. My God in heaven only knows how completely happy I was. Finally I went downstairs, and surprisingly enough I had little trouble walking in my high heels, even though this was the first time I had worn them. I began to do some housework, being careful not to muss my dress, I even fixed myself some lunch and ate just like any girl who has been left home alone while her mother is away. Everything seemed perfectly natural. I had no past, no problems, only the present, and it certainly held no problems. As for the future, I made up my mind that I would, as long as I lived, dress at every opportunity. I think that it was at this time that I really admitted to myself that I was a girl.

 My glorious adventure all too soon had to end. It was getting late and my step-father would be coming home, I went back upstairs and began the disheartening task of removing all my lovely clothes. Slowly and carefully I took off each piece, my heart breaking with every move. I just could not bear to return to the hated and dreaded male role that had me imprisoned and trapped in a body that I loathed. After undressing and replacing everything just where it had been, I went to the bathroom and washed off the makeup. So here I was, back to my old and miserable existence. I would like to say that though the clothes did feel wonderful, and I loved to handle them, this was not the means to an end. Even at that time, as well as now, the wearing of feminine clothes is not in itself any great thrill. The wearing of the clothes is just a natural impulse. It seems the only natural thing to do.

 And of course, just as any girl, I wanted to look pretty. The dressing in these clothes is the outward expression of the inner desires and emotions.

 A girl really feels her femininity when she is able to express it in a pretty dress, or any article that is solely feminine. Of course I love to have pretty clothes and I love wearing them just as any girl does, but if I didn't feel inside the way I do, it would all be just a masquerade. In my case, the masquerade is when I am wearing male attire, for it is at this time that I feel uncomfortable. I am not happy unless I am able to express my femininity in thought, word, and, if practical, in deed.

 After making sure that I had hidden every trace of my activities, I rushed through the rest of the housework and finished it about the time that my step-father arrived home. I then started the dinner while my step-father read the paper. There were many more incidents like this one after that, and I was never actually caught. The only thing that my mother did catch was that there were some of her clothes hidden under my bed. She had a habit of sending me up to bed early when I did something that displeased her, and on one of these occasions, after sending me up to my room, she came to search for comic books she thought I was hiding and reading when I was supposed to be undergoing punishment. When she turned the mattress, she found a pair of panties, a slip, and a pair of nylons. All of these items I had taken from her room months ago.

 Mother never said a word about what she had found. She just took the things and went downstairs. The second and third times that she found my clothes, she accused my sister of trying on her things. I do not know to this day if she really believed that.

 Footnotes [1] Further information concerning this case is provided by Benjamin on page 62 [Chapter 4, Three different types of transsexuals], where patient' s name is Harriet.

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 HARRIET

 An example of a full-fledged transsexual, a S.O.S. VI, is that of Harriet, whose childhood in foster homes and similar abodes is related among the Case Histories. As this twenty-eight-year-old patient still, as this is written in 1964, lives and works as a male, he shall (for the beginning of his story) be referred to as such, and with the initial H.

 Hoping to cure his TVism and TSism, H. married at the age of nineteen a completely unsophisticated, seventeen-year-old girl whose femininity he envied with irrational possessiveness. With the help of fantasies, he succeeded in fathering three children. Although a good provider as a successful salesman, the marriage was in an "off again, on again" state when he and his wife came to see me first. His transvestism (on the surface) was the principal stumbling block in the marriage and appeared much more prominent than any transsexual urge. (He admitted later that he purposely failed to mention his transsexual desires, fearing he might antagonize me as he had other doctors in the past.) Brave attempts to preserve the marriage for the sake of the children were doomed to failure. When H. told me that he had been under psychiatric treatment in his home town, I suggested that I consult with the psychiatrist by phone to get his psychiatric diagnosis and see what possibly could be done to calm his emotional turmoil with estrogen in addition to the psychotherapy he was receiving.

 The doctor did phone me, but to my astonishment he took a nonmedical, strictly moralistic stand. "This man wants an operation," he said, priest like, "and naturally we cannot tamper with our God-given bodies. His wife should leave him, children or no children. H. is a degenerate and a no-good scoundrel," or something to that effect. The doctor had no psychiatric diagnosis to give me. A letter in which I asked again his medical (psychiatric) opinion remained unanswered.

 H., a deeply disturbed and bewildered young man, then told me that his sessions with this psychiatrist had been expensive hours of nothing but argumentation and berating on the part of the doctor without any psychological benefit to him . After every session he was worse than before.

 Another psychiatrist examined H. later at my suggestion, found him to be nonpsychotic, of superior intelligence, a greatly disturbed transsexual for whom psychotherapy in present available forms would be useless, as far as any cure might be concerned. Operation was suggested.

 Since H. had made two attempts at suicide, psychological guidance with estrogen treatment was undertaken in order to enable him to continue - though precariously - in a rather responsible job with a good enough salary, to save money for the operation abroad. Various attempts to have the operation performed in the United States had failed. H. was a slightly built, attractive, feminine-looking man, when examined in 1964, whose appearance is much more acceptable when in female dress. On Kinsey's hetero-homosexual scale, he could be classed as a 4 during his married life, but would now be a 6, that is to say, completely homosexually oriented. On the S.O.S. he is likewise a VI.

 Early in 1965 the great day arrived at last and H. flew to Europe for the operation that was to change him into the woman that he wanted to be all his life. After an insufficient time at the hospital, following the rather major operation, and after an unusually strenuous plane trip home, H. arrived utterly exhausted but happy nevertheless. He had been compelled to travel as a man and being overanxious to get into female attire, he had unduly hurried the homecoming. Complications (an internal abscess) developed and some further surgery was required. At the end of the summer, however, a much improved and "deliriously happy" attractive young lady presented herself at my office.

 A clerical position was soon procured and H. was evidently accepted and treated like any normal girl. The consequences of a not too successful operation, however, continued to cause a good deal of discomfort as healing was delayed. Otherwise life seemed good indeed and during the fall H. met her Prince Charming.

 A responsible and understanding older man (a far cry from the seventeen-year-old girl of her past life) who is fully aware of the entire situation is now her devoted husband. They are planning the adoption of a child. Household duties have replaced office work and although some minor surgery may still have to complete the physical transformation, true happiness seems to have dictated the following words in H.'s most recent letter to me (November 1965):

 "I have found happiness that I never dreamed possible. I adore being a girl and I would go thru 10 operations, if I had to, in order to be what I am now. A girl's life is so wonderful. The whole world looks so beautifully different. The only thing that could add to my life now, would be a baby girl. D. (her husband) says that after all legal matters are settled, maybe we will adopt one."

 So far, this case seems to have found a happy ending.