The Riddle of Gender

Q: Do you have any childhood memories of the big media splash surrounding Christine Jorgensen’s return to the United States after her surgery in Denmark? Was she an inspiration to you? Did you ever meet her?

I never met Ms. Jorgensen, nor can I even say that she was a true inspiration for me when contemplating my own surgery. The media frenzy that accompanied Christine’s arrival at New York International Airport [sic], February 13, 1953, actually had a decidedly negative effect on me as a high school freshman. The hoopla surrounding the Jorgensen gender transformation focused an unflattering spotlight on me as an overly feminine teenager. “Buddy must have caught what Christine has,” was my classmates’ taunting chant for several weeks at Trousdale County High. I wasn’t thrilled to have my carefully constructed male cover blown by Christine Jorgensen’s high-powered publicity splash. I felt exposed. I felt very threatened. I was not yet aware that I was Christine’s transgendered sister. I’d always believed I was meant to be a girl, but the jokes, horror, and general commotion that surrounded Christine Jorgensen’s transition kept me from believing I might be a girl like America’s first transsexual.

Q: One of the things I found so refreshing about your memoir was your honesty. Some of the earlier transsexual memoirists like Jor gens en were so circumspect, because of the times the authors were writing in. They really couldn’t discuss their sex lives, for example. But you really don’t pull any punches. You put it all out there.

I’ve heard that. And I’m flattered. That’s what I wanted more than anything. If I’m taking this step, and coming forward at long last, I must be honest, and I can’t sugarcoat anything.

Q: One of the things I’ve found interesting as I’ve been conducting my research is the conflicted relationship between homosexuality and transsexu-ality. Christine Jorgensen and many other early transsexuals were adamant about insisting that they were not homosexuals. One of the things I found unique about your book is that you admitted that you were a gay man …

Perceived to be a gay man. But I didn’t think that was the case. Before I met Dr. Benjamin, well… You wear the badges that are available at the fair and that’s what was available. I was not popular in the gay bars, and the men who were attracted to me were attracted because of the image I projected onstage. I was just too ultra for the gay community. If an interested potential partner thought that you believed it (that you were female), that’s the difference. If it were bigger than life, drag, a parody of femininity, that’s camp. Then, that was okay.

Q: Did you feel comfortable in the gay community before your transition?’

No. I did not feel comfortable in the community. I do more so now, actually. Adore it, really. Because I’ve become an icon. I went to a book reading in San Francisco, and there was a very interesting young man who came by and said, “This book is so important to me because the movement in the gay community is now to exclude those of us who want to cherish our femininity.” And I thought, yes … Because here he was in a lumber shirt and the whole thing. I view that as almost criminal. We just must learn to let people be as they are. The whole impersonation thing also [drag queens] … The community has turned on those representatives of the Stonewall era. They are ashamed of them now.

Q: You were a patient of Dr. Harry Benjamin. You met Dr. Benjamin when you were working at Finocchio’s?

Yes. Started hormones, did all that. And of course with his rules and regulations, generally you have to dress in the clothing [of your preferred gender] for a time, but I didn’t because I was working at Finocchio’s.

Q: And he referred you to your surgeon, Dr. Elmer Belt?

Yes.

Q: Can you tell me a little about Dr. Benjamin, as you knew him?

He was doing extremely well in the early sixties. He had offices in Paris, New York, and San Francisco. As much as he did for me, and as much as I appreciate what he did for me … well, we were referred to as “his girls” and then there were RGs, “real girls.” And it has only recently struck me that if we had our druthers, and in a perfect world, that distinction would not be there. And I question his putting it there. I was wondering what he really was thinking. He was very kind, very gentle, very embracing, but I’m not sure that he really got it, as I perceived it. But I don’t think that we could have expected any more at the time.

Q: At the time you transitioned, there was no real “transgender community. “ You pretty much transitioned in isolation, didn’t you?

Well, I did have friends. [Laughs]

Q: But you had no sense of being part of a movement?

Oh, good god, no. I would have run from that.

Q: Did Benjamin’s clients, patients …

Children. [Laughs]

Q: Did you keep in touch with one another?”

Pretty much so. For example, my friend Charlotte, whom I mention in the book. She was stepmother to three children. We ran around as couples, and of course neither husband knew.

Q: You were married three times and none of them knew about your surgery whenyou married?’

I just didn’t see the need to share that information. And actually still don’t. It just seems to me that you are cutting out problems for yourself, if you say, “Before we go any further, I must share this with you.” And then you have your first fight, and you think, “Had I not told him, would we have had this fight? What is he thinking? Is he judging me?” Now if you are secure enough in yourself, perhaps you don’t go through that. I’ve never been that secure.

Q: So when do you tell?”

If you wait until after the fact (and I have experience with this), that’s worse. That can really be seen as betrayal. I don’t have any answers with any of this. I would hate to be with a man and worry that he was with me because he couldn’t quite accept homosexuality. And all those nagging ugly little thoughts. You buy your ticket and take your chances.

Q: Do you think things were easier when you transitioned?

No doubt about it. People did not know what to look for. There were so few of us, as I’m fond of saying, very few transsexual houses on the block. Forget community; there were few houses on the block. And the people that I knew were friends, for example, my friend Stormy that I write about in the book. She was a vivid character. But she also was very fortunate in that she was beautiful. And I don’t mean to say that everyone must be. But passing, or blending, being able to survive in the world of your choice, is extremely important. I just don’t see running up flags and banners to say, “We’re different.” Because that’s what they are saying to me, “We’re different than you are.” And I don’t feel different.

I went too far by denying my history. But… I have discovered that when I was teaching locally and the word went out [about my trans-sexuality] the principal said, “Why should I be upset? Come back next year.” That is because I have done my job well. I have presented myself respectfully, with some decorum. I would hate to be seated here with you and have a representative of the TG community come in and make a spectacle. It would make me feel embarrassed, but I would feel the same way if anyone came in and made a spectacle. It takes us back rather than pushing us forward.