Transsexualism - Origins

Origins

Gender was originally a linguistic term. In many languages, words can be considered masculine, feminine, or neutral, completely independently from the attributes of the things to which the word applies. Different languages manifest gender in various ways, recognizing two genders (female, male), three genders (female, male, neuter), or in some cases none at all. In some (e.g. the Romance languages), variation by gender is indicated by relatively simple changes in nouns and adjectives, while others require more complex grammatical changes. In English, a transsexual person's first step in transition often includes the request to be referred to using pronouns for their target gender (she rather than he, her rather than him, and hers rather than his, or vice versa). Some English speakers who feel that they are best described as something in between or other than masculine or feminine prefer to use "they" and "them", as well as “ze” and “hir” (examples of gender-neutral pronouns in English) or other invented neutral pronouns.

Norman Haire reported that in 1921, that Dora-R of Germany under the care of Magnus Hirschfeld, began surgical transition from 1921, ending in 1930 with a successful genital reassignment surgery. In 1930, Magnus Hirschfeld supervised the second genital reassignment surgery to be reported in detail in a peer-reviewed journal on Lili Elbe of Denmark. The German term “Transsexualismus” was introduced by Hirschfeld in 1923. The neo-Latin term “psychopathia transexualis” and English “transexual” were introduced by D. O. Cauldwell in 1949, who subsequently also used the term “trans-sexual” in 1950. Cauldwell appears to be the first to use the term in direct reference to those who desired a change of physiological sex. (In 1969, Benjamin claimed to have been the first to use the term “transsexual” in a public lecture, which he gave in December 1953.) This term continues to be used by the public and medical profession alike. It was included for the first time in the DSM-III in 1980 and again in the DSM-III-R in 1987, where it was located under Disorders Usually First Evident in Infancy, Childhood or Adolescence.

Christine Jorgensen created an international sensation when in 1952 she was the first widely known person to have sex reassignment surgery—in this case, male to female.

The word transsexual was used by Harry Benjamin in his seminal 1966 book The Transsexual Phenomenon to describe transsexual people on a scale (later called the "Benjamin scale") that recognizes three levels of intensity of transsexualism: "Transsexual (nonsurgical)", "Transsexual (moderate intensity)", and "Transsexual (high intensity)". in The Transsexual Phenomenon, Benjamin described "true" transsexualism in this way: "True transsexuals feel that they belong to the other sex, they want to be and function as members of the opposite sex, not only to appear as such. For them, their sex organs, the primary (testes) as well as the secondary (penis and others) are disgusting deformities that must be changed by the surgeon's knife." Benjamin suggested that moderate intensity male to female transsexual people may benefit from estrogen medication as a "substitute for or preliminary to operation." Some people have had SRS but do not meet the common definition of a transsexual (e.g., Gregory Hemingway). Other people do not desire SRS although they do meet Dr. Benjamin's definition of a "true transsexual". Beyond Benjamin's work, which focused on male-to-female transsexual people, there is the case of the female to male transsexual for whom genital surgery may not be practical. Benjamin gives his MTF transsexual patients papers that will help with most legal problems. The certificates state 'Their anatomical sex, that is to say, the body, is male. Their psychological sex, that is to say, the mind, is female'. However, beyond 1967 Benjamin and his terminology of sexual identity are found to be mostly obsolete.