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THE NEW TRANSSEXUALS Dr. Marci Bowers Surgeon
George Petros: WE’RE TALKING TO DR. MARCI BOWERS. YOU’RE A GYNECOLOGIST, RIGHT? Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s correct. I’ve been in private practice for twenty-one years. And I did obstetrics for, including residency, twenty-five years. YOU DELIVERED A LOT OF BABIES. Dr. Marci Bowers: About two-thousand-something babies, I think. WOW. THAT’S A LOT OF BABIES. Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s a lot of babies. I worked in a clinic during my practice years and got rather skilled at doing gynecologic surgery, which I translated to the transition I made in 2003 when I left my OB/GYN practice in Seattle and moved to Trinidad, Colorado to take up the unique sub-specialty of Transgender surgery. I worked with Stanley Biber there, who was a general surgeon and had worked since 1969 doing genital reassignment. And, interestingly, we were the same age when we did our first genital reassignment — he was forty-five and I was forty-five. He had had his earlier career in general surgery and I had my OB/GYN. I found that interesting. YOU YOURSELF HAVE TRANSITIONED — Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s in the distant past, but yes. IS THAT SOMETHING YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT? Dr. Marci Bowers: Not really. I don’t really see myself that way anymore. I just live a normal life these days. But if it helps your story, I’d be happy to talk about it. WELL, THERE’S NO PARTICULAR DETAILS I WAS LOOKING FOR — I WAS JUST CURIOUS ABOUT THE POINT IN YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU MADE THE DECISION AND HOW YOU CHANGED, BESIDES THE OBVIOUS WAYS? Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, you don’t make that decision after just a short period of introspection. You do it based on a life-long history of feeling that way. In my generation, you didn’t go to your parents and say “I’m a girl” at age four or five years old — which is when I was first feeling that way. You see it much more with children today, that they come out to their parents at age two or three, and parents don’t guilt them or shame them into the closet, so to speak. They’re much more accepting and willing to support them in whatever way they can. I SEE. Dr. Marci Bowers: In my case, I suppressed those feelings and made an attempt to transition at age nineteen. I left college and hitch-hiked to California and tried to transition, but there weren’t resources to make that happen. I was a poor college student, so I really didn’t have any financial resources. WHEN YOU WORK WITH PEOPLE TODAY, DO YOU REFLECT ON YOUR OWN HISTORY — Dr. Marci Bowers: Not really. I think every situation is different. I’m empathetic to what they go through in the struggle. Every struggle is unique and different. You have to have a pretty strong inclination to do this. You know, if you leave college to try to make it happen at that early age — I was nineteen when I left college with nothing but a female wardrobe — IT MUST HAVE BEEN A NERVE-WRACKING DECISION — Dr. Marci Bowers: No, not really. It just feels right, you know, so it’s just a little bit frightening because it’s a dangerous world. Even in 1978 when the world was a little bit more naive, it was still not an easy thing to do. HOW DID YOU KNOW WHERE TO GO? YOU HITCH-HIKED TO CALIFORNIA — WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU GOT THERE? Dr. Marci Bowers: That was where I happened to get my ride. I didn’t have any direction. I just thought I’d go west. LIKE WALT WHITMAN SAID TO DO, EH? Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. That’s right. Yep. WHERE IN CALIFORNIA DID YOU WIND UP? Dr. Marci Bowers: San Diego. Actually, I was dropped off on the front steps of the YMCA. There was a young woman in the lobby who was very friendly and invited me to dinner, and the next thing you know I was up with the Unification Church and they whisked me off to a retreat. They were trying to involve me in a cult, I guess you could call it. So, I did that for about ten days — until I realized what was happening. I was somewhat of a victim. I guess it wasn’t brainwashing, but they certainly were trying to recruit me into their activities. Encouraging me to sign off on all my worldly possessions and join their church or commune or cult or whatever you wanted to call it back then. IT’S A GOOD THING YOU GOT OUT OF THERE. Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, I didn’t feel any threat. I don’t know what happened to all the people who were there, but eventually you realize that it’s a bit of a dead end. So, I had to break into their headquarters to get my clothing. Not really break in, but I mean I had to go through a basement window to get my stuff out. A BIT OF AN ADVENTURE — Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, that’s my whole life — it’s an adventure. NOT TO BELABOR THE SUBJECT OF YOUR FORMER PERSONA, BUT I DID SEE THAT YOU HAD A COUPLE OF KIDS — Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. Had kids, yeah. WHEN YOU GOT TO CALIFORNIA, YOU DIDN’T TRANSITION — YOU WENT ON AND HAD A COUPLE OF KIDS. Dr. Marci Bowers: No, what I did was I realized that it was going to take money and then, just as it happens, I met someone who I fell in love with. I thought I could outrun it. I thought I could just set it aside — and in fact I thought that the field of OB/GYN was a good field because I could use it to defray my own feelings by involving myself in the lives of women. I thought that was going to be an acceptable substitute for my own feelings. Which, of course, it was not. It only amplified the feelings and so, I did practice for some time — but even in residency I was taking hormones intermittently. I knew it was only a matter of time, I guess. Kids were very important to me but I didn’t feel at ease with my life as a him. DID YOU MEET OTHER TRANSGENDERED PEOPLE? Dr. Marci Bowers: I knew of a couple of people. I had one good friend who I took a trip with and experimented with getting out and testing out my new persona. I also used to do some coverage for a medical clinic out in eastern Washington. I used to tour the wineries, and that was another way to test out and see how successful I’d be with my new persona. IT WORKED OUT PRETTY WELL FOR YOU. Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, sure. It wasn’t too hard. I wasn’t a pretty sight initially, but I found myself good at it. So yeah. HOW DID YOU FIND THE SURGEON WHO DID YOUR OPERATION, AND WHAT WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP — Dr. Marci Bowers: There was no relationship. I just talked to one person and there was a recommendation, so I said “okay.” I just scheduled surgery, came in, and had surgery. But back then, there wasn’t an Internet or anything where you could check things out. The Internet was in its infancy. AFTER YOU HAD THE SURGERY, YOU CONTINUED TO WORK AS AN OB/GYN — Dr. Marci Bowers: I stayed on. It was a lot of negotiating with our clinic to allow them to accept me and to support me. Their initial reaction was to fire me, and then calmer heads prevailed and some of the dissenting voices were suppressed for a time. They had a very prestigious reputation in downtown Seattle. And, at the time, I was a department chairperson in the OB/GYN department. I hate to say it, but they were kind of good old boys who don’t like to be embarrassed and that kind of thing. So, in a sense, I kind of pulled their pants down, so to speak. Initially the reaction wasn’t very positive, but then education and probably some worry about legal action changed their minds. They all considered it a wise idea to support me. THEN YOU FOUND YOUR WAY TO TRINIDAD, COLORADO AND DR. BIBER — Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, 2003 that was. My practice thrived after transition but, again, there were the people who didn’t like what I was all about — and they laid in wait. When they came to power in 2001, they started to make my life harder. They began to look for flaws in me. Someone once said that everyone spills a little soup when it comes to medicine, and the fact that I was taking care of Transgendered patients — they didn’t like that. I was performing hysterectomies on patients and getting them covered by insurance. So, what they were saying was, this was a Medicare violation. They basically made it easy for me to leave my clinic. They made it sound like they would have the votes to get rid of me, so I packed my bags and went into private practice, and did that for a couple of years — and then ended up meeting Dr. Biber. I read the tea leaves and I just felt like it was a better move to just keep going forward. That’s what they say, a rolling stone gathers no moss — and I think that was the case. WHAT WAS DR. BIBER LIKE? Dr. Marci Bowers: He was very proud and very stoic. Even at age eighty he stood vertically upright. I mean, there was no slouch, no stoop to him whatsoever. I’ve never seen a man walk more upright than he did. He wasn’t a tall guy — but he was very folksy and charming. He had a waxy way of speaking. He just flowed, kind of sing-song, and he was a very sweet man. He called his patients honey, for the most part — the women. But he also had a way with the men — the local ranchers — and he was one of those unique, really kind people who did it for the love of medicine. Although he was obviously aware of money, it was his love of medicine that really kept him going. HE DID HIS FIRST SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY IN 1969 — Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s right — and he did his last one in 2003, when I was there. HOW HAD THE TECHNIQUES CHANGED OVER THAT TIME? Dr. Marci Bowers: His surgeries were somewhat crudely based off of drawings that were dragged from Johns Hopkins, and the original techniques of inversion that were actually invented by a gynecologist, George Burou. He worked in Casablanca. He’s a French gynecologist whose work was emulated and whose technique was disseminated, and it made it to Johns Hopkins, which in the 1960s did have a gender program — which was later abandoned. WHY’S THAT? Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, they hired someone who basically became politicized, and the politics of the day was that somebody didn’t like it, even though the criteria for having the surgery back then were extremely strict. They were very, very strict. Patients had to look impeccable. They had to jump through a lot more hoops than they do now. There’re still standards of care that we adhere to very strictly, but back then there were additional things that would be unthinkable today. LIKE WHAT? Dr. Marci Bowers: Divorce was mandatory. Leaving your place of familiarity was highly recommended. It wasn’t spelled out, but it was basically: pack your bags, you’re in what’s like a witness-relocation program. That kind of thing. OH BOY. Dr. Marci Bowers: Pack your bags. You’re leaving. You’re starting a new life. You’re starting a new identity. So, what ended up happening is that it was very tragic, in a sense. Imagine that you grew up your whole life in, say, Atlanta — and you had to move to Cleveland and start over with no history and no friends and no family. It was that kind of thing. And then you also had to look immaculate. You had to really fit the part. There were no six-foot-four Transgendered woman. Basically anybody that was not passable just wasn’t allowed to transition. I SEE. Dr. Marci Bowers: But people in the Johns Hopkins psychology department didn’t like what was going on. They actually hired someone to design a study to show the patients study’s been held up by conservative groups for years. “Oh look! See, see!” Of course it hasn’t been reproduced and in fact, if you look at the results, it proves their claim because it relied on self-reporting by the Transgender population — who were felt to be crazy in the first place, so their results were not reliable. Their feelings of well-being were discounted — and there were other external factors that were used to assess their well-being. So, the conclusion was that the patients weren’t happier. Basically they were using surgery to treat a psychiatric condition. It was all psychiatric, and all they needed was more psychotherapy and meds. So, they closed their program. Most university programs followed suit. They thought, “Well Johns Hopkins did it, well then — ” I think they closed their program in 1971. By then, Dr. Biber had done his first surgeries, and once the university programs around the country closed, Dr. Biber was it. It was just word of mouth. No advertising. No Internet. Nothing. But that’s all it was. And so as a result, he became the place throughout the world that people came to. AND THIS WAS IN TRINIDAD, COLORADO. Dr. Marci Bowers: Trinidad. IT’S CALLED THE SEX-CHANGE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. That was the name, of course. Until I left, but yeah — SO OTHER SURGEONS MUST HAVE COME ALONG, AFTER HIM. Dr. Marci Bowers: There were a few. There were a few. DID THEY COME TO STUDY WITH HIM AND THEN GO OFF ON THEIR OWN? WERE THERE PRACTICES THAT AROSE INDEPENDENTLY OF HIM?
Dr. Marci Bowers: He ended up training a number of persons, or at least had some hand in their training. And one of them was Toby Meltzer. He spent most of his time in Portland, Oregon and then eventually Scottsdale, Arizona — where he’s still practicing. And Eugene Schrang is another one. Dr. Schrang spent weeks there, making meticulous drawings — and then, of course, these surgeons put in their own interpretations. So, around the country there were a few other surgeons — but not very many. Dr. Biber at one point was credited with doing nearly two-thirds of all the world’s sex change operations. That was during the mid-1980’s, I think. He was up there. HE EXTRAPOLATED THE PENILE-INVERSION PROCESS. DID HE DEVELOP OTHER, DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES? Dr. Marci Bowers: He came up with his own techniques. Every surgeon does this. They apply their own body of experience to things, and they try a few things that work and they reject things that don’t work in offering a better product or one that fits something they’re comfortable with. Dr. Biber reached a point where he was comfortable — and obviously he was very successful, and patients really flocked to him. So, when that happened, when a person gets successful, there’s not really an incentive to change unless there’s a threat from the outside or business is declining or whatever. But he got to that point, and that is what happened. Dr. Schrang and Dr. Meltzer did the same thing. They had their own legion of patients who joined — NOW, I’D THINK THAT IT’S PART SURGERY AND PART ART. IS THAT THE CASE? Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, very much so. BODY SCULPTING. Dr. Marci Bowers: Yep. Very much. It’s very unique that way. I mean, it’s not like a gall-bladder operation where you go in and the stitches and the suture places and things like that aren’t necessarily noticed. This is truly artwork. YOUR WORK AS A GYNECOLOGIST MUST HAVE HELPED YOU A LOT. Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, I think so. I’m the only one currently doing it who practices as a gynecologist too. So, that certainly gives me a unique niche about what I do. Yeah. IS THAT PART OF THE PROCESS CALLED VAGINOPLASTY? Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. I SEE. WHEN SOME GALS ARE SUBJECTED TO GENITAL MUTILATION, YOU DO CORRECTIVE SURGERIES. ARE THESE WOMEN WHO’VE HAD PHARAONIC CIRCUMCISIONS AND OTHER STUFF DONE IN SOME BACKWARD PLACES? Dr. Marci Bowers: Not backward. It’s a cultural thing perpetuated by women of the communities. AND WHEN THESE GALS GET TO THE U.S., THEY COME TO YOU. I WOULDN’T WANT TO THINK IT’S HAPPENING HERE — Dr. Marci Bowers: They come from all over the world for the reversal because there are only a handful of doctors who do this. Most of the other doctors who do this are French-speaking. My patients are from Austria, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Japan — I mean, all over Europe, interestingly enough, but particularly patients who are more comfortable speaking English. I WANT TO TELL YOU, I THINK IT’S PRETTY COOL THAT YOU DO THAT. Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. I think it’s very rewarding. It sort of rounds out the spiritual karma, I guess. YOU DO IT FOR FREE, DON’T YOU? Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, that we do. THAT IS VERY COOL. SO ANYWAY, YOU MUST HAVE DEVELOPED YOUR OWN TECHNIQUES AND YOUR OWN ARTISTIC INTERPRETATIONS — Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, very much so. I mean, sixty percent of what I do, nobody else does anywhere else in the world — except the people I’ve taught. AND YOU MUST HAVE SOME SATISFIED CUSTOMERS. Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh yeah. I mean, that continues to sustain the work we do. Yep, no question. I SEE. HOW MUCH WOULD THIS COST SOMEBODY? Dr. Marci Bowers: Which surgery? WELL, SAY SOMEBODY CAME IN AND SAYS THEY WANT TO TRANSITION AND THEY’RE THINKING OF HAVING SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY AND — Dr. Marci Bowers: We call it genital reassignment surgery, because it’s not about sex. It’s one thing that’s sort of changed. OKAY. Dr. Marci Bowers: Interestingly, Oprah Winfrey has picked that up, so that’s what they call it now. Which is a term I coined, actually. NOT GENDER REASSIGNMENT — GENITAL REASSIGNMENT. Dr. Marci Bowers: Genital reassignment. Gender reassignment doesn’t really fit either. “Gender-confirming surgery” makes some sense. Gender doesn’t change in these individuals. This is what we’ve been claiming all along. That’s the thing that’s been constant. We’re just doing a simple changing of the genitalia to match the gender. It has nothing to do with sex. I SEE. IS THERE AN AVERAGE AGE OF THE FOLKS WHO GET THIS SURGERY? Dr. Marci Bowers: It’s probably in the mid-Forties right now. This is male-to-female, obviously. It’s in the mid-Forties. There seems to be a bit of a bimodal distribution. There’s a lot of patients who come in between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five, I would say, who are supported by their parents and for the most part funded by their parents. And then there’s a steady number beyond that, but another big increase once you hit about the mid-Forties and the late Forties and the Fifties especially, of patients who have reached the pinnacle of their professional careers or they finally have the money or they just reach a point in life where they say, “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think anymore. I’m gonna be who I am.” They just say, “I live once. There’s no dress rehearsal here. This is it.” HAVE THERE EVER BEEN INDIVIDUALS WHO’VE COME TO YOU WHO YOU DID NOT FEEL WERE RIGHT FOR SURGERY? Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh sure. Usually you can tell. Someone who hasn’t thought about this their entire life is suspect. And patients who are lacking in the necessary letters, the necessary ingredients to fulfill the standards of care — they are not necessarily allowed to. I always have the final judgment. I SEE. Dr. Marci Bowers: I had a patient who came from New Zealand, bless her heart — I just looked at her and said, “I just don’t feel right about this.” She hadn’t had an American evaluation. So I insisted that she have an evaluation here in this country. She just didn’t seem like she was playing the part very well and so I had concerns with her going forward. But indeed she ended up being highly endorsed by the person that we sent her to and we felt much better about it. But, also, sometimes the patients are in poor physical health. Sometimes they’re smoking. Sometimes there not really living in their desired genders. THEY NEED TO QUIT SMOKING BEFORE THEY CAN GET IT DONE, RIGHT? Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah — it’s not an absolute but it’s strongly suggested. HOW ABOUT DRINKING AND DRUGS AND THINGS LIKE THAT? DO THEY HAVE TO ABSTAIN? Dr. Marci Bowers: You want a person who’s stable but, I mean, someone who smokes Pot or something — we don’t put them through a drug screening, let’s put it that way. But you can tell someone who has their wheels on round. DO YOU DO ALSO FEMALE-TO-MALE SURGERIES? Dr. Marci Bowers: Yes I do. Yes I do. AND IS IT THE SAME CRITERIA FOR THEM? Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, very similar. I mean, we try to treat both genders relatively equally. So, yes. WHAT PARTICULAR CHALLENGES WOULD FACE A GIRL WHO WANTED TO BECOME A MALE? Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, it’s less social — they’re very successful transitioning socially because they look so convincing as men. It’s mostly getting enough skin to get a functional penis. That’s probably the hardest part. That’s just a technical problem. WHERE DOES THE SKIN COME FROM? Dr. Marci Bowers: It’s the clitoris. I mean, the clitoris elongates on testosterone and we use a flap from the vagina and some skin from the inner leg and we fashion the urethra out of that. It’s very successful. I KNOW YOU CAN’T DISCUSS YOUR PATIENTS, BUT PERHAPS THERE HAVE BEEN SOME VIP’S THROUGH YOUR OFFICE OVER THE YEARS? Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh sure. AND YOU CONSULT ON LEGAL MATTERS, DO YOU NOT? Dr. Marci Bowers: No, this clientele doesn’t litigate very often. NO, NO, WHAT I MEANT WAS, FOLKS COME TO YOU FOR LEGAL CONSULTATIONS, RIGHT? Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, there’s always things like that that are happening. Sure. YOU GIVE EXPERT TESTIMONY IN COURT CASES — Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. I sure do. Depositions mainly. Usually when they get my depositions it’s very powerful and it usually settles the case. NOT BAD. ON ANOTHER TOPIC, THEY DO GENITAL REASSIGNMENT SURGERIES IN OTHER PLACES IN THE WORLD THAT ARE SOMEWHAT RENOWNED FOR IT — I’M THINKING, OF COURSE, OF THAILAND. WHAT’S DIFFERENT, IF ANYTHING, ABOUT WHAT THEY DO OVER THERE? Dr. Marci Bowers: Just technical issues about the type of surgery — but they have some advantages, the principle one being their cost structures. It’s quite a bit reduced — IT’S A DIFFERENT TYPE OF CULTURE AND IT SEEMS THAT THERE’S A TYPE OF PERSON THERE — AND I HOPE I’M NOT USING THIS TERM INAPPROPRIATELY — “LADYBOYS” THEY CALL THEM, AND IT SEEMS LIKE THOSE ARE THE FOLKS WHO GET THE SURGERIES. IS THAT A WAY AROUND PROHIBITIONS ON HOMOSEXUALITY? Dr. Marci Bowers: No. That’s true in Iran. In the country of Iran, the Ayatollah issued a fatwa saying men could become women and so they condone the surgery there. I can’t speak to the quality of the kind of work they do, but they do allow that. Versus the alternative, which is Homosexuality — and that would be punishable by death. Interestingly, they don’t allow women to become men — THEY DON’T? Dr. Marci Bowers: No — and that would also be punishable by death. So, that way their women are women and men are men. I guess that’s how they keep it. They justify it that way. In Thailand, certainly there’s this notion of a third gender — and actually they have a little more of a Twenty-third Century viewpoint about gender in that if the child says they’re female, they’re female. If they say they’re male, they’re male. You know, at whatever age they come out —and so they’re not as hung up on rigid boundaries that the genitalia have to match the gender. DID YOU CALL IT A TWENTY-THIRD CENTURY VIEWPOINT? Dr. Marci Bowers: Yes. AND THAT’S REFERRING TO SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE WHERE THESE HANG-UPS OF THE PRESENT AGE HAVE EVAPORATED? Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, I think so. I think that’s where the world is going. I think race is going to become irrelevant. I think things are going to become much more egalitarian. I think it will become much more egalitarian between the sexes. I SEE. Dr. Marci Bowers: Making uncomfortably-defined boundaries — it’s going to be obvious it’s not productive to society to be that closed-minded about it. Particularly when Intersex conditions at birth are so common. Presently, they’re hushed up as being, “Oh, we’ll fix that.” Pushing people to the extremes of gender when they’re not born that way genitalia-wise — and it makes a lot of sense that it’s not that way gender-wise for what’s in their brain — THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO WOULD BE REGARDED AS HERMAPHRODITES, ARE THEY NOT? Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s kind of an old, less PC term. “Intersex” would be the current PC term, I guess you would say. OKAY. SO, WHEN THERE ARE INDETERMINATE OR DUAL GENITAL CHARACTERISTICS, WHO MAKES THE DECISION ABOUT WHICH WAY TO GO? Dr. Marci Bowers: One in two-thousand live births. That’s an enormous number. THAT IS AN ENORMOUS NUMBER. WHAT HAPPENS? DOES A DOCTOR CALL THE PARENTS IN FOR A — WHAT HAPPENS? Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, they’ll say things like, “We have to run a few more tests.” The first thing every parent wants to know is, is it a boy or a girl? Well, we have to run a few more tests — that’s kind of an uncomfortable thing to be told. So, the problem is that some of the conditions have medical implications. It affects the kidneys and high blood pressure and things like that. It has to do with how the metabolic pathways go. Sometimes it has to do with the receptors for hormones. Sometimes it has to do with unknown or idiopathic kinds of conditions. We’re really not sure why it happens. Chromosome translocations and things like that — and they often lead to conditions that aren’t necessarily clear-cut. And that doesn’t even talk about the one in two-hundred-and-fifty male-born children that are born with Hypospadias. WHAT’S THAT? Dr. Marci Bowers: Hypospadias is a condition where the urethra opens not at the tip of the penis but further down the shaft. And the more severe the Hypospadias, the more the genitalia look like female genitalia. OF THESE ONE IN TWO-THOUSAND INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE BORN WITH AN INTERSEX CONDITION, THERE MUST BE A FEW OF THEM WHO DO NOT HAVE ANY SURGICAL CORRECTION — Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, that’s what people are recommending, is to let the gender declare itself before they make a permanent decision about reducing the size of the clitoris or creating a vagina. Whatever the surgical option would be at the time —sometimes it’s fashioned more into a penis. There’s a scale called the Prader Scale that basically measures the length of the phallus — and if it’s above a certain length, they’re raised as a boy and if it’s less than that, they’re raised as a girl, and it has nothing to do with chromosomes or anything else. THAT’S PRETTY ARBITRARY, ISN’T IT? Dr. Marci Bowers: Quite arbitrary. And the thing about a lot of these decisions is that about a third of the time they get it wrong. So the individual grows up and believes themselves to be not the gender they were assigned — and a lot of them are pissed off. Especially if they’ve had mutilating surgeries or scarring or whatever, or some sort of clitoral amputation. Here they think they’re men and they’ve had their penis basically chopped off. HAVE YOU EVER DONE ANY RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY FOR THOSE FOLKS? Dr. Marci Bowers: Yep. In fact, somebody just called me the other day who needs stuff done. THAT MUST BE TOUGH FOR THE PERSON. Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, sure. You can imagine. There have been very notorious cases over the years. They were the highlights on these problems of making gender assignments too young. And this is the important thing: Kids are very good at telling you who they are, if you just listen to them and they can do it in an environment where they’re allowed to be themselves. BUT WE DON’T DO A VERY GOOD JOB AT LISTENING TO KIDS IN THIS CULTURE, DO WE? Dr. Marci Bowers: No, but we’re getting better. I think the thing that is encouraging is that this current generation is really demanding honesty in these areas of sex and gender. They’re no longer listening to the strict religious dogma and attitudes about morality, making manifest destiny fit this square peg into a round hole. That kind of attitude. Past generations would just drive people into the closet until they could gain the facts or the stamina or resources to get out of that situation. AND YOU’RE PART OF THE VANGUARD OF THIS NEW ENLIGHTENMENT, AREN’T YOU? Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, I think so. Sure — and I’m going next week to speak at the University of Kentucky Medical School. I mean, who would have thought that? Because their eyes are open. They’re listening. They put the Bible aside and started really listening to people and allowing people to be truly free and happy. That’s what it’s about. WELL, MAYBE WE WON’T HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THE TWENTY-THIRD CENTURY FOR SOME OF THIS ENLIGHTENMENT TO SET IN. Dr. Marci Bowers: Maybe not. ABOUT INTERSEX INDIVIDUALS — WHAT IF SOMEBODY CAME TO YOU AND SAID, “I WANT TO BECOME AN INTERSEX INDIVIDUAL”? WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE SURGICALLY? Dr. Marci Bowers: Is it technically possible? Yeah. But is it morally responsible? You know, there’s a point where you do have to have some ethical standards. And sometimes those are arbitrary and sometimes they’re not — YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA? YOU WOULDN’T RECOMMEND THAT TO SOMEBODY? Dr. Marci Bowers: No. IF THEY SAID THEY WANTED TO EXPERIENCE THE PLEASURES OF BOTH GENDERS — Dr. Marci Bowers: No. That’s not my job. I can’t even say I’ve thought about that. It’s just not something that comes up. I SEE. SO, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO BE DOING IN THE FUTURE? Dr. Marci Bowers: We hope to get to work with local universities here, now that I’m in California — UCSF or Stanford — and get a program set up so that future doctors can be trained, and this becomes a viable sub-specialty, and then more research added. I have a lot of work to do. BECAUSE MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE WANTING TO TRANSITION, AREN’T THEY? Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah. I think it’s gonna plateau at a certain finite percentage, which I’m not sure I know what that is yet — but I don’t think it’s gonna be some fad. I think there’s a certain biological percentage. It might be as high as half of one percent or something like that. Maybe not even that much. In other words, it’ll reach some sort of percentage. My phone’s gonna die, so I think I may have to run along. OKAY. WELL, I APPRECIATE YOUR TIME. Dr. Marci Bowers: Okay! ~ |
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