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By Root 1883 0

’d changed from male to female, and I remember thinking, “Man, what a pervert. How weird.” I think I had the same reaction that everybody else had: “What a bunch of weirdos.” And I never related that to me. I don’t know what that’s about. Here I am, a doctor. I’ve been confused about my gender my whole life, but I didn’t—maybe it’s some form of denial—but I still find it fantastic that I didn’t make the connection. And then you read this article, and it’s like in your face. It was so moving. It was like everything he said was the story of my life. And in the article it mentioned this clinic right down the street and how you need to get this evaluation. So I just contacted them, filled it out, and the next thing you know they were seeing me and saying, “You are a classic case. Would you like to change your sex?”

It was all done very quickly. There was a period of a few weeks where I was pretty stressed because I was thinking, “Do I really want to do this?” And you know, a lot of transsexuals, when they change their sex, they move somewhere and change their entire identity. But I am internationally known, and my whole career rests on my not changing my last name at least. So that was rough, wondering if I would lose my career, lose my job, wondering whether students would still come to my lab. So I thought about it a lot. And I actually talked to some senior people here about what I was thinking about doing, and when they said that they didn’t think that it would hurt my career, that made me feel good.

I really felt by that point that life had been so hard on me—I never feel like I really do a good job of explaining what it was like, but I didn’t sleep a lot of nights, I was suicidal, life was so uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve really enjoyed my life, but somehow it’s like it was split into two parts. The personal part, which has been very uncomfortable, and the professional part that’s been a pleasure, that I’ve really enjoyed. But the personal part was just so uncomfortable that sometimes you think, “I’ve had enough.” It’s that distressing.

So, at the time I went to the clinic, I just felt like it was either this or suicide. I didn’t see any other alternatives. And it all happened very quickly. Within a few months of being seen, I was on hormones and then within a few months after that, I had my ovaries taken out—which was actually prophylactic surgery for the genetic mutation that I had, although female-to-male transsexuals really should have their ovaries taken out anyway. Then when I came back to work after the oophorec-tomy, I had begun shaving, and I sent a letter out to a few people in the department letting them know that I was changing my sex. It’s amazing how when you are well known, how quickly rumors get around. Really, within a day or two after sending out that letter, everybody around the world knew. Especially with e-mail, you can imagine how quickly the news spread, and of course there was a lot of talk, but after a couple of months it died down. Everyone here at Stanford has been fantastically supportive, from students, my faculty here, the deans.

Q: Your first scientific meeting after transition must’ve been interesting.

Some people made funny comments about it, but most people just didn’t say anything. I’m sure they were shocked. The hardest thing is pronouns. It’s very hard for people to switch. Most of them are very good about that, but every once in a while they’ll slip, particularly if they’ve had any alcohol. I have trouble with it myself sometimes. I was just interviewing a young female-to-male transsexual who lost her job when she … he announced that he was changing sex and came to talk to me about the possibility of a job here, and throughout the whole interview I kept calling him “her.” Once I know, even I do it. And I had to keep checking myself. I don’t care if someone accidentally calls me “she.” I care if they do it systematically and as a form of harassment. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened to me.

I feel like I had this gender issue, I dealt with it, and it’s resolved. The most