The Riddle of Gender - Deborah Rudacille [69]
These “mayhem” statutes, imported from English common law dating from the sixteenth century, forbade the amputation of any body part (fingers, toes, hands, or feet) that might prevent a male-bodied individual from being able to serve as a soldier. Although castration might not, strictly speaking, fall under the jurisdiction of the law, few American surgeons were willing to risk prosecution by becoming test cases. Christine Jorgensen circumvented the law by traveling to Denmark, where she had family and friends and knew the language. Hedy Jo Star had neither the money nor the connections to make such a trip possible. In the fifties and early sixties, mayhem statutes were the single greatest obstacle faced by every transsexual person in America unable to travel overseas for surgery or locate one of the few surgeons willing to flout the law by performing surgery in the United States.
On the advice of her endocrinologist, Star tried another route. In November 1958, she took a train to Baltimore and presented herself to the researchers at the Johns Hopkins Hospital who were becoming famous in medical circles for their work with intersexual children. Star was hopeful that they would be able to help her, too. “The hormone shots had done wonders. My testicles had all but disappeared. My penis had shrunk considerably. My physique was completely female. How could they refuse me?”
Star’s efforts to convince the Hopkins researchers that she was intersexual, and thus a suitable candidate for corrective surgery, failed. After five days of examinations at the hospital, she was sent home to await a letter. The letter arrived, dated February 24, 1959. Its author (possibly Money, though the name is obscured in Star’s autobiography) says that after he discussed Star’s case with “Dr. Eugene Mayer, Dr. William Scott, Dr. Hampson, and Dr. Shaffer,” the group’s unanimous decision was to advise her “not to go ahead with the conversion type of surgery that you seek.” The decision of the committee was based on both medical and legal considerations. “The studies that we have made would all indicate that your basic structure is anatomically male and that we would not be likely to find any evidence internally of ovaries or any female structures.” The physicians feared that the narrowness of Star’s pelvis would make the creation of a vagina difficult, and the possibility of postsurgical urinary difficulties might handicap her ability to make a living as a dancer.
“We do realize that you are psychologically more comfortable in your role as a female and perhaps it would be wise for you to continue as you have in the past,” the letter continues sympathetically. “You deserve considerable credit for having been able to adjust as well as you have to some of the difficult situations that you have encountered in the past.” Nonetheless the committee had decided that “there are numerous reasons from both your standpoint and from the standpoint of the surgeons involved that would suggest that the performance of this type of surgery might in actuality constitute mayhem and you must consider that possibility quite seriously before embarking on such a program.”
Sympathetic or not, the letter was a heavy blow to Star, who objected to the physicians’ paternalistic approach and their assumption that they knew better than she where her best interests lay.