University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository University of Calgary Press University of Calgary Press Open Access Books 2020-10 OTHERS OF MY KIND: Transatlantic Transgender Histories Bakker, Alex; Herrn, Rainer; Taylor, Michael Thomas; Timm, Annette F. University of Calgary Press Bakker, A., Herrn, R., Taylor, M. T., & Timm, A. F. (2020). OTHERS OF MY KIND: Transatlantic Transgender Histories. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112845 book https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca The print and ebook versions of this book feature full-color, high-resolution images. This Open Access version of the book includes low-resolution images in black and white only. press.ucalgary.ca OTHERS OF MY KIND: Transatlantic Transgender Histories by Alex Bakker, Rainer Herrn, Michael Thomas Taylor, and Annette F. Timm ISBN 978-1-77385-122-8 THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. 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Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the wording around open access used by Australian publisher, re.press, and thank them for giving us permission to adapt their wording to our policy http://www.re-press.org 3 “I am so grateful to all you men of medicine”: Trans Circles of Knowledge and Intimacy Annette F. Timm “I am so grateful to all you men of medicine who have been so good to me.” These words of appreciation appear in a January “The more 1954 letter from a 49-year-old trans woman, Carla Erskine (pseudonym),1 to the German-born American endocrinologist medical people Harry Benjamin, whom she had first met in California in 1953 and who had helped advise and treat her before and after sympathetically her gender-affirming surgery at the University of California, interested in San Francisco, in December 1953.2 Between 1953 and 1956, Benjamin and Erskine exchanged close to 100 letters, transvestism the discussing every detail of her physical transformation and her relationships with other “transvestites” (the term she generally better.” used) in California. She was friends with Louise Lawrence, known to historians as a central figure in the network of trans individuals in 1950s America.3 The two of them were part of a close-knit group in San Francisco and surroundings, and they cooperated with Benjamin to find research subjects for Alfred Kinsey’s planned book about transsexuality – a project interrupted by his death from a heart ailment and pneumonia in 1956.4 Unlike Christine Jorgensen, the glamorous ex-GI 71 Figure 3.1: Carla E. KILSC-HB 17. Copyright © 2017, The Figure 3.2: One of Carla’s friends, KILSC-HB 17. Trustees of Indiana University on behalf of the Kinsey Copyright © 2017, The Trustees of Indiana University on Institute. All rights reserved. behalf of the Kinsey Institute. All rights reserved. who had become a media sensation in late reconstructive surgery.7 Although she saw 1952 after American newspapers began herself as a pioneer, she had no interest publishing sensationalized reports about in fame. Having just visited Louise and her surgery in Copenhagen, Carla purposely another trans friend in October 1954, Carla and successfully preserved her anonymity. wrote to Benjamin: “Couldn’t the news She was one of very few transgender paper [sic] have made a sensation of the Americans to have procured surgery – some meeting of the three of us? If they’d have in the U.S. but most abroad – in defiance known. As near as we can figure we almost of the rulings of state and district attorneys had a quorum. 3 out of 9 in the U.S. as near in Wisconsin and California,5 who had as we could think.”8 Carla later became a relied on an obscure British common-law professional photographer, but she had no statute meant to prevent the self-maiming intention of sharing the stereoscopic slides of soldiers to describe genital surgery that she took of her trans friends with on healthy tissue as “mayhem.”6 Carla’s the press. desperation led her to take matters into her Hoping to help Benjamin and Alfred own hands – with a sharp knife – an act Kinsey with their collaborative effort to that ultimately eased her path to receiving better understand what they were most 72 3 | “I AM SO GRATEFUL TO ALL YOU MEN OF MEDICINE” Harry Benjamin’s the photographs published in the main Use of Photographs part of the book do include nudity. Given what we know about Carla’s of Carla Erskine wishes to remain private, perhaps this was a decision to lessen the impact of In Benjamin’s files we have copies of their publication? In The Transsexual the releases that all of his patients Phenomenon, Benjamin speaks of his signed granting permission for their “patient” with the pronoun “he,” but photographs to be used in The we will use “she” since that is how she Transsexual Phenomenon, including a wanted to be known and that is how release from Carla. These releases give Benjamin in fact addressed her in their Benjamin total control over where and correspondence. how to use these images, under the In the introduction to this book, condition that the anonymity of the we have reproduced the color, signer be protected: stereoscopic slide that was used to produce the photograph of Carla I ___ do hereby give permission sitting on the couch (figure 1.2) we see to Harry Benjamin, M. D., to here in the leftmost image of figure use any photographs and any 3.3. Benjamin’s use of this image materials related to my case here in his book, with his caption, history in any publication he may tells a very different story than we see fit to present said material. might glean from the image itself. It is understood that my identity Benjamin’s arrangement of four images will not be revealed and that subordinate the moment of private, proper procedures are followed even dignified self-presentation we to insure my anonymity. There is find in the original slides to a clinical to be no financial compensation interpretation. One thing that is to me for this permission. immediately striking is that in both of the clothed photographs, Carla’s face Yet Benjamin did not publish these has been blocked out – a common photos in the main part of his book. technique in medical photography Rather, they were printed in a separate meant to protect her privacy, but which supplement to the book that could be also has the effect of depersonalizing obtained only by writing to the publisher her. Perhaps for similar reasons, the on medical stationery. It is hard to say photograph of her naked body in the why these photos of Carla (figures centre does not include her head, as 3.3. and 3.4) were published in this it does in the original colour version. supplement. Benjamin’s book confines But the effect of depersonalization photographs of genital surgery to the in Benjamin’s book is more brutal. It supplement, but these photographs of reductively forces a focus on Carla’s Carla do not fall into that category. And naked body – on the tattoos and male Michael Thomas Taylor and Rainer Herrn 73 Figure 3.3 and 3.4: Left and right pages from the special image supplement to The Transsexual Phenomenon, 1966.