A Tale of Two Centuries, Part 2

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Hebe wrote these prognostications in 1998, a year before the beginning of the 21st century. 

As the great odometer of time prepares to display three zeros, some of us feel irresistible urges to try to gaze a little farther into the future. I wouldn’t even think of trying to outguess the third millennium, but I have fewer qualms about considering the next 50-100 years of transgenderism.

Transvestism is as old as body adornment, and transsexualism (in thought, though not in deed) is as old as human consciousness. I can’t prove those statements, but I’m certain that they’re true.

When the 20th century opened, true transsexualism – the hormonal and surgical transformation of a man into a woman or a woman into a man – didn’t exist. This isn’t to say that desperate souls had never engaged in self-mutilation to remove unwanted body parts or that no one had ever successfully lived as a member of the opposite sex; it’s only to state the obvious truth that these people would never have passed a moderately thorough physical examination.

If I have an accurate memory of something I read several years ago, the first serious attempt to transform a male body into an outwardly-female body took place in the 1920s or early 1930s. As the old joke says, the operation was a success but the patient died (the measure of the success was the patient’s brief post-surgical happiness). [Lili Elbe.]

Christine Jorgensen

The first sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) to be both successful and well-publicized was performed on Christine Jorgensen in 1952. In her autobiography, Ms Jorgensen said that she had had a few predecessors – all of whom, she thought, were pseudo-hermaphrodites receiving corrective surgery. Some experts may know of earlier cases, but to most of the world, she was the courageous pioneer.

In the last half of the twentieth century, SRS has flourished. According to Nancy Nangeroni, executive director of the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), as cited by James Brooke in the New York Times on November 8, 1998, there are about 25,000 post-operative transsexuals in the United States today (that is, about one per 10,000 population, or one per small town if they are distributed uniformly – as they almost certainly are not). Over a 46-year period, that’s an average of almost 550 SRS procedures per year – since there were few in the early years, the current rate must be somewhat higher.

Ms Nangeroni estimated a total of 50,000 to 75,000 transsexuals in the USA, or 25-50,000 pre-ops after deducting the 25,000 post-ops. If her figures are correct, one in every three to five thousand Americans is living as a transgender; that is, in his or her non-birth gender. The number of TGs who are occasional crossdressers or who can only live part-time in their preferred genders must be very much larger.

What about the future? What can TGs expect in the 21st century? Will a skirted male in 2100 be as unremarkable as a trousered woman in 2000? No one knows, but we can indulge in a little speculation.

Let’s speculate about two areas – biotechnology and everything else. The late 20th century has produced amazing advances in the biological and medical sciences, and I think that the pace of development in these areas will increase in the 21st century. We are now only at the beginning of an explosive growth in biotechnology that will make a wide variety of seemingly-incredible treatments possible. Because there are such large potential fiduciary payoffs from the development and perfection of lifesaving and life-enhancing medical procedures, there’s one thing we can safely bet on: the work necessary to bring them to fruition will proceed.

A Washington Post editorial (“Ethics and Embryos,” November 21, 1998) takes note of “…reports that two research labs have succeeded in producing human embryonic stem cells – the primitive ‘super cells’ that can develop into any cell type or organ…” The implications of this are enormous. This may be wishful thinking (something I’m as good at as anyone), but I believe that long before the end of the 21st century, it will be possible to grow new body parts for a person from his or her own cells. These parts will probably be grown externally and then transplanted (with no risk of rejection), but ultimately it may be possible to modify one’s body non-surgically, by employing gene therapy or by injecting properly-programmed stem cells.

Growing Your Own

Initially, replacement parts will be grown to repair the damages of disease and accidents. However, if a woman who has had a mastectomy can be given a flesh and blood breast implant grown from her own cells, how long will it be until a male-to-female transsexual can have the same treatment? Within the next 100 years, I think it will become possible to grow a vagina in an MTF and a penis on an FTM. It will probably take somewhat longer than that before it becomes possible to grow an entire functional reproductive system, allowing genetic males to conceive and bear children, but I believe that even this will happen eventually.

If you can go one way with transplanted or home-grown body parts, you can go the other way, too. Transsexuals would generally be happy with one-way tickets, but other transgenders who don’t want to give up their birth genders entirely will be able (if sufficiently wealthy) to enjoy realistic but temporary changes.

At a less-exotic but highly practical level, the 21st century will bring us new and improved technologies for removing hair from places where it’s not wanted and growing it where it is wanted. Millions of people – not just TGs – will welcome these developments, so we can predict them confidently on the basis of the financial rewards that will accrue to their developers.

There’s one more practical gadget that I think will become available early in the next century – a voice transformer that will make it possible for a man to sound like a woman or a woman like a man. These exist now in the form of telephone attachments, but I can imagine something electronic, small enough to conceal in the mouth, that will convert subvocalized sounds from a male larynx into female-sounding speech. Who knows? The CIA may have these already!

It Can Only Improve

Turning from biotechnology to everything else, it’s obvious that a formidable number of social, political, economic, and legal scenarios are possible. Technology forecasts are relatively simple; human behavior forecasts are virtually impossible. With some trepidation, I’ll offer a few general predictions.

Transgenders, like other minority groups, seek acceptance, or at least tolerance. This is most likely to happen under conditions of peace and prosperity, when minorities are not universally viewed as dangerous because they are different or as competitors for limited economic resources. I think it’s fair to say that we TGs (with all our problems) enjoy greater acceptance among the general public now than we did a quarter-century ago, and it’s probably at least partly due to improved world political and economic conditions. To the extent that political and economic stability are maintained or improved, tolerance and acceptance of TGs will continue to grow.

Turmoil and poverty work against us, as does ignorance. I think it’s fair to say that a person’s tolerance and acceptance of TGs is directly proportional to his or her level of education. In our own self-interest, we should promote greater (and higher-quality) educational opportunities for all. Again, to the extent that the general population becomes better-educated, acceptance of TGs will improve.

Formal education isn’t the only kind of education that will help us. There’s probably nothing better for us than friendly treatment of TGs in the media. I’m not suggesting a need for adulation – it’s sufficient to treat us as essentially ordinary, non-threatening people. In my opinion, this is happening in the news media (consider the recent coverage of Alex McLendon, for example) and in sympathetic motion picture and television presentations of crossdressing and transsexual characters. I expect this trend to continue and even to grow.

What TGs, like any other minority, need most is legal rights – the repeal of discriminatory legislation where it still exists, and protection from unfair treatment on the job and in public places. I think we’re moving in that direction, and I expect that we’ll win reasonable legal rights in the next twenty years or so. Gain these, and much else follows.

One more thing that will help immensely is the emergence of a few good role models (thank you, Mr. Rodman, but you’re not quite what I had in mind). Some time in the next few years, we can expect to acquire them – popular actors or athletes, perhaps, who care enough about their feminine sides to out themselves as TGs, or to relax and admit it when they are accidentally outed. This may be all we’ll need to get ourselves out of our closets and into the brave new third-millennium world.

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Tags: featured, History, opinion, Transgender

Category: Transgender Opinion