A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States

If those of us in the United States are to hold an intelligent and mature public discussion (yes, I know… a person can hope though) about transgender matters, it is of the most high importance to our fellow citizens and ourselves that we become informed about the history and the science pertaining to the subject. For if we do not, we risk not only contributing nothing useful to any conversation in which we engage but actually reducing what others understand as well. This is a subject not merely awash in but veritably churning with incorrect information brought about by and circulated – particularly on the so-called “social media” platforms due to everything from unintentional ignorance to deep to political posturing to out-and-out poison-hearted malice. And as those who are transgender, as well as the medical and other professionals who care for them, are among the designated scapegoats of the present political administration in the U.S., engaging in any form of communication regarding the subject from a position of ignorance could literally bring harm to those who are transgender as well as those in the transgender medicine community.

For those who are still reading this, I would like therefore to draw your attention to a book I have recently begun reading on the subject: A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States; From Margins to Mainstream. This massive collection of the work of over forty scholars in fields ranging through history, psychology, sociology, medicine, political science, and the law brings to its readers the most comprehensive presentation of the history of transgender medicine yet published in a single volume. Make no mistake, although it is written – from what I have read in it thus far – in a style that is very clear and not requiring of specialist knowledge to understand, this is indeed a weighty book on an even more weighty subject; however it is also one that, given the ugly path down which certain U.S. politicians and their pressure group puppet-masters are dragging the country, it is a moral obligation to anyone who would wish to engage in well-informed, intelligent civic conversation about the subject to read.