Alison Li, Wondrous Transformations: A Maverick Physician, the Science of Hormones, and the Birth of the Transgender Revolution. University of North Carolina Press, 2023. 272 pp. Hardback $30.00.
It is most fitting that I would read Wondrous Transformations during Pride Month. In recent years, the rights of my transgender siblings have been heavily scrutinized and successfully challenged by conservative politicians throughout the country. It would be disingenuous to pretend that the present-day challenges to my community’s rights to expression and self-determination have little impact on my capacity to dream of a world where our society recognizes and respects the humanity of everyone in the LGBTQ community. My community continues to fight for respect and recognition, and our transgender siblings are especially vulnerable to attacks of all forms.
While it may seem that the current issues regarding the transgender community’s access to gender-affirming care are relatively new in public discourses, Alison Li’s Wondrous Transformations: A Maverick Physician, the Science of Hormones, and the Birth of the Transgender Revolution reveals the historicity of this ongoing battle through her robust and beautifully written biography of Dr. Harry Benjamin (1885–1986). The book, however, is more than an account of one doctor’s life and contributions to his field of study. Wondrous Transformations is cultural history masterfully interwoven with medical history which highlights not only how scientific innovation impacts our society at large but also the influence of popular culture on the propagation of scientific innovation. Though Benjamin’s theories were not bereft of biases, his lifelong commitment to humanizing his patients and contributions to the study of hormones in the West are in large part responsible for the creation of the gender-affirming care that transgender people continue to fight for today.
Li, a historian of science and medicine, attributes her initial fascination with Benjamin due to his association with novelist Gertrude Atherton, and she explores the impact of his relationship with Atherton along with other artists and notable figures (such as former Playboy model Aleshia Brevard and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud) on his career throughout the book. To better understand how Benjamin came to be known as the “Father of Transsexualism,” Li engaged with German and American archives (including Benjamin’s papers housed at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute) as well as memoirs written by trans people, many of whom had a connection with the doctor. Although this is a biography, Li is careful not to depict Benjamin as a pioneering hero. The Harry Benjamin she offers readers is both a product of his time and environment as well as a forward-thinking member of several communities wherein his theories had the space to take shape and evolve. Through his participation in the medical community, the theater community, and his connections to literary artists, Benjamin openly questioned how medical professionals and society at large defined and categorized gender. His fascination with hormones and their capacity to change lives through medical treatments connects his story not only to the ongoing fight for the rights of transgender people but also to everyone’s right to medical care that adequately addresses our ability to live fulfilling lives.
The first half of the book, chapters one through five, provides the context for the world Benjamin navigated while pursuing a career in medicine, first in Germany and later in America in the early twentieth century. During Benjamin’s formative years in Berlin, members of the German middle class could realistically aspire for their children to achieve upward mobility, particularly through education. This also was the time when he experienced prejudices due to his father’s Jewish heritage despite being reared as a Christian according to his mother’s beliefs. As Li succinctly describes, “It was an experience not merely of being marginalized as a member of a minority group but of having an internal sense of self that conflicted with what others assumed of him.”1
Benjamin nonetheless persisted in his studies and pursued medical school at the Eberhard Karls Universitat Tubingen in southwest Germany at a time when a German education was one of the most respected in the world. His work in medical school caught the attention of Carl Ludwig Schleich, the inventor of local anesthesia, who introduced him to Dr. Friedrich Franz Friedmann, who invented a treatment for tuberculosis using turtle serum. It was Benjamin’s relationship with Friedmann that presented him with the opportunity to travel to the U.S. for the first time.
During his maiden voyage to America, Benjamin encountered the first of several ethical dilemmas in his career as Friedmann encouraged him to manipulate the results of trials for his turtle serum to treat tuberculosis and lie to the press about the serum’s effectiveness.2 This conflict offers readers a first glimpse into the scope of Benjamin’s moral compass. Though his decision to follow Friedmann to America left him poor, albeit temporarily, it was this decision that led to him relocating to and practicing medicine in this country. As Li described Benjamin’s early career, she placed him within the context of World War I to explicate the impact of the war on the medical field and society at large. Through Benjamin’s diaries, Li traced the devastating changes to the places Benjamin held dear, such as Vienna, where he met his mentor, Dr. Eugen Steinach. These diaries also unveil internal conflicts that Benjamin grappled with, such as his unrequited love for Mimi, a musical comedy star and lesbian. Benjamin left Vienna after having learned Steinach’s rejuvenation method, which aimed to reverse the aging process, and other possibilities of glandular procedures, which greatly impacted his career.
In chapters six through eight, Benjamin’s medical career blossomed as one of the few physicians who offered Steinach’s glandular rejuvenation procedure (injecting pituitary serum) in the U.S. in the 1920s into the 1930s. His work to popularize the procedure led to him becoming Gertrude Atherton’s friend and physician, and he capitalized on his connections with popular artists like her to legitimize Steinach’s procedure as well as his own hormone treatments throughout his career. Li connects Benjamin’s work on hormones to the progression of hormone therapy throughout the country as well as the development and recognition of endocrinology as a medical field. While groundbreaking, Benjamin’s work was indeed controversial, and Li described the tensions between scientists who used their research on hormones to advocate for marginalized groups and more conservative scientists who wished to focus solely on science. During his career, Benjamin worked with the two factions as he navigated both the legal and ethical limitations of his treatments, which were especially relevant as he began offering hormone therapy to trans people.
Chapters nine through twelve delve into the growth of Benjamin’s practice and notoriety as one of the few outspoken advocates for trans patients in the 1940s–1960s. Li reveals how Benjamin’s work with trans patients such as Val Berry, one of the first people to receive genital modification surgery in the West, as well as his work with other trans activists like Karl Bowman and Louise Lawrence, changed his opinions about transsexuality. He began to understand that transsexuality was not inherently linked to psychological imbalances or disorders. As he transitioned into retirement, Benjamin felt obligated to do something with his research that would benefit others. This culminated in the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon (1966), which defined transsexualism for the first time in medical terms, explored the differences between transsexuality and transvestitism, and argued for more ethical treatment of transsexuals by medical professionals.
Though Benjamin’s book was well received and widely heralded as an important text for medical professionals and transgender people, it also received criticism from feminists and became a source of tension between them and trans activists. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Benjamin continued to speak about his research and advocate for the advancement of hormone therapy and gender-affirming care. It was during this time that the medical centers that were established for gender-affirming care across the country began to shut down amid a wave of conservative backlash. Benjamin and his wife, Gretchen, spent their remaining years being cared for by close friends as he continued to review his research with trusted colleagues and mentees.
Harry Benjamin’s life story is important to acknowledge as part of the history of the LGBTQ community in this country, but as Li points out, it also is vital to acknowledge that his story is connected to the pain and struggle of a marginalized community. His contributions to our understanding of gender should not overshadow the people he examined, nor should we dismiss his trans patients as mere experiments. One of the pitfalls of research on trans people in the medical field is that the overwhelming majority of the scholarship is produced by cis heterosexual men. While Benjamin did value the opinions of his trans patients, the same cannot be said of all his colleagues. The gender-affirming care that trans people have access to now is still gatekept by medical professionals outside of their own community, and the rules to access these treatments are set by those who do not live as transgender people. Still, Benjamin’s life’s work offers people like my trans siblings and me a glimmer of hope in this continued struggle for the right to live the lives our queer and trans elders dreamed of.
- Li, Wondrous Transformations, 13.
- Ibid., 24. Benjamin joined Friedmann in America to promote the use of his turtle serum to treat tuberculosis, but Benjamin’s trial data proved its ineffectiveness. He believed in the potential of the treatment but found Friedmann’s method problematic. Benjamin chose to give a lukewarm statement to the press, saying that he didn’t believe that his opinion would offer anything of medical value at that time.
