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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Murray Hill on the life and versatility of a New York drag king
The "Downtown Legends" wall at Mo Pitkins House of Satisfaction featured artists known in the East Village performance scene. A few featured in this photo include the Reverend Jen, Allen Ginsberg, Reverend Billy and Murray Hill (pictured)
Image: David Shankbone.
November 19, 2007
The "Downtown Legends" wall at Mo Pitkins House of Satisfaction featured artists known in the East Village performance scene. A few featured in this photo include the Reverend Jen, Allen Ginsberg, Reverend Billy and Murray Hill (pictured)
The "Downtown Legends" wall at Mo Pitkins House of Satisfaction featured artists known in the East Village performance scene. A few featured in this photo include the Reverend Jen, Allen Ginsberg, Reverend Billy and Murray Hill (pictured)
Drag—dressing in the clothing atypical of your born gender—in recent years has found mainstream success. Films such as Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar have prominently featured drag performers. But they have all focused on men in drag as women.
Murray Hill is a comedian, emcee and performer. He is also a drag king. Called "The Hardest Working Middle-aged Man in Show Business", The New York Times christened him "the current reigning patriarch of the downtown performance community." He is seemingly everywhere, emceeing a bingo night at the now closed, Jimmy Fallon-backed Mo Pitkins' House of Satisfaction on Avenue A, or hosting the Polyamorous Pride Day in Central Park. Hill has become a legend in New York's "anything goes" counterculture theater scene who is beginning to find mainstream success; which would be a first for a drag king.
David Shankbone's examination of New York City's culture has brought him to the whip's end of a BDSM dungeon, on the phone with RuPaul, matching wits with Michael Musto, grilling Gay Talese, eating dinner with Augusten Burroughs and quizzing the bands that play the Bowery Ballroom. In this segment he talks to downtown legend Murray Hill, former New York City mayoral candidate and comedian, on the last night of Mo Pitkins' House of Satisfaction. . . .
David Shankbone: Where is Murray Hill from?
Murray Hill: Murray Hill is from Murray Hill. 23rd Street and Third Avenue. What I like to tell the kids is I was born in the back seat of a cab right there, which is how I got the name. The cab driver asked my dad, ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ and my dad said, ‘No.’ I knew right then and there, kid, that I was going to wind up in Showbiz! And here I am! Fifty-five years later, lookin’ good!
DS: What does Murray Hill do on a Saturday?
MH: I’m doing shows. I am the only entertainer who has the most diverse working schedule, and my nickname is “The Hardest Working Middle-aged Man in Show Business.” This Saturday I hosted the Polyamorous Pride Day in Central Park. That was 106th Street and Central Park West. Then I got into a cab and a half later I was on Canal Street and West Broadway to be in a burlesque show I hosted for a completely different audience. And that’s showbiz!
DS: Do you ever talk about the Iraq War in your routines?
MH: I don’t necessarily talk about the war, specifically. I do not speak favorably about our President.
DS: Has the war affected you at all?
MH: I think September 11 affected me greatly. As far as what I do and how I relate to audiences, I don’t know if the war has affected me as much in the last few years other then having pure anger at our government and being ashamed sometimes when I go overseas. I’m just like, “Ugh!” I’m against war completely. I don’t talk about that stuff too much. I talk a lot about New York gentrification.
DS: Would you ever leave New York?
MH: In my shows I talk a lot about New York and sticking with it. I’ve seen the changes so drastically. I would never leave it permanently, but I would go to L.A. for awhile.
DS: Why?
MH: Showbiz! But I could never do it permanently.
DS: Do you feel like you are being held back here because it has dwindled so much?
MH: I have performed in New York for almost ten years and people still come to my show for the first time and are like, “Whoa!” They had never heard of me and they had never seen me. I think New York is a place where that can happen over and over. You can’t really do that in a place like L.A. or San Francisco because in two years everyone and their mother have seen you twenty times. I’m a performer who accepts the changes of New York and I perform to that. I had a closing night here upstairs where there were no East Village people and I couldn’t believe it! These are all new out-of-towners. It was almost the gentrified audience that was at my show. I’m addicted to it. I’ve never been more electrified by my audience than this year.
DS: How has your show evolved since you started doing it?
MH: It started as something I just did for fun and how it has changed I have put in the time with my craft. I’m very much an improv performer and I think over the years I have developed more of a back-story and honed my craft. I’m a professional now. A full-time career, I’m living off of it, I’m doing movies and music videos. Plays, some TV stuff. It’s become a full-blown career.
DS: When you say you have honed your craft, what sort of research do you do?
MH: A lot of people just see me and think it’s improv, but improv is a skill. Nobody knows I do a lot of research; I read everything and listen to a lot of records. Totie Fields records and Belle Barth. Frances Faye records. All the old guys who are full-bodied entertainers. I have this extensive knowledge of that 50s, 60s and 70s comedy. I’m influenced by Bette Midler—those old concerts are unbelievable! Justin Bond, Lady Bunny, Alan Cumming, Jack on Three’s Company, Benny Hill, Jackie Gleason, Carol Burnett, Lily Tomlin, George Jefferson, Neil Diamond, of course. I do a lot of writing and then develop on stage. Over the years I’ve learned to write things down and develop a catalog of material. . . .
Afghan boy dancers sexually abused by former warlords
November 18, 2007
PUL-E KHUMRI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - They are known as "bacha bereesh," boys without beards, teenage boys who dress up as girls and dance for male patrons at parties in northern Afghanistan.
It's an age old practice that has led to some of the boy dancers being turned into sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, often former warlords, who dress the boys up as girls, shower them with gifts and keep them as "mistresses."
Afghan police are battling to crackdown on the practice which has angered Islamic clerics who say those involved should be stoned for sodomy, forbidden under Islamic law.
In a society where the sexes are strictly segregated, it is common for men to dance for other men at weddings in Afghanistan.
But in northern Afghanistan, former warlords and mujahideen commanders have taken that a step further with competitions for their dancing boys.
"Every boy tries to be the first. They are dressed in women's clothes, have bells on their feet and have artificial breasts," said Mohammad Yawar, a former mujahideen fighter against the Taliban and resident of the northern town of Pul-e Khumri.
The practice, called "bacha bazi" -- literally "boy play" -- has a long history in northern Afghanistan, but sometimes it does not stop with just dancing. . . .
PUL-E KHUMRI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - They are known as "bacha bereesh," boys without beards, teenage boys who dress up as girls and dance for male patrons at parties in northern Afghanistan.
It's an age old practice that has led to some of the boy dancers being turned into sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, often former warlords, who dress the boys up as girls, shower them with gifts and keep them as "mistresses."
Afghan police are battling to crackdown on the practice which has angered Islamic clerics who say those involved should be stoned for sodomy, forbidden under Islamic law.
In a society where the sexes are strictly segregated, it is common for men to dance for other men at weddings in Afghanistan.
But in northern Afghanistan, former warlords and mujahideen commanders have taken that a step further with competitions for their dancing boys.
"Every boy tries to be the first. They are dressed in women's clothes, have bells on their feet and have artificial breasts," said Mohammad Yawar, a former mujahideen fighter against the Taliban and resident of the northern town of Pul-e Khumri.
The practice, called "bacha bazi" -- literally "boy play" -- has a long history in northern Afghanistan, but sometimes it does not stop with just dancing. . . .
Alexandra answers all the questions you were afraid or forgot to ask.
FACTOLOGY
This is an OPEN BOOK of Alexandra's past, present & future. . . .
83 Facts About Me:
1. I won’t eat anything green except salad.
2. I was born Scott William Billings, when my Dad got the telegram announcing my birth, it read: “Congrats. You are the Father of a 7 and a half pound baby BOT.”
3. My Father stood up at Karen Carpenter’s wedding.
4. I was engaged to a man for about 2 weeks.
5. I was a Hubbard Street Dance company alternate.
6. I got clean and sober on March 28, 1989
7. Dogs scare the whooey out of me.
8. I’ve had AIDS since the early 80’s.
9. I believe in a Higher Power. Absolutely no doubt whatsoever.
10. I can’t stand the sound of thunder.
11. If I were to invite three famous people to dinner (living or dead) they would be: Mary Magdeline, Katherine Hepburn, and Winston Churchill. Can you imagine dessert talk?
12. Eartha Kitt once gave me her faux hair as a gift while we sat in the back of her limousine.
13. I got my cat Tatiana from a crack house.
14. When my parents divorced, my Mother burned her wedding dress in a trash can .
15. I can eat anything and barely gain weight.
16. Chrisanne and I were married on Dec 4, 1995.
17. My Mother once dropped a fish bowl on her big toe and sliced it off. When the doctors attempted to sew her back on, they botched the job, and her toe always looked like it was trying to run away from her foot.
18. I am an ex prostitute.
19. I only have full hearing out of my right ear.
20. I survived two physically abusive relationships that totaled almost 4 years.
21. I almost married Rick Donovan. (70’s adult film star)
22. Kelly Lauren once saved my life.
23. I have a burn mark on my right hand that nobody ever notices.
24. Daylight Savings Time confuses the heck out of me.
25. I have a secret desire to visit Europe. Well….I guess it’s not so secret anymore, is it?
26. I was hooked on heroin for almost 2 years, and miss it almost every day.
27. I was homeless for about a year, and ate out of the back of MacDonalds dumpsters.
28. I was a Baton girl for 4 years.
29. I rarely get cast in plays that I audition for.
30. My first introduction to theatre was when I was 8 years old. My Dad was the musical director at Harbor College (in California) and he was recording their performance of “Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd”. I fell in love.
31. The first human voice I remember hearing was Judy Garland’s.
32. I have a brown birth mark on the back of my left leg. I don’t use words like “mole”.
33. I have one brother.
34. After my parents divorced, my Mother married our next door neighbor, and my Dad married our next door neighbor’s piano teacher.
35. I can juggle.
36. I am not a fan of Willy Shakespeare.
37. Chrisanne and I met while we were doing “Twelfth Night” at Schaumburg High School. We played brother and sister. It was 1976.
38. My hair is naturally curly.
39. My parents were going to get re married. They went on a pre honeymoon, and my Mother had a massive stroke, and died.
40. My Father passed away 2 years and 2 weeks to the day after my Mom.
41. I think everything could be just a little cleaner.
42. When I leave my car, I check for my car keys in my purse exactly 5 times.
43. I have a good sense of direction, but I get lost frequently.
44. I hate to be alone.
45. I don’t mind things that fly, but I can’t stand things that crawl.
46. I dated a circus clown.
47. If there was an emergency, and I had to get out of the house in a hurry, the three things I would grab would be: the cats, my purse, and one picture off our family wall….whichever one I could get my hands on first.
48. I hate crowds. Anything over 10 people in a room, is a crowd.
49. I have debilitating stage fright. . . .
This is an OPEN BOOK of Alexandra's past, present & future. . . .
83 Facts About Me:
1. I won’t eat anything green except salad.
2. I was born Scott William Billings, when my Dad got the telegram announcing my birth, it read: “Congrats. You are the Father of a 7 and a half pound baby BOT.”
3. My Father stood up at Karen Carpenter’s wedding.
4. I was engaged to a man for about 2 weeks.
5. I was a Hubbard Street Dance company alternate.
6. I got clean and sober on March 28, 1989
7. Dogs scare the whooey out of me.
8. I’ve had AIDS since the early 80’s.
9. I believe in a Higher Power. Absolutely no doubt whatsoever.
10. I can’t stand the sound of thunder.
11. If I were to invite three famous people to dinner (living or dead) they would be: Mary Magdeline, Katherine Hepburn, and Winston Churchill. Can you imagine dessert talk?
12. Eartha Kitt once gave me her faux hair as a gift while we sat in the back of her limousine.
13. I got my cat Tatiana from a crack house.
14. When my parents divorced, my Mother burned her wedding dress in a trash can .
15. I can eat anything and barely gain weight.
16. Chrisanne and I were married on Dec 4, 1995.
17. My Mother once dropped a fish bowl on her big toe and sliced it off. When the doctors attempted to sew her back on, they botched the job, and her toe always looked like it was trying to run away from her foot.
18. I am an ex prostitute.
19. I only have full hearing out of my right ear.
20. I survived two physically abusive relationships that totaled almost 4 years.
21. I almost married Rick Donovan. (70’s adult film star)
22. Kelly Lauren once saved my life.
23. I have a burn mark on my right hand that nobody ever notices.
24. Daylight Savings Time confuses the heck out of me.
25. I have a secret desire to visit Europe. Well….I guess it’s not so secret anymore, is it?
26. I was hooked on heroin for almost 2 years, and miss it almost every day.
27. I was homeless for about a year, and ate out of the back of MacDonalds dumpsters.
28. I was a Baton girl for 4 years.
29. I rarely get cast in plays that I audition for.
30. My first introduction to theatre was when I was 8 years old. My Dad was the musical director at Harbor College (in California) and he was recording their performance of “Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd”. I fell in love.
31. The first human voice I remember hearing was Judy Garland’s.
32. I have a brown birth mark on the back of my left leg. I don’t use words like “mole”.
33. I have one brother.
34. After my parents divorced, my Mother married our next door neighbor, and my Dad married our next door neighbor’s piano teacher.
35. I can juggle.
36. I am not a fan of Willy Shakespeare.
37. Chrisanne and I met while we were doing “Twelfth Night” at Schaumburg High School. We played brother and sister. It was 1976.
38. My hair is naturally curly.
39. My parents were going to get re married. They went on a pre honeymoon, and my Mother had a massive stroke, and died.
40. My Father passed away 2 years and 2 weeks to the day after my Mom.
41. I think everything could be just a little cleaner.
42. When I leave my car, I check for my car keys in my purse exactly 5 times.
43. I have a good sense of direction, but I get lost frequently.
44. I hate to be alone.
45. I don’t mind things that fly, but I can’t stand things that crawl.
46. I dated a circus clown.
47. If there was an emergency, and I had to get out of the house in a hurry, the three things I would grab would be: the cats, my purse, and one picture off our family wall….whichever one I could get my hands on first.
48. I hate crowds. Anything over 10 people in a room, is a crowd.
49. I have debilitating stage fright. . . .
Alexandra Billings
"...if you're going to ask me what the most important thing is, what I couldn't live without, I couldn't live without [Chrisanne]..."
-- A. Billings (excerpt from Gregg Shapiro's interview)
“Youth is wasted on the young.”
- W.C.Fields
Since the age of 5, Alexandra has been involved with the theatre. Her Father, Robert Billings, was a music teacher at Harbor College in Los Angeles, and was the musical director for the L.A. Civic Light Opera House for almost 20 years. During this time, Alexandra’s summers were filled with big, splashy musicals and loud, raucous cast parties. By the age of 10, she was not only convinced theatre was in her blood, she knew how to make a dry martini for anyone on the block.
Her novice years included shows with such luminaries as Carol Burnette (Once Upon A Mattress), Yul Brynner (The King and I), Sandy Duncan (Peter Pan), and appearances in everything from “The Fantasticks” to “Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of The Crowd”. Working backstage as well as on stage gave Alexandra the notion of what theatre really was: Hard work, Dedication, and lots of eyeliner.
“It’s gonna be a long, hard drag.”
- Janis Joplin
Alexandra, discovering her Transgenderism (didn’t know that word could be conjugated, did you?), began work in the only place she thought she was able: The Drag Scene in the early 80’s. She started her career out as Shanté at the now defunct Club Victoria in Chicago. She also worked at: Club 219 (Milwaukee Wisconsin), La Cage (Chicago), The Inn (Pal Waukee…where the cows don’t ever come home), and eventually landed a job at the famed Baton Show Lounge. She was a Baton Girl for almost 5 years. During these years, Shanté went on to win Miss Wisconsin, Miss New York, Miss Chicago, Miss Illinois, and was the first Chicago performer in the history of the pageant to win the coveted Miss Florida contest. She entered the legendary Miss Continental pageant four times, and lost them all. She became known as the Eternal First Runner Up. Since that time, Mr. Jim Flint (owner and proprietor of the pageant) has asked her to be a judge for Miss Continental since 2002. She has been honored to do so when her schedule permits. . . .
Transgender Candidate Sparks Controversy
November 20, 2007
RIVERDALE, Ga. -- Two unsuccessful city council candidates in Riverdale claimed a fellow candidate committed fraud when she ran as a woman.
Georgia Fuller and Stanley Harris, who lost bids for council seats, filed petitions in Clayton County Superior Court last week asking the judge to stop the upcoming runoff election. The lawsuit alleges that incumbent Michelle Bruce, who identifies herself as transgender and goes by Michelle Mickey Bruce, misled voters by identifying herself as a female during the Nov. 6 election.
The suit, which identifies her as "Michael Bruce," asks a judge to rule the November election results invalid and order another general election.
The Secretary of State's inspector general is also reviewing a complaint from Fuller and Harris to determine if an investigation is needed, spokesman Matt Carrothers said. . . .
RIVERDALE, Ga. -- Two unsuccessful city council candidates in Riverdale claimed a fellow candidate committed fraud when she ran as a woman.
Georgia Fuller and Stanley Harris, who lost bids for council seats, filed petitions in Clayton County Superior Court last week asking the judge to stop the upcoming runoff election. The lawsuit alleges that incumbent Michelle Bruce, who identifies herself as transgender and goes by Michelle Mickey Bruce, misled voters by identifying herself as a female during the Nov. 6 election.
The suit, which identifies her as "Michael Bruce," asks a judge to rule the November election results invalid and order another general election.
The Secretary of State's inspector general is also reviewing a complaint from Fuller and Harris to determine if an investigation is needed, spokesman Matt Carrothers said. . . .
Looking Back: Prisoners of Sex - TIME
January 21, 1974
Rachelle McAdam is no ordinary girl next door. A former Salt Lake City high school teacher, she stands a stately 5 ft. 11 in. tall and displays a well-turned 36-26-35 figure. Eight weeks ago, before her operation in San Francisco, her name was Richard, and she was a man, twice married and twice divorced.
McAdam is one of about 1,500 transexuals in the U.S. who have changed their sex by surgery. Because most sex change operations are done confidentially, the exact number is hard to determine. But the trend is clear: about 700 such operations were performed last year, double the rate of the year before.
Transexuals, of whom there are perhaps 10,000 in the U.S., are not to be confused with homosexuals and transvestites. Classic transexuals are born with the anatomy of one sex but suffer from a total, lifelong identification with the other, perhaps influenced by prenatal hormone disturbances. Transexuals generally disdain association with professed homosexuals. Unlike transvestites, they do not dress in clothes of the opposite gender for erotic stimulation, but simply because they feel more comfortable that way.
Careful Screening. Though the first modern medically supervised sex-change operation took place in Europe in 1930, transexual surgery did not attract wide notice until the transformation of a former G.I. named George Jorgensen to Christine* in 1952. In 1966 Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore opened its Gender Identity Clinic, having the year before performed its first complete transexual operation. University hospitals at Minnesota, Stanford, Northwestern, Arkansas, Michigan, Kentucky, Virginia and a few others soon followed suit.
In Stanford's Gender Dysphoria Program, headed by Psychiatrist Norman Fisk and Plastic Surgeon Donald Laub, applicants for surgery are carefully screened. For those who doctors feel could benefit from an operation, at least a full year of hormonal therapy is prescribed: estrogens and progestins to enlarge the breasts and soften the skin on men, and androgens to deepen the voices and stimulate beards on women.
During their hormone therapy, patients are asked to adopt the characteristics of their new gender. Transexual men don dresses, wear makeup, live and work as women. Transexual women wear men's clothes and live as men. After a year, if doctors judge the adjustment to new life-styles a success, surgery is performed.
Procedures and costs differ from hospital to hospital. The male-to-female operation, which costs from $3,000 to $5,000, is by far the easier and more satisfactory. After amputation of the penis and testicles, an artificial vagina is created, using scrotal or penile tissue or skin grafts from the thigh or hip. Because the penile tissue is still sensitive, male-to-female transexuals may experience orgasm, though of course pregnancy is impossible.
Less than half as many operations are requested by women as by men. According to Johns Hopkins Medical Psychologist John Money, the preponderance of men transexuals reflects the fact that men are far more vulnerable to psychosexual disorders than women. Moreover, female-to-male operations are more difficult, more lengthy and more costly (up to $12,000). Breasts are removed, a hysterectomy performed, and in some cases a miniature penis is created by freeing the clitoris from its connective tissue. In others, skin grafts and silicone forms are used to create a penis which may bring a sexual partner to orgasm but has no sensation in itself.
Their own sexual satisfaction, however, is often less important to transexuals than the desire to match their bodies to the gender with which they identify. The major psychological problem after surgery, according to Dr. Fisk, is that in spite of careful counseling, "expectations are often way out of line with reality." For those who want to keep their operation a secret, there is also the chronic tension that goes along with the fear of discovery and exposure.
Keeping a job or getting a new one is also difficult. When Rachelle McAdam appeared before school authorities in a dress, she was given two options: "Resign or be fired." She resigned. Many transexuals marry and adopt children, but there are often legal difficulties, especially in states that forbid sex changes on birth certificates.
Even so, more Americans want transexual surgery than are accepted by U.S. hospitals; many of them have gone abroad for operations. In Casablanca, more than 700 sex-change operations on patients from 17 to 70 have been performed over the past 15 years by Dr. Georges Burou, who specializes in the male-to-female type. Most of his patients have usually lived as women long before they go to Casablanca to take what he calls "the last, irrevocable step." But, insists Dr. Burou, a plain-speaking Frenchman: "I don't change men into women. I transform male genitals into genitals that have a female aspect. All the rest is in the patient's mind." . . .
Rachelle McAdam is no ordinary girl next door. A former Salt Lake City high school teacher, she stands a stately 5 ft. 11 in. tall and displays a well-turned 36-26-35 figure. Eight weeks ago, before her operation in San Francisco, her name was Richard, and she was a man, twice married and twice divorced.
McAdam is one of about 1,500 transexuals in the U.S. who have changed their sex by surgery. Because most sex change operations are done confidentially, the exact number is hard to determine. But the trend is clear: about 700 such operations were performed last year, double the rate of the year before.
Transexuals, of whom there are perhaps 10,000 in the U.S., are not to be confused with homosexuals and transvestites. Classic transexuals are born with the anatomy of one sex but suffer from a total, lifelong identification with the other, perhaps influenced by prenatal hormone disturbances. Transexuals generally disdain association with professed homosexuals. Unlike transvestites, they do not dress in clothes of the opposite gender for erotic stimulation, but simply because they feel more comfortable that way.
Careful Screening. Though the first modern medically supervised sex-change operation took place in Europe in 1930, transexual surgery did not attract wide notice until the transformation of a former G.I. named George Jorgensen to Christine* in 1952. In 1966 Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore opened its Gender Identity Clinic, having the year before performed its first complete transexual operation. University hospitals at Minnesota, Stanford, Northwestern, Arkansas, Michigan, Kentucky, Virginia and a few others soon followed suit.
In Stanford's Gender Dysphoria Program, headed by Psychiatrist Norman Fisk and Plastic Surgeon Donald Laub, applicants for surgery are carefully screened. For those who doctors feel could benefit from an operation, at least a full year of hormonal therapy is prescribed: estrogens and progestins to enlarge the breasts and soften the skin on men, and androgens to deepen the voices and stimulate beards on women.
During their hormone therapy, patients are asked to adopt the characteristics of their new gender. Transexual men don dresses, wear makeup, live and work as women. Transexual women wear men's clothes and live as men. After a year, if doctors judge the adjustment to new life-styles a success, surgery is performed.
Procedures and costs differ from hospital to hospital. The male-to-female operation, which costs from $3,000 to $5,000, is by far the easier and more satisfactory. After amputation of the penis and testicles, an artificial vagina is created, using scrotal or penile tissue or skin grafts from the thigh or hip. Because the penile tissue is still sensitive, male-to-female transexuals may experience orgasm, though of course pregnancy is impossible.
Less than half as many operations are requested by women as by men. According to Johns Hopkins Medical Psychologist John Money, the preponderance of men transexuals reflects the fact that men are far more vulnerable to psychosexual disorders than women. Moreover, female-to-male operations are more difficult, more lengthy and more costly (up to $12,000). Breasts are removed, a hysterectomy performed, and in some cases a miniature penis is created by freeing the clitoris from its connective tissue. In others, skin grafts and silicone forms are used to create a penis which may bring a sexual partner to orgasm but has no sensation in itself.
Their own sexual satisfaction, however, is often less important to transexuals than the desire to match their bodies to the gender with which they identify. The major psychological problem after surgery, according to Dr. Fisk, is that in spite of careful counseling, "expectations are often way out of line with reality." For those who want to keep their operation a secret, there is also the chronic tension that goes along with the fear of discovery and exposure.
Keeping a job or getting a new one is also difficult. When Rachelle McAdam appeared before school authorities in a dress, she was given two options: "Resign or be fired." She resigned. Many transexuals marry and adopt children, but there are often legal difficulties, especially in states that forbid sex changes on birth certificates.
Even so, more Americans want transexual surgery than are accepted by U.S. hospitals; many of them have gone abroad for operations. In Casablanca, more than 700 sex-change operations on patients from 17 to 70 have been performed over the past 15 years by Dr. Georges Burou, who specializes in the male-to-female type. Most of his patients have usually lived as women long before they go to Casablanca to take what he calls "the last, irrevocable step." But, insists Dr. Burou, a plain-speaking Frenchman: "I don't change men into women. I transform male genitals into genitals that have a female aspect. All the rest is in the patient's mind." . . .
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