Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Monday, January 9

Today is 成人の日 in Japan, otherwise known as “Coming of Age Day.” It’s held to congratulate everyone who has or will come of age (i.e. turned twenty years old) between April 2, 2011 and April 1, 2012. Festivities begin with ceremonies at local and prefecture offices. While young men typically wear simple suits and ties, women celebrate the day by wearing a traditional style of komono known as the furisode and zōri sandals. The forisode is so elaborate that most women chose to visit a beauty salon to dress and style their hair. After the ceremony, the young adults continue celebrating at parties through the rest of the day.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
News Conference To Announce Marriage Equality Bill: Trenton, NJ. State Democratic leaders plan to announce at a news conference today their intention to introduces a bill in the state legislature to legalize marriage equality. According to the Star-Ledger:

State Sen. President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), who is now said to be a pivotal supporter of the legislation, abstained the last time a similar bill was voted down by the Legislature in 2010 — a decision he later said he regretted more than any other in his career. A spokesman for Sweeney did not respond to questions about the plan last night. Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) will also be at the news conference, ensuring that the proposal has the support of the state’s two most powerful Democratic lawmakers. She could not be reached for comment.

The betting in Trenton is that Gov. Chris Christie (R) will veto the bill. He has said previously that while he supports civil unions, he opposes marriage equality. It’s doubtful the legislature can overcome an expected veto.

The New Jersey Legislature enacted its civil unions law in 2006. It went into effect on February 19, 2007. Since then, several newspapers and the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission have reported that civil unions have failed to provide equal benefits and obligations to same-sex couples that a marriage bill would provide. One notable shortcoming is with companies which provide health care to spouses of married couples but refuse to recognize civil unions.

An unidentified patient at Worcester State Hospital (Photo by Herbert Gehr/Life Magazine, 1949)

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Hormone Treatments Found Ineffective for Altering Homosexuality (Or, More Precisely, Gender Identity): 1941. It’s a good thing this idea was knocked down rather early in the twentieth century. Unfortunately, it took a series of medical experiments on a mental hospital patient (almost certainly without the patient’s consent) to arrive at that conclusion. Worse, in an example which brings to mind the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiments, the experiments were performed on an African-American patient. According to Dr. Saul Rosenzweig and R.G. Hoskins, working at Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts, the patient, apparently transgender (in 1941, the concept of  gender identity being distinct from  sexual orientation was still unknown in the medical literature), was admitted to the hospital following the death of her male lover:

The patient, A.D., a male negro of 46, entered the Northampton State Hospital in 1921 and 4 years later was transferred to the Worcester State Hospital with a diagnosis of “constitutional psychopathic personality without psychosis.” …[His symptoms] consisted mainly of seclusiveness, shyness, pronounced effeminacy, and excessive preoccupation with drawing, painting, designing of women’s clothes and similar “artistic” activities. His speech became disjointed and unresponsive and for two years he refrained from leaving his home. He talked of wearing women’s clothes and often went to bed with presumably imaginary ailments. Upon admission to the Worcester State Hospital he showed no pronounced psychotic symptoms.

He is a short, stocky negro who, except for his large masculine genitals, is in every respect a woman. He shows an exaggerated female gait and speech and all the mannerisms of a clinging-vine type of female, spends hours at his toilette, and says he is fond of being well-groomed. With men he is coy, silly, and affected. With the other sex he talks as one woman to another. He daily asks for cathartics and is overinterested in the needs of his lower intestinal tract. He knows he is considered effeminate, but says that that is the way God made him. He further excuses his peculiarities on the ground that he is an artistic genius and therefore entitled to a few eccentricities.

A.D. had been a patient for 20 years with little change in his mannerisms or appearance. What is alarming about this report so far is the admission that A.D. is a long-term mental patient “without psychosis.” It’s hard to imaging what the doctors would be looking for as a sign that A.D. was ready to be discharged, although it’s equally hard to imagine how A.D. would have been able to function in the world if he had been discharged after 21 years of confinement. But of course, the alarm doesn’t end there. Rosenzweig and Hoskins decided that A.D. was the perfect candidate for a series of experiments:

From October 16 to November 10, 1939 he was given orally the potent synthetic estrogen, Stilboestrol (Squibb), in dosage of 5 mgm. three times a week.

On December 6 he received an implant of a 150-milligram tablet of Testosterone (Schering), which was embedded in the subcutaneous tissues beneath the inferior angle of the left scapula.

On December 20, 1939 to February 7, 1940, intramuscular injections were given of a gonadotropic preparation derived from pregnant-mare serum (Anteron-Schering). The dosage was 1 cc. or 250 units twice weekly. Because of an upper respiratory infection medication was omitted during the week of January 11.

An attempt was then made to enhance the responsivity to sex hormones by the use of desiccated thyroid (Armour). This was begun on February 1 at 1 grain daily and continued throughout the remainder of the study.

On February 9, Pituitary Gonadotropic — Pranturon (Schering) — was substituted for the pregnant-mare preparation, also in dosage of 1 cc. twice weekly. At the same time Testosterone Propionate by intramuscular injection was begun in dosage of 50 mgm. twice a week. Both were continued until February 29.

On March 9 another estrogenic preparation was begun, Ayerst Mc-Kenna and Harrison’s Emmenin being used in dosage of 1 teaspoonful three times daily. This was discontinued on March 11.

Finally, from April 6 to 11 another estrogen, Estriol (Lilly), was given in the large dosage, 6.24 mgm. three times a day.

What was the point of all of this bizarre hormonal treatments on A.D.? Rozenzweig and Hoskins believed that homosexuality was caused by an “imbalance of male and female sex-hormone production,” and that by altering that ratio, they hoped to be able to observe changes in A.D.’s behavior. They failed. “No influence upon the behavior or the personality of the patient could be detected.” For Rozenzweig and Hoskins, it was back to the drawing board. But for A.D., we may never know what became of her.

[Saul Rosenzweig & R.G. Hoskins. “A note on the ineffectualness of sex-hormone medication in a case of pronounced homosexuality.” Psychosomatic Medicine 3, no. 1 (January 1941): 87-89.]