BTW, it appears from your description that the efforts were aimed to change gender expression rather than gender identity or sexual orientation.

That’s how I think we would interpret it today. But if you had asked Rosenzweig and Hoskins in 1941 what they where trying to do, they would have made no such distinction because the medical establishment didn’t understand that there was a distinction between gender identity/expression and sexual orientation. They really thought that it was all the same.

It’s also interesting to read the early magazines written by gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. They too thought it was all the same although they understood that there was an awful lot of variety under what was called “homosexuality.” It wasn’t until the 1960s and, more strongly, in the 1970s when clinicians began to understand that there were clear difference between gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. I still think some are confused today.

Aside from that I think it’s a valid experiment considering the time and their lack of knowledge. If a patient had voluntarily undergone it, it would have been fine. It’s mostly with hindsight that it seems absurd on its face, though the mix of male and female hormones in short succession seems weird.

@F Young
At that time, doctors pretty much considered those three things one and the same