XVI Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association Symposium
17 - 21 August 1999, London

Reflections on "Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment" 1969 -1999

The Gifts of Harry Benjamin

Schaefer, Leah Cahan, Ed.D., Private Practice, New York City

Panel: Remembering Harry Benjamin: Reflections on the pioneer in understanding and helping transsexuals.

It is 13 years almost to the day since the death of Dr. Harry Benjamin, the namesake of this illustrious organization—and it would seem more than timely to begin to evaluate the formidable legacy which he left to us.

For more than 15 years, Tina and I have been privileged to have the use of Harry Benjamin’s entire Gender Identity Disorder medical files for our clinical and research purposes. This presentation will be based on these records, his writings, and reminiscences from our professional and personal friendship with him over the years but especially in the last decade of his life.

From researching his files, and studying his writings, and through our many interviews with him, it sees to us that there is hardly a single idea in use today, or still being researched, which was not initially thought of, considered, written about or suggested by the genius of his understanding. It is certainly not our intention to diminish the great contributions of any other great thinker in this field, nor do we even mean to imply that Harry Benjamin developed every idea that he ever thought of—it’s simply that he seems to have thought of everything.

His contributions to the area of gender and gender dysphoria are surely without peer. It was Harry Benjamin, first and foremost and all by himself, who ultimately developed a chance referral into a profession. It was Harry Benjamin, who was willing to work with methods and medications which were new, and who found himself questioning medical traditions and traditional medicine. To quote his dear colleague and associate, Charles Ihlenfled, "Harry treated infectious diseases before penicillin, and he practiced sexology before the development of psychoanalysis."

These remembrances tell of Harry’s great scientific discoveries and conclusions, and disclose the earliest findings of transgenderism. He was also a significant developer of the field of gerontology—he lived to be 1012 , but in the end, he could not bear to be videoed or audioed because he looked and sounded, "so old!" There are wonderful stories of introductions to tell about Harry’s desire to meet the thinkers of all generations. One in particular was the luncheon date I arranged for Harry’s desire to meet the thinkers of all generations. One in particular was the luncheon date I arranged for Harry and the world renowned endocrinologist Walter Futterweit, who I brought together for the first time and how happy they were to talk for hours about their work. Another ironic story is how this great savior of the gender variant people could not even get himself appointed to a hospital board in the City or State of New York because he was considered too radical and out of the main stream. His great discoveries meant nothing to the staid medical community of that day, as his seemingly deviant ideas colored everything—a state that should be very familiar to this audience.

It is an honor to be able to remind ourselves of the contributions of this great and unique genius.