The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV (6 page)

The medical drama again broke ground in the mid-1970s when it took on an even more complex subject — transsexuality. A transsexual is an individual assigned the wrong sex at birth who elects to have sex reassignment surgery. In 1952, the controversial medical procedure captured national headlines when a former U.S. army sergeant, George Jorgensen, left for Denmark and returned as Christine Jorgensen. At the time, the public responded to the radical concept of changing one’s sex with curiosity, disgust, and hostility. (In describing Jorgenson, one journalist quipped, “Jane Russell has nothing to worry about.”)

As with homosexuality, medical shows provided the ideal dramatic context to introduce transsexuality to the American public.
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They presented a generally sympathetic and sensitive portrait of the male-to-female transsexual by focusing on his struggle to get others (including the audience) to understand he feels like a woman trapped in a man’s body. The stories typically concentrate less on the medical procedure itself and more on the reaction of the patient’s family, friends, and colleagues.

In 1975,
Medical Center
became the first series to explore the subject in the two-part episode “The Fourth Sex.” Robert Reed, best known as the father on
The Brady Bunch,
received an Emmy nomination for his guest starring role as Dr. Pat Caddison, a renowned vascular surgeon who returns to Los Angeles to undergo a sex change. In spite of the support he receives from his friend and colleague, Dr. Gannon, Dr. Caddison must surmount a series of obstacles before he can go under the knife, including a minor heart problem, the medical staff’s objection to the procedure, and the hospital’s fear of negative publicity. And then there are Dr. Caddison’s estranged wife, Heather (Salome Jens), and teenage son, Steve (Gary Frank), who are less than receptive to the idea. The situation is complicated further because Heather’s sister, Dr. Jessica Lambert (Louise Sorel), who also happens to be Dr. Gannon’s girlfriend, vehemently opposes the procedure.

Part One focuses on Dr. Caddison’s unexpected return to Los Angeles. He first breaks the news to Dr. Gannon, who notices that Dr. Caddison has become “thinner and — ”

“Softer?” inquires Dr. Caddison,.

He explains that “nature has played a ghastly joke” on him, so he is taking female hormones to begin the process of sex reassignment. Once Dr. Gannon is over the initial shock, he agrees to serve as his physician.

Unfortunately, Dr. Caddison’s wife, Heather, who mistakenly thinks her husband has returned to solve their marital problems, is less sympathetic. Dr. Caddison begins by explaining that they should have never been married in the first place. Thinking she’s the cause of their sexual problems, Heather offers to get professional help. But as Dr. Caddison explains, the problem is he’s not attracted to her — as a woman:

Dr. Caddison isn’t a homosexual, yet the question of his sexual orientation — or rather, which of the two sexes (or perhaps both?) he desires sexually — is never addressed. The differentiation between homosexuality and transsexuality is necessary (especially in 1975). Yet the producers may have believed it would have only created more confusion if Dr. Caddison were to elaborate any further.

Angry toward her brother-in-law for hurting her sister, Dr. Lambert advises the medical staff to oppose Dr. Caddison’s sex change. She believes psychotherapy is the answer, but a staff psychologist disagrees and explains gender identification is established at the age of five. So Dr. Gannon begins Dr. Caddison’s physical evaluation, only to discover an irregularity in his heartbeat which could postpone the operation indefinitely. Despondent over the news, Dr. Caddison drives his car off a bridge. He claims he wasn’t trying to kill himself, but admits to Dr. Gannon it’s an “attractive” idea.

In Part Two, Gannon tries to convince the staff that, despite the medical risks, it’s imperative for the sake of his patient’s mental health to go ahead with the operation. Once again, Dr. Gannon delivers a passionate speech to the medical staff about their inability to confront their own fears:

Unfortunately, Dr. Lambert steals Dr. Gannon’s thunder. By asking the board to consider the effects on Dr. Caddison’s family, she convinces them to reject the procedure.

Meanwhile, Dr. Caddison assists Dr. Gannon with a patient, a macho race car driver named Skip Daley (Dennis Cole), who has severely damaged his leg in an accident and may never walk again. When his surgery doesn’t immediately bring back feeling in his leg, a sullen and bitter Skip is afraid he’ll become a “vegetable.”

“You’re not a vegetable,” Dr. Caddison assures him, “you’re a man with a temporary problem.”

Aware of his surgeon’s upcoming operation, Skip snidely asks Dr. Caddison what he knows about being a man. Dr. Caddison tells him:

Masculinity and femininity are a state of mind — a concept perhaps too radical for viewers to digest solely in terms of Dr. Caddison’s transsexualism, but more palatable in the context of Skip’s problem. Skip obviously was listening, because when he gets some feeling back in his leg, the big lug becomes teary-eyed and asks the nurse, “Have you ever seen a grown man cry?”

Dr. Caddison faces his greatest challenge in his son, Steve, who, distraught over his father’s upcoming sex change, contemplates suicide. Instead, he decides to drown his sorrows in a six pack. “You’re not my father. Maybe you’re my mother,” jokes a drunken Steve. “Maybe I’ve got two mothers.” Like Cory Melino, Steve is afraid his father’s transsexuality is hereditary.

“I’m no good at sports. I like to read a lot — poetry,” Steve sobs. “Maybe I’m just like you.”

“You’re a man,” Dr. Caddison assures him. “You always have been. And you don’t have to fight to prove it.”

Once Dr. Gannon gets both Steve and Heather’s approval, Dr. Caddison has his sex change. Before Heather goes to see her ex-husband and say goodbye, Gannon prepares her (and us) for the shock.

“Pat’s a woman now,” he explains. “Very feminine. Hair. Clothes. Make-up. Not at all the Pat you know.”

“Introduction to Transsexuality” is perhaps a more appropriate title for “The Fourth Sex,” which gives viewers some insight into the subject from the perspective of both the patient and those affected by his decision. The story begins at the point where Dr. Caddison has already decided to have the operation, thus allowing writer Rita Lakin to devote sufficient time to his family and colleagues (and the audience) as they try to sort out their own feelings. Although the emotionally charged scenes involving Dr. Caddison and his family border on the melodramatic, Lakin’s script handles the subject with sensitivity. Most importantly, the episode avoids sensationalism, even in the scene in which Heather (and the audience) see the post-operative Dr. Caddison, now fully transformed into a woman, for the first time.

A young post-op transsexual is the subject of an unusual episode of the short-lived medical series
Westside Hospital,
“The Mermaid.”
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After winning three gold medals in an international swimming competition in Los Angeles, East German swimming champion Niki Gunter (Betsy Slade) hits her head on the diving board. The teenager is rushed to the hospital, where Dr. Philip Parker (Ernest Thompson) performs emergency surgery. Dr. Parker wants Niki to remain for observation, but her coach, Kurt Hoffman (David Sheiner) demands she be released the next day.

Later, while Dr. Parker and his colleague, Dr. Janet Cottrell (Linda Carlson), are examining Niki, the young girl asks if they’ll help her defect.

“They keep me like a prisoner,” she cries. “Mr. Hoffman and the other coaches. I see no one, go nowhere without them.”

When Dr. Parker checks Niki’s X-rays, he thinks a mistake was made because Niki has male bone structure. He concludes Niki was born an anatomical male, but the East German government forced him to have a sex change in order to win medals and advance their political agenda. But as Niki reveals, she’s the one who requested the operation after her parents died because, as a child, she felt like a little girl trapped in a boy’s body. Now she’s wondering if she made a mistake, since the East German government is preventing her from developing socially as a woman. Dr. Hoffman informs Niki she’s got to go back home, but just before her release she sneaks out of the hospital and seeks refuge in Dr. Cottrell’s apartment.

During a woman-to-woman talk with Dr. Cottrell, Niki explains how even though she’s female on the outside, inside she feels like a “freak” because she doesn’t know how to act around boys. Dr. Cottrell advises Niki to be honest with people. She starts by sharing her secret with Tom (Andrew Stevens), an American diver who is sweet on her. Tom doesn’t know what to say, leaving Niki angry and even more confused.

When she begins to bleed internally, Niki is rushed back to the hospital. Once she’s out of danger, a guilty Coach Hoffman agrees to loosen the apron strings. After a reunion with Tom, who apologizes for his behavior, Niki returns to what will hopefully be an improved life back home in East Germany.

The episode takes a unique approach to the subject of transsexualism by displacing a political issue — United States-East German relations — onto the issue of sexual identity. Niki wants to stay in the United States because the East German government controls the three major factions of her life — the political, the professional, and the personal. She’s not seeking political asylum as much as
personal
asylum. The episode subscribes to the idea that while a person’s sex is biologically determined (and can be surgically altered), gender, in terms of masculine and feminine behavior, can be learned. Sheltered by her coaches, Niki was never sufficiently socialized as a female. As she says to Tom, “I will make a good girl, but will you be my friend and help me find out?” In the end, the young swimmer really has no choice but to return to East Germany, but at least Coach Hoffman agrees to allow her to live fully as a woman.

An episode of
St. Elsewhere
(“Release”) deals with a surgeon who refuses to accept his friend’s decision to undergo a sex change. Airing eight years after “The Fourth Sex,” “Release” reveals how society (or at least medical show fans) were perceived as more enlightened. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels), a brilliant yet arrogant surgeon who is shocked when his college roommate, Bob Overland (Andy Romano), checks into St. Eligius for a sex change. Though Bob has the support of his understanding wife, Anne (Alice Herson), Dr. Craig is determined to change Bob’s mind.

Dr. Craig can’t believe his friend hid his secret from him during college, but Bob explains it would have ended their friendship. “It’s taken me years to stop trying to be something I’m not,” he admits, “Years of trying to be the best athlete, dating the most beautiful ladies, merely to compensate for my own strange feelings.” When Bob refuses even to allow him to consult with his psychiatrist, Dr. Craig considers wielding his power as chief of surgery to halt the procedure.

“Well, you may have convinced your wife, but not me buddy,” Dr. Craig snarls. “I know you too well to agree to anything so disgusting.”