WEBVTT - Part One: John Ronald Brown: The Worst Surgeon Ever 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:07.760 Podcast I am Robert Evans hosted Behind the Bastards, and 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:12.200 that was another fail to attempt to introduct. Introduce, introduction, 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.480 start my podcast about bad people you shouldn't have acts 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:21.239 the standard. Man, I really liked it. Yeah, I feel 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:23.680 a need to change it. Do you get a haircut 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.439 or something? Man, I get a lot of haircuts. I 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.880 don't know. You know something different? You know what I mean? 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:31.120 Go get a mohawk and keep the greeting the same. 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:36.120 I think frosted mohawk. Technically, yeah, frost to tips. Get 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.920 some frost and tips and leave the lips. No. I 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.319 feel that like George Lucas, like, I'm not really an 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.519 artist unless I am tinkering with my work past the 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:49.440 point where it works and to the point where no 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.279 one enjoys it anymore. But your real artist man splaining, 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:58.280 and you still have that. Well, Actually, Sophie, this episode, 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.680 I'm going to have you explained the asterday I wrote 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:02.680 about who you have never heard of? So this will 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:06.160 be a short episode of the show. M Hi, I'm 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.479 Sophia Alexander. You guys just out here giving him ship, 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.840 didn't You didn't even enter your guests because I interrupted him? 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:19.319 It was just a train wreck from the out of 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:24.319 the jump. Um, good god, you're not even tor like 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.639 shady like eye looks. We keep giving each other about 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:35.080 all deserved. I'm very hungover right now. Um, so this 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.720 is a ship show in so many ways, Sophia, Hi, 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:46.360 Alexandra private parts unknown and for fiance, bitch we out, 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:54.200 that's right, Sophia. Yeah. Do you know about a guy 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.880 named John Ronald Brown? Yeah? I sucked him last week. No, 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.920 I don't know who. I hope not. I really really, 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:04.040 you will not want to have fucked this guy after 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.800 I'm here. He is, Uh, he is a genocider of 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.440 just babies, And I'm sure that I will want to 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:14.440 kill myself by the end of this, like I usually do, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.120 because that's what you do to invite me here. No, 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.880 you know, a genocider of babies. So babies aren't very tough, right, 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.720 So if you're killing babies, it's probably pretty quick, right, 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.920 Like they just can't handle a lot, probably, he said, 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:33.600 John Ronald Brown. This might be our darkest episode because, um, 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.400 because like the crime is the darkest because like obviously 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.280 we've talked about people have killed a lot more people. 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:44.360 Georgia Tan killed a lot more people, but the things 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.919 that he did to people are so gruesome and ghastly. 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.320 We're gonna be talking about a lot of botched surgery today, 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.240 So oh my god, dude, I watched that show Botched 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.080 all the time. This is perfect for me. This is 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.359 like the most the worst version of that. Um we're 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.720 talking about a doctor who abused trans people for years. 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.079 So ah, dude, really, yeah, it's not a good it's 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.080 what I'm not here? Does he talk about he hates 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:13.639 me the most? I don't like all of the guests. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:18.080 Is that what happened? Yeah, it's literally his hobby. You 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:23.200 are a bastard among bastards. I'm the real bad guy 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.920 of the series, except for in the case of this episode, 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.640 because John Ronald Brown is even worse than I could 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.240 hope to be. All right, let's do this. So, if 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.800 you were like a trans woman in like the eighteen fifties, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.000 your options would be pretty much limited to like the 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:40.040 cosmetic you know, shaving, wearing, you know, the clothing of 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.680 your of your choice makeup. There weren't like options for surgery, right, 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.840 and so even many like pretty woke writers who had 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.240 a deep understanding of the community in the eighteen hundreds. 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.840 In early nineteen hundreds would kind of lump transgender women 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.400 in with transvestites and usually just use the word transvestite. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.920 And nowadays that's like definitely an insult, but kind of 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.200 and you're reading stuff from like the late eighteen hundreds, 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.040 a lot of times they actually are trying to be 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.640 like understanding. It's just like the verbage hadn't evolved very 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.200 far at that point. The first person to transition medically 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:14.800 was probably Lily Elbe, who did so in nineteen thirty 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.440 with the help of pioneering sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. In addition 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.359 to having an incredible name, Magnus was one of the 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.279 bravest scientists in history. He was homosexual himself, and he 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.480 had to hide being gay in order to practice medicine 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.120 at the highest levels of German society. Uh and in 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.520 spite of this, he established a career as a tireless 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:36.120 advocate for LGB in particularly t individuals. In Berlin. In 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.839 eighteen ninety seven, he founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.720 was dedicated to ending the stigma against homosexuality and to 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.880 criminalizing it in germanys this eighteen ninety seven, so Magnus 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.839 ahead of the curve. Big Magnus energy over there, Big 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.960 Magnus energy. It's interesting to me that he's like such 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.360 an advocate while also being a closeted gay man himself, 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.320 because I think there was this understand that, like, well, 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:03.640 I won't be able to actually do this work very 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.279 effectively if kind of everyone knows. Um, because it's Germany 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:11.640 and eight. Um, that's an incredible sacrifice to make to 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.080 take closeted so you can help other people be themselves. Yeah, 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.200 he was an amazing guy. Um. Now. One of Magnus's 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.400 achievements was the establishment of an LGBT self help group 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.200 and probably the first self help group of like sort 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:26.239 of in the modern sense of the word, where queer 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.600 individuals in Berlin and again in the eighteen nineties and 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.640 early nine hundreds couldn't meet and discuss their issues. By 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.200 creating a space where these people could gather, Magnus also 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.640 gathered for himself the first large sample population of queer 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.760 men and women ever studied in a systematic and scientific way. 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.080 He circulated a questionnaire among them and received answers from 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.680 tens of thousands of people. Um. Because he was able 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.040 to actually do like like longitudinal sort of like survey 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.520 work on the gay community prior to World War One. Um, 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:58.000 so there's obviously like groundbreaking ship, but obviously, given the 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.320 time it was, it was not perfect and you would 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.600 not consider like the wording that he used for everything 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:06.760 ideal in the modern sense of the word. And I'm 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.600 gonna quote from the Guardian now Elb, who was that uh, 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.080 one of the transgender women that he worked with, was 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.080 reportedly disgusted by the questionnaire and the ambiguity of trans 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.400 sexuality as it was represented in the institute. She described 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.200 being requested to answer all these very rude and strict questions, 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.440 says Rainy or Herne, a sexology researcher at Charite Hospital 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.560 in Berlin, she refused the descriptions of sexual intermediates such 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.800 as transvestites and hermaphrodites was not acceptable for her. For her, 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.200 there was no ambiguity. She was a woman, so she 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.719 was very irritated by the whole process. So even like 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:43.880 a guy like Herschfeld doesn't really understand like transgender, like that, 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.159 like the like the nature that doesn't understand what's going 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:48.960 on with Elb. And I don't think anyone really has 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.200 a vocabulary here. So like a lot of people I 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.560 think who were trans back then probably would have called 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.240 themselves something different, just because, like the state of development 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.479 of the vocabulary area was so much more primitive. Um. 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.120 But Hirchfield agreed to help Elb transition, and with his assistance, 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.880 she underwent surgery to have her testicles removed in Berlin, 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.280 and then she underwent further surgeries in Dresden. Now these 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.040 were mostly cosmetic surgeries. Um. But as her points out, 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.960 just cosmetic surgery was not enough for Alb. Quote. Elb 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.680 wanted to have implanted ovaries and a uterus because at 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:24.440 that time, to be a real woman you had to 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.160 be capable of having children. That was her ideal. She 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.800 was obsessed by this, and Elb's biography, which is based 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.160 on her diaries, she always fantasizes about being a complete woman. 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.840 So obviously then is now technology did not make that possible. Um, 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.040 I don't think we can do that now. In nineteen 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.160 thirty one, it was not a thing medical science was 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.679 up to the task of doing. Uh An Elb's body 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.080 rejected the new womb and she died of heart failure 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:51.200 on September nineteen thirty one. Yeah, it's a real bummer 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.240 of a story. Um. And there's a there's a good 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.680 book about her, uh, the title of which I thought 0:07:57.680 --> 0:07:59.480 I included in here, but I did not. It'll be 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.480 on Behind the Bastards dot Com in our in our 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.800 Stars notes. So Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research was 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.760 destroyed by the Nazis and his records were destroyed once 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.600 Hitler came to power. If you google Nazi book burning, 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.160 the pictures that you get are the Hirschfeld library being 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.480 burned by the Nazis. And this was a major setback 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.720 for humanity and particularly for LGBT individuals, as much of 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:23.800 what Magnus had been studying where that was like the 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.560 biological roots of homosexuality. Uh. And in some ways science 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.040 still has not recovered from this loss. It took up 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.160 until like really the last like ten or fifteen years 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:34.959 in a lot of cases, where like we started to 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:37.720 rebuild to the level that he was he was getting 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.160 to be at in the thirties. Have you seen the 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:47.120 show Transparent, No, they do flashbacks to to this, to 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:51.320 the to the whole story, yeah, to all the clear people, 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.679 and then to the book burning. It's not really like 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:59.079 told and like a chronological kind of like and then 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.000 this happened scene a just a little flashes every episode 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.360 for the season, for this one season anyway. Yeah, it's 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.760 a bummer of a tail um. So yeah, the Nazis, 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.800 as Nazis do, really uh jammed a finger in the 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.880 eye of progress. But progress did not stand still in 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.360 other developments in the early twentieth century had a major 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:22.480 impact on the development of gender transitioning. In nine, estrone, 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:27.000 a female hormone, was isolated, followed by estriol. Eventually both 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:31.120 hormones were classified together as estrogen. Progesterone was isolated and 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.040 described to the first time in nineteen thirty four, testosterone 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.480 in nineteen thirty five. Now, it was not a short 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.280 route from isolating these hormones and tooth figuring out how 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.599 to produce them synthetically, but by the nineteen forties, the 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.800 first injectable hormones had been developed, making what we now 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.880 know as hormone replacement therapy possible. So that's like the 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:53.199 genesis of of HRT. Now, the first person to receive 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.640 what we'd recognize as a modern gender transition was a 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.880 woman named Christine Jorgensen Um and you you might call 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.000 the first guinea pig for injectable hormones, because like people 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.040 really didn't know like how this was all going to 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.800 work until they tried it on her um. And I'm 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.840 going to quote now from the book Crossing Sexual Boundaries 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:16.360 by J. R. Kane Demos quote just how confusing the 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.360 whole situation was at the time, as indicated by the 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.120 fact that the physician involved in the case called Jorgenson 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.360 a transvestite in his official account of the case. His 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.560 treatment of Jorgenson was in part surgical castration and a penectomy, 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.199 but the important thing was the massive hormone treatment. Before 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.040 going to Denmark, Jorgensen had been injecting herself with estrogen 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.599 to bring about physiological changes, and after Hamburger and his 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.920 associate examiner, they decided to treat her with massive injections 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.520 of estrogen, much larger than she had given herself. The 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.120 large dose has just changed the shape of Jourgensen's body 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.559 to a more feminine contour, and her behavior, gait, and 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.600 appearance also became more feminine. As her beard became sparser, 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.360 electrolysis was used to remove the remaining hair. The one 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:53.800 thing they did not do for her was to give 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.200 her a vagina, a failure that was only later partially 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.680 resolved and not particularly satisfactory. Yet she looked and acted 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.120 like a and something that took considerable practice before she 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:06.440 was satisfied enough to tell her story. So Christine Jorgensen 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.560 went to the press in nineteen one um explicitly against 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.800 her doctor's wishes UM, and her story was an instant, 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.520 like huge media sensation UM. And while the media at 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:21.520 the time definitely did not treat it with overwhelming respect UM, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:23.959 the fact that she was coming out and talking about 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:25.800 her experience was one of the most important moments in 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.000 the history of transvisibility. Like it was one of those 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.360 things that like it had to happen and it was 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.880 always going to suck. Kind of the first person to 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.200 do it because the media in nineteen fifty one was 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.959 not going to be very tactful, um. But because whenever 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:44.480 the Jackie Robinson of anything, it sucks. Yeah, And it's 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:46.480 a little like what you were talking about earlier, Like 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.040 it is awkward. We're kind of in this awkward period 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:51.960 now of discussing like non binary gender and like trying 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.320 to figure all this stuff in the terminology out and 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:56.760 it leads to a lot of arguments, but like you 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.280 have to have these awkward periods before you kind of 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.160 like get people used enough to certain ideas that it 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.079 stops being weird and starts being something that like is 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:11.000 just life. Um. Yeah, So Jourgensen is as important for 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.800 a lot of reasons UM. And in the wake of 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.160 her transition UM, huge numbers of people started writing to 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.880 her doctor, who was again Danish, UM to request the 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.360 surgery for themselves, and in fact, so many people flooded 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.439 Denmark with requests for gender reassignment surgery that the government 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.040 had to enact a law banning it for non Danish 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:31.600 people out of a fear that they would just be 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.600 flooded by trans people from around the world looking for 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.280 surgery and hormone replacement therapy. So this is like like 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.360 there's all these people who have clearly always been there, 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.120 and when Jorgensen comes out there like, oh, it wasn't 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.800 just this thing that I alone was dealing with, UM, 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.120 And then they kind of flood Denmark with requests for 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.440 surgery because it's the only place doing it at the time. Now, 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.440 the medical community in the fifties was obviously very much 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.400 mixed on the subject of what precisely Christine Jorgensen was. 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.280 Many chiatrists considered her mentally ill and criticized Dr Hamburger 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.960 for using surgery and hormone replacement therapy instead of psychotherapy 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.240 to correct what was seen as a sexual perversion. Well, 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:10.920 it took a while for them to take it out 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.040 of the d s M as being something that we 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:18.280 can consider to be abnormal sexuality. So yeah, yeah, decades 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.000 and decades um. And the whole battle over that is 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.720 is very complicated and again beyond kind of the scope 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.440 of this episode, um. But one of the results of 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.199 this whole thing it was that doctor Harry Benjamin popularized 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.200 the term trans sexualism to replace transvestism. So in like 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.560 trans sexual again, we've moved beyond that term these days 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:40.200 and it's generally seen as rude, but there was a 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.040 time in which that was like the kind of polite 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:48.080 and medical term used. Yeah, yeah, that was a gain. 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.560 It was a step forward. So over the following years, 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.880 the first gender identity clinics started to be established, starting 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.600 with Johns Hopkins University and then case Western Reserve University 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.800 and then the University of Minnesota to the University of Oregon, 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:06.119 and Stanford University. Kind of surprising that Minnesota beat Stanford, 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.440 uh for gender identity clinics, but good for Minnesota. Yeah, 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.199 Stanford should have been first. What the funk California you 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:17.760 would think, right, I mean, California hasn't always been this 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:23.160 libertine paradise is today. Yeah. Now, um, these institutions began 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.600 to slowly catch up to where Magnus Hirschfeld had been 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.000 back in the thirties. And while their research focused mostly 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.960 on trying to understand and classify what precisely trans people were, uh, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:36.560 they also engaged in early sexual reassignment surgeries. Um. Dallas 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.920 Denny's Dallas Denny sorry, a trans rights activist and writer. 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:45.560 They did the ship at Denny's. Yeah, that's actually right 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:48.960 after That's fucking tight. It turns out they were terrible 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.400 at surgery, but really good at cooking omelets, so they 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.480 just sort of moved right into that. Man, kid can't 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.120 make an omelet without breaking a few removing a few eggs. 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:06.120 Am I right there we go. Sorry, who may have 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.480 actually a wrong idea about what an omelet is. We'll 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:14.360 talk about that way. So um. Now, Dallas Denny, um, 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.080 who was a trans woman who trans rights activist and 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:19.880 a writer, was very critical about some of their about 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.040 like the efforts of these kind of early gender reassignment 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:26.760 clinics uh And she wrote this quote. The clinics viewed 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.640 sexual reassignment as a last ditch effort to save those 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.200 with whom other therapies and interventions had failed. Those who 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.040 were accepted for treatment were usually prostitutes, those with substance 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.040 abuse problems, sociopaths, those who were schizophrenics, those who were 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.120 profoundly depressed or suicidal, and others who were considered hopeless 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:43.840 i e. Likely to die anyway. It was a classics 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.600 application of the triage method, with those most likely to 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.360 benefit from the intervention being turned away and the terminal 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:53.440 cases receiving treatment. So people who like were relatively emotionally 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:57.640 stable and healthy would be denied the surgery um because 0:15:57.680 --> 0:15:59.840 they would seems like, well, you're fine, you don't need this, 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.880 and like people who were like clearly for probably a 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.000 lot of other reasons, you know, kind of on the 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.360 edge of suicide emergency cases would be given surgery. So 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.640 it meant that and this has this is like had 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:12.320 an effect that went onto this day because it means 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.920 that like some of the first you know, transgender like people. 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.000 The first people to go through this surgery that were 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.920 studied were people who had a whole lot of other issues, 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.760 which again lad to like. This reinforced this belief that 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.760 they were like fundamentally unhealthy because they wouldn't let healthy 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.840 trans people have the surgery. Um, so it's kind of 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:31.200 messed up. It's like when people blame Jews for being 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:33.360 into money and then the only jobs they could have 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:42.120 as whereas money lenders. It's like, yeah, now, um. Since 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.160 medical schools were often unwilling to help trans patients, the 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.280 private sectors swooped in to offer assistance, because sweet Lady 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.280 capitalism is nothing if not inclusive. Once money is on 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.160 the line. A small number of surgeons, some motivated by altruism, 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.280 others by a desire for cold, hard cash, began to 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.360 service the needs of the trans community. This was i see, 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.640 legal ground to protect themselves from malpractice claims. Many of 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.520 these surgeons required psychiatric clearances. The ones who did not, 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:12.880 inevitably tended to be sketchier individuals. And this finally brings 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.919 us to the subject of today's episode, John Ronald Brown. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.199 The long introduction, Oh and now it's time for ads 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:29.639 you know who won't perform sketchy unlicensed surgery, Sophia, the 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:35.360 following goods and services, Yes, only licensed surgery um from 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:40.400 the following goods and services. Oh boy, it's gonna it's 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.679 not gonna be the last ad transition that's uncomfortable in 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.600 this episode. Was not great, Robert, it was not great. 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:50.720 It was not great. What do you want? No, No, 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.520 not great. A good add transition on a Sophia episode 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.760 that's not gonna have truth, But don't bring me into it. Yeah, 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:03.879 don't loop her unto your us thinking, your battleship. You 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:10.399 know what didn't kill all those babies, dick pills. Here's 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:19.159 some products, and we're back, all right. You notice I 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.720 got you saying goods and services? Now I do I do? 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.520 You incepted it? In my mind? I know it's pretty great. 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.840 I'll glow, I'll grow inside of you slowly like a fungus, Robert. 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.120 I love funguses. That's where we get all of our 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:41.000 best mushrooms. I'm just the mushroom of the heart, Sylvia. Yes, 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.080 we've had a little history lesson, and now it's time 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.040 to talk about a terrible person motherfucker. This whole thing 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:55.119 is a history lesson. Okay. Yeah, John Ronald Brown. Uh. 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:57.840 And I'm gonna continually use his middle name because calling 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.479 him John Brown will very much mix him up with 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:02.720 the guy that we don't want mixed up in this story, 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.800 the hero John Brown. So, John Ronald Brown was born 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.119 in July fourteenth, nineto. I don't know where, and I 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.440 haven't been able to find much, if any, meaningful tales 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.199 about his childhood. He claims in interviews to have been 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.600 the son of a Mormon physician in Utah, which is 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.520 probably where he comes from. John was apparently something of 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.359 a child genius, and he found academic so easy that 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:28.159 he graduated high school at age sixteen. He was drafted 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:29.960 into the army at the start of World War Two. 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.960 And I feel like he would lie about graduating at sixteen. 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.480 But I do not feel like you would lie about 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:40.360 being from Utah. What do you gain from that? No 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:44.560 one has ever pretended to be from saying anyway, It's 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.959 like lying about coming from Oklahoma City. Yeah, I trust him. 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:52.800 So he gets drafted into the army at the start 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.000 of World War two, and as a new soldier, he 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:57.879 was required to take the General Classification Test, which is 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.199 the precursor to the modern as FAB test, which is like, 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.159 are you are what jobs are you smart enough to do? 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:07.120 In the army? Um. Now, decades later, in interviews with journalists, 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:09.639 John Ronald Brown would claim to have scored higher on 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:11.879 this test than any of the other three hundred thousand 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.600 people who had taken it previously in Utah. Now, this 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:17.959 guy is a liar, so he might be lying, But 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:20.600 I also don't know that you would lie about being 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:24.560 the smartest man in Utah. Um. Again, I mean, if 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:26.719 you're the kind of man who lied about being from Utah, 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.680 you would probably lie about being the smartest man in Utah. 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.440 I think he's probably it's just a pile of lies. Yeah, 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.560 maybe it's undred on your S A T S. But 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:40.480 only when you're not in your hometown. I like, I 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.960 wouldn't be surprised if three hundred thousand people was like 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.960 three hundred thousand times the number of people who could 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.520 read fluently in Utah in the nineteen forties. So a 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:56.760 lot of Utah shade being thrown in this. It is beautiful, 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:02.239 but not humans. Nobody goes to Utah for humans. It's 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:05.920 national park to get away from them. Yeah exactly, so, 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:11.000 um yeah, whatever the truth about how intelligent he was 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.320 visa v. The rest of Utah. Brown score was high 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:15.520 enough that the Army sent him to medical school. He 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.320 received his bachelor's degree from the University of Utah and 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.399 his medical degree three months later, because apparently that was 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.919 a lot easier in the What the fuck you just 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.560 had a b A and put in an extra three months. 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.240 That's like a summer. I don't think it was hard 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:34.400 to be a doctor back then. Um, they had just 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.560 locked down that you shouldn't shoot people for arsenic so 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.560 actually have been born earlier. I get some medical people up. 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:44.719 Oh man, you'd be a doctor. I'd be a colonel. 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:46.920 We could. We could have a podcast called The Doctor 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:49.240 Colonel Our Yeah, and it's still it will still be 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.960 a lot of murder, but in real life because there's 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:55.560 also no contact lenses back then, and I'm very blind, 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.760 so the doctor would be wild as hell. The doctor 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:00.920 would be wild the driving as well, because none of 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:03.720 us are wearing seatbelts. Um, just a bunch of blind 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.639 people crashing into each other at big steel cars. It 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:11.840 sounds awesome, Yeah, it does. It dool kind of rule Now, um, 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:13.960 the shitty John Brown, as I like to call him, 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.919 moved to Los Angeles to do his internship at Harvard General. 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.439 He finished his internship at the Queen of Angels Hospital 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:21.879 in Los Angeles, and at this point in his budding 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:23.960 medical career, there seems to have been no sign that 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:26.719 John was headed for anything but a productive career as 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.320 a man of medicine. John finished his time in the 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.120