Book Review

by Sheila (30-B-2) FPE

THE TRANSSEXUAL PHENOMENON,

by Harry Benjamin, M.D. Julian Press, New York, 1966. 160 pages + 108 P. Appendices + 6 Biblio + 6 Index + 12 Photos....$8.50

This is, to quote the jacket writer, the first scientific volume ever published dealing with...... "change of sex". As such, it is of tremendous value to those who are seriously interested in this subject either scientifically or personally. As is NOT evident from the jacket, it is also a careful review of transvestism; the similarities and differences of the two phenomena take up three of the ten chapters While an isolated phrase here and there reflects Dr. Benjamin's earlier feeling that these were two aspects or stages of one basic urge, the line between the two is so firmly drawn as to leave no doubt that he now considers TV quite distinct from TS. One could wish that the book had been finished a year later, as much fascinating data has accumulated in that short period; but an author must cut off somewhere, and nothing that has come up since contradicts his conclusions (apparently drawn as of early 1965).

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In addition to seeing the above difference stated by the world's greatest expert on TS (over 152 cases), it is a further joy to watch him cut the behaviorists and Neo-Freudians down to size. That the "girl with- in" is more than a poetical figure of speech - psychopathic aberration has long been evident to those who have one. The research pointing to her existance reported in this book is still going on, and Dr. B's support of the "cerebroneural" viewpoint is being increasingly justified; this will no doubt

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