To the Editor:
Thank you for your moving tribute to Madison Smith, the last transgender person in America. It is indeed a whole way of life that passed with her. Nowadays no one born male has any desire to wear women’s clothes, or to live as a woman, and vice versa with women. As expected, rates of depression, suicide and prostitution have all dropped significantly.
Most of your readership is too young to remember this, but growing up in lower Park Slope, Brooklyn (now sadly underwater), I saw a number of older transgender and genderqueer people around. It was fascinating for a young child to see people who had a combination of male and female characteristics. You can get a bit of this flavor from watching old movies, but it was even more interesting in person. We have lost a bit of color in our lives, but at least we can be assured that through the discovery of hormone balancing, no one will ever again have to suffer the way that transgender people suffered.
I commend the Central Executive for their continuing success in these matters.
Sincerely,
JENNIFER X. LIU
The Palms at Baffin Island