Ree Mellema

ALT Newsweek, 1976 by James E. Baxter, MD called “Why shouldn’t we change sex?” “Why shouldn't we change sex if we want to and can? We change cars, houses, jobs, spouses, hair color, and, God knows, religion. Names are changed often enough. … Flux, restless rearranging, has been not only a constant in American life but essential to it… Furthermore, as a people, we've long been attuned to psychological change. … As succeeding generations of American parents dreamed of a different, better life for their children, succeeding generations of youth set out on a quest to "find themselves"; in other words, to modify their old identities. Finding a "right identity" for ourselves is possibly what we're all ultimately after. It ought to have two major components: feeling that what we sense to be best and truest within us is pretty well expressed in our daily lives, and, second, feeling that we are involved with other people in ways that are mutually supportive and respectful and even loving.

ALT “What probably should move us most about Dr. Richards is the knowledge that she was terribly unhappy in her previous sexual identity. Assuming, as she undoubtedly did, that she had only one chance at life here below, she dared to do everything she could to embody the identity that she felt was truly her own. And now she's off and running, apparently in top, if modified, form. Those who would cast stones at her are easily disposed of: if they cavil that sex alteration is contrary to divine edict, they're guilty of trying to read the mind of the Almighty, a theological misdemeanor. If they say that she's made a spectacle of herself by flaunting her new sexual orientation in public, ask them if she should have gone into permanent hiding.”