Being Different: The Autobiography of Jane Fry

264 Pages·1974·8.121 MB·English

by  Jane Fry

BEING DIFFERENT:
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF JANE FRY
Collected, Compiled, Edited, with
an Introduction and Conclusion by
ROBERT BOGDAN
Foreword by Seymour Sarason
BEING DIFFERENT: THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
JANE FRY
Collected, compiled, edited, with an
introduction and conclusion by
Robert Bogdan
Foreword by Seymour Sarason
This incisive “history” of a transsex¬
ual, told in her own words to Dr.
Bogdan, is a vivid illustration of a
different perspective in understand¬
ing deviance. From an engrossing,
highly readable story emerges the
humiliations and hardships, the state
of mind, and the sex role conflicts
visited on a person who experienced
them first hand. Here is what it’s like
for someone “different” to live and
grow up in a society which is not
sure how to handle the difference.
Jane relates her experiences in
high school, the Navy, and four dif¬
ferent psychiatric hospitals. Her
early memories, family’s reactions,
marriage and job headaches, life on
the psychiatric ward, and her hopes
for the future are all recorded along
with writings she authored while in¬
stitutionalized and which reveal her
general mental health and suicidal
feelings. Included in Jane’s story are
the contents of letters she wrote to
doctors, and their replies, regarding
her situation.
The concluding chapter compares
Jane’s story with that told by official
medical records, and results in two
differently drawn pictures.The mean¬
ing of this conflict is discussed, with
questions raised about current prac¬
tices, including the labeling of peo¬
ple who are different, and the nature
of their“insanity” and their sex roles.
In his Foreword to this unusual
volume, Dr. Seymour Sarason of
Yale University highlights what it has
to offer. “Dr. Bogdan has provided
us with ... a commentary on various
aspects of American society and
culture. [This account] will surely
deepen [the reader’s] comprehen¬
sion of how our culture exacerbates
(Continued on back flap)

Being Different:
The Autobiography
of fane Fry

Being Different:
The Autobiography
of fane Fry
collected, compiled, and edited
with an introduction
and conclusion by
ROBERT BOGDAN
A WILEY-INTERSCIENCE PUBLICATION
JOHN WILEY & SONS, New York • London • Sydney • Toronto
Copyright © 1974, by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
All rights reserved. Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor
transmitted, nor translated into a machine language with¬
out the written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:
Fry, Jane.
Being different: the autobiography of Jane Fry.
“A Wiley-Interscience publication.”
1. Sexual deviation—Personal narratives. 2. Psychiatric hospitals.
3. United States—Social conditions. 4. Fry, Jane. I. Bogdan, Robert, ed. II. Title.
RC557.F78 362.2'092 4 [B] 73-20155
ISBN 0-471-08570-7
Printed in the United States of America
10 987654321
“In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten;
in the human kingdom, define or be defined. ”
Thomas Szasz*
* Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press; Doubleday and Company,
1973), p. 20.