Arts & Entertainment
Trans Pride slated for Saturday
Famous surgeon Marci Bowers to speak
Dr. Marci Bowers says gender reassignment surgery isn’t as traumatic as many fear. Complications, she says, are extremely rare, patients are in the hospital an average of only three nights and most are off pain medication within 48 hours. (Photo courtesy of Bowers)
Dr. Marci Bowers is a rarity — she’s one of only two doctors who specializes in gender reassignment surgery who’s also transgender herself. The other (Dr. Christine McGinn) is a protégé of Bowers.
Bowers, who transitioned in the mid-1990s, is the only gynecologist who does gender reassignment surgery. She’ll be at Trans Pride Saturday (10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Metropolitan Community Church of Washington) to give the keynote address and took nearly an hour on the phone last week from her practice in San Mateo, Calif., to talk about her life, her work, the practicalities of trans surgical procedures and where trans issues are going. Bowers’ comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Blade: How does a surgeon trained in one area move to another? What kind of training is involved?
Bowers: Well sometimes people think when you’re a gynecologist all you do is look at female vulvas all day but it’s quite a surgical specialty. There’s extensive surgery experience required before learning the gender reassignment stuff. And after I’d been doing surgery in practice for 13 years or so, once you have a basic framework about handling tissue ane bleeding, learning a new skill isn’t as hard as it might seem.
Blade: So if someone does, say, gall bladder surgeries and wants to start doing heart transplants, what’s the process like to move to a whole other part of the body?
Bowers: Traditionally you have to do a fellowship of some kind to do that. You have to go back, reapply as if you’re just out of medical school, do a residency all over again in the new field and go from there. They might give you a little credit on a few things, but you pretty much have to start back at the beginning. It was different for me because there’s no residency or fellowship for doing gender reassignment surgeries and I had a lot of experience surgically so doing an entire residency for me would have been ridiculous and superfluous. It’s really a mentoring process and I learned from Dr. (Stanley) Biber.
Blade: Does it give you added credibility to be doing these surgeries but also be transgender yourself?
Bowers: Well, I think that’s really for the consumer to decide that, but I think so. It’s sort of like the hair club for men. Not only am I president, I’m also a customer. Someone who understands what it’s like to be bald. Or like if you’re selling sports cars but you drive a minivan. I know what the consumer is looking for but I think being a gynecologist is the most important. Because it’s a very visual surgery and very artistically based. If someone has a gall bladder out and there are no complications, nobody cares what it looked like but this surgery has such an artistic component, the surgeon’s interpretation is so critical.
Blade: Many trans people say the non-trans world is too obsessed with who’s had what done surgically. Do you agree?
Bowers: That’s a crucial point and one that I keep bring up proactively because obviously people still don’t understand the difference between gender and genitalia. Gender, we know, gets established at a very early age, like by age 4, 5 or 6 and it doesn’t really change very much. This is what transgender people have been saying for years, “This is how I felt since I was 5 years old.” So the question about surgery is really the dumbest question. … I was a woman since I transitioned. Nobody tells you whether you’re male or female. And it isn’t about the surgery, it’s what society says when they meet you at the grocery store or the food counter.
Blade: Trans acceptance seems to be making progress but still seems significantly behind gay and lesbian lib. Do you agree with that? Do you think it will continue to improve?
Bowers: Well, yes, I do think we are behind where the lesbian and gay community is in terms of acceptance. Some of that is just the sheer numbers, some of it is it’s still a little bit of a minority sort of thing and somehow it does sort of push people’s buttons in a different way. That’s too bad because if the gay and lesbian community saw the trans community as more supportive, we could make much more progress but sometimes the discrimination we get within the gay and lesbian community is worse than it is with the straight community. It’s like they just don’t get it and it’s very hurtful. There are common threads that run through all kinds of discrimination. We’re fighting the same forces that want to simplify the world and turn back the clock so everything is black and white and keep dragging at the heels of progress.
Blade: What kinds of procedures do you do? All “bottom” stuff or more?
Bowers: Kind of bottom plus. I do a procedure on the females, Chondrolaryngoplasty, which is a shaving of the thyroid cartilage. For some women, it’s a telltale sign in the throat and it was first done by Dr. Biber in the 1970s. It’s also a very delicate procedure that’s not taught anywhere, no ear, nose or throat doctors do it. It’s a very specialized thing.
Blade: And you do both male-to-female and female-to-male gender reassignment procedures?
Bowers: Yes.
Blade: Which are more common? How many do you average in a year?
Bowers: I do about 120 male-to-female surgeries a year. It’s about four-to-one female to male versus male to female.
Blade: Are most people able to orgasm after surgery?
Bowers: It’s different. For female to male, there’s really no impact. With a Metoidioplasty, guys can use it for penetration so that’s the good part there. If anything, it’s enhanced. Plus the fact that they’re testosterone-driven men, the libido tends to accelerate with transition. With male to female, it’s very complicated and about 30 percent of biologically born women aren’t able to orgasm at all anyway. Our patients for the most part are able to. It’s a very high percentile. About 90 percent but the thing you have to realize is that going from male to female for one thing, just hormonally, you tend to go to a lower level of interest just based on reduced testosterone levels. When you’re a woman, you wonder why we leave men in charge of so much. It’s so dominated by sexual thoughts. Sometimes I think, “Wow, what was I thinking about all those years? There’s so much more to do.” I say that sort of tongue in check. And the feelings are a big different. Maybe like going from the oboe to the banjo.
Trans Pride to feature health focus
Trans Pride, now in its fifth year, will be held Saturday at Metropolitan Community Church of Washington (474 Ridge Street, N.W.) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is designed to be an event where attendees stay for all or most of the day.
“Very early on, the community voted for it to be a health-based focus,” says Danielle King, who’s co-charing this year’s event with Holly Goldmann. “That’s why Dr. Bowers was invited. We felt like she could offer some insight that would be really attractive to our audience.”
A $10 donation is suggested but not required. King hopes attendees will plan to spend their whole day at the church.
“We want them to come and enjoy the whole day,” she says. “There’ll be workshop and panel discussions on trans health throughout the day.”
She expects about 200 people, more than in past years when the event has been held at the Capital Pride host hotel.
Trans Pride is under the Capital Pride events umbrella.
Books
Love or fear flying you’ll devour ‘Why Fly’
New book chronicles a lifetime obsession with aircraft
‘Why Fly’
By Caroline Paul
c. 2026, Bloomsbury
$27.99/256 pages
Tray table folded up.
Check. Your seat is in the upright position, the airflow above your head is just the way you like it, and you’re ready to go. The flight crew is making final preparations. The lights are off and the plane is backing up. All you need now is “Why Fly” by Caroline Paul, and buckle up.
When she was very young, Paul was “obsessed” with tales of adventure, devouring accounts written by men of their derring-do. The only female adventure-seeker she knew about then was Amelia Earhart; later, she learned of other adventuresome women, including aviatrix Bessie Coleman, and Paul was transfixed.
Time passed; Paul grew up to create a life of adventure all her own.
Then, the year her marriage started to fracture, she switched her obsession from general exploits to flight.
Specifically, Paul loves experimental aircraft, some of which, like her “trike,” can be made from a kit at home. Others, like Woodstock, her beloved yellow gyrocopter, are major purchases that operate under different FAA rules. All flying has rules, she says, even if it seems like it should be as freewheeling as the birds it mimics.
She loves the pre-flight checklist, which is pure anticipation as well as a series of safety measures; if only a relationship had the same ritual. Paul loves her hangar, as a place of comfort and for flight in all senses of the word. She enjoys thinking about historic tales of flying, going back before the Wright Brothers, and including a man who went aloft on a lawn chair via helium-filled weather balloons.
The mere idea that she can fly any time is like a gift to Paul.
She knows a lot of people are terrified of flying, but it’s near totally safe: generally, there’s a one in almost 14 million chance of perishing in a commercial airline disaster – although, to Paul’s embarrassment and her dismay, it’s possible that both the smallest planes and the grandest loves might crash.
If you’re a fan of flying, you know what to do here. If you fear it, pry your fingernails off the armrests, take a deep breath, and head to the shelves. “Why Fly” might help you change your mind.
It’s not just that author Caroline Paul enjoys being airborne, and she tells you. It’s not that she’s honest in her explanations of being in love and being aloft. It’s the meditative aura you’ll get as you’re reading this book that makes it so appealing, despite the sometimes technical information that may flummox you between the Zen-ness. It’s not overwhelming; it mixes well with the history Paul includes, biographies, the science, heartbreak, and exciting tales of adventure and risk, but it’s there. Readers and romantics who love the outdoors, can’t resist a good mountain, and crave activity won’t mind it, though, not at all.
If you own a plane – or want to – you’ll want this book, too. It’s a great waiting-at-the-airport tale, or a tuck-in-your-suitcase-for-later read. Find “Why Fly” and you’ll see that it’s an upright kind of book.
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Theater
Out actor Kevin Cahoon on starring role in ‘Chez Joey’
Arena production adapted from Broadway classic ‘Pal Joey’
‘Chez Joey’
Through March 15
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth St., S.W.
Tickets start at $93
Arenastage.org
As Melvin Snyder in the new musical “Chez Joey,” out actor Kevin Cahoon plays a showbiz society columnist who goes by the name Mrs. Knickerbocker. He functions as a sort of liaison between café society and Chicago’s Black jazz scene circa 1940s. It’s a fun part replete with varied insights, music, and dance.
“Chez Joey” is adapted from the Broadway classic “Pal Joey” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. It’s inspired by John O’Hara’s stories based on the exploits of a small-time nightclub singer published in The New Yorker.
A warm and humorous man, Cahoon loves his work. At just six, he began his career as a rodeo clown in Houston. He won the Star Search teen division at 13 singing songs like “Some People” from “Gypsy.” He studied theater at New York University and soon after graduating set to work playing sidekicks and comedic roles.
Over the years, Cahoon has played numerous queer parts in stage productions including “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” “La Cage aux Folles,” “Rocky Horror” as well as Peanut in “Shucked,” and George the keyboardist in “The Wedding Singer,” “a sort of unicorn of its time,” says Cahoon.
Co-directed by Tony Goldwyn and the great Savion Glover, “Chez Joey” is a terrific and fun show filled with loads of talent. Its relevant new book is by Richard Lagravenese.
On a recent Monday off from work, Cahoon shared some thoughts on past and current happenings.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Is there a through line from Kevin, the six-year-old rodeo clown, to who we see now at Arena Stage?
KEVIN CAHOON: Anytime I want to land a joke in a theater piece it goes back to that rodeo clown. It doesn’t matter if it’s Arena’s intimate Kreeger Theatre or the big rodeo at the huge Houston Astrodome.
I was in the middle stadium and there was an announcer — a scene partner really. And we were doing a back and forth in hopes of getting laughs. At that young age I was trying to understand what it takes to get laughs. It’s all about timing. Every line.
BLADE: Originally, your part in “Chez Joey” Melvin was Melba who sings “Zip,” a clever woman reporter’s song. It was sort of a star feature, where they could just pop in a star in the run of “Pal Joey.”
CAHOON: That’s right. And in former versions it was played by Martha Plimpton and before her Elaine Stritch. For “Chez Joey,” we switched gender and storyline.
We attempted to do “Zip” up until two days before we had an audience at Arena. Unexpectedly they cut “Zip” and replaced it with a fun number called “I Like to Recognize the Tune,” a song more connected to the story.
BLADE: Wow. You must be a quick study.
CAHOON: Well, we’re working with a great band.
BLADE: You’ve played a lot of queer parts. Any thoughts on queer representation?
CAHOON: Oh yes, definitely. And I’ve been very lucky that I’ve had the chance to portray these characters and introduce them to the rest of the world. I feel honored.
After originating Edna, the hyena on Broadway in “The Lion King,” I left that to do “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” as standby for John Cameron Mitchell, doing one show a week for him.
Everyone thought I was crazy to leave the biggest musical of our time with a personal contract and getting paid more money that I’d ever made to get $400 a week at the downtown Jane Street Theatre in a dicey neighborhood.
At the time, I really felt like I was with cool kids. I guess I was. And I never regretted it.
BLADE: When you play new parts, do you create new backstories for the role?
CAHOON: Every single time! For Melvin, I suggested a line about chorus boys on Lakeshore Drive.
BLADE: What’s up next for Kevin Cahoon?
CAHOON: I’m about to do the New York Theatre Workshop Gala; I’ve been doing it for nine years in a row. It’s a huge job. I’ll also be producing the “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” opening on Broadway this spring; it’s a queer-centric uptown vogue ball with gay actor André de Shields reprising his role as “Old Deuteronomy.”
BLADE: There’s a huge amount of talent onstage in “Chez Joey.”
CAHOON: There is. I’m sharing a dressing room with Myles Frost who plays Joey. He won accolades for playing Michael Jackson on Broadway. We’ve become great friends. He’s a miracle to watch on stage. And Awa [Sal Secka], a D.C. local, is great. Every night the audience falls head over heels for her. When this show goes to New York, Awa will, no doubt, be a giant star.
BLADE: Do you think “Chez Joey” might be Broadway bound?
CAHOON: I have a good feeling it is. I’ve done shows out of town that have high hopes and pedigree, but don’t necessarily make it. “Chez Joey” is a small production, it’s funny, and audiences seem to love it.
The Capital Pride Alliance held the annual Pride Reveal event at The Schuyler at The Hamilton Hotel on Thursday, Feb. 26. The theme for this year’s Capital Pride was announced: “Exist. Resist. Have the audacity!”
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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