These two pages are from a 16 page application, available for download as a full PDF, to be a candidate, as was the language, at the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Program. The selected pages ask about interaction with the armed forces, as though that would somehow affect how trans someone was, and sexual intercourse, a common fascination with trans people amongst cis people. Other pages application include questions about family background, cross-dressing preferences, or if the applicant was in a relationship. The language of being a candidate for the program seems more like the clinic was running a series of test trials on guinea pigs than as a clinic that wanted to help trans people.
The Gender Dysphoria Program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA was instated in 1968 as a full service transgender health center under the direction of Dr. Donald Laub. The program provided help with legal name changes, counseling, hormone therapy, and surgical care. Many trans people in the Bay Area and beyond applied to the Stanford program though many, such as Lou Sullivan, were rejected at first.Trans folks became increasingly medicalized during the 1970s, and it was Dr. Laub who submitted a request for Medi-Cal coverage of J.D.’s surgery that resulted in the Medi-Cal coverage of trans healthcare.
While the program is a rarity not only for its time but also for today, being accepted into the program proved quite difficult. Sullivan describes in his diaries a high likelihood of being denied from the program because of his sexual and romantic interest in men, and a woman named Blake Maxam was denied from the program because she did not want bottom surgery. Therefore, while the program provided several trans people, such as Steve Dain, with medical care, it adhered with a rigid medicalized analysis of what a trans person is without taking different experiences into account.