“Legally, we’re alright, but ethically, I don’t know”: research, regret and trans medicine at the University of Washington, 1968-1972

In the current political moment, there are increasing calls for gender-affirming care to be provided in the context of clinical research - both by opponents of care seeking to sideline it, and supporters hoping that sufficient study will convince detractors as to the validity of treatment. How should we evaluate such calls - and what happens if we historicise them? In this talk, I explore the practices and legacy of a clinic that attempted to do just this in the late 1960s, treating trans patients in order to validate mechanisms of care. Picking through the practices and motivations of the clinic, I expand our understanding of gender-affirming care from this foundational era. Further, I argue that the history of this clinic has bioethical lessons for researchers and practitioners seeking routes to legitimize transgender medicine in this current moment of political and cultural scrutiny.