Agnes (case study)

Agnes (full name: Agnes Torres) was a transgender woman who participated in Harold Garfinkel's research in the late 1960s, making her the first subject of an in-depth discussion of transgender identity in sociology.

Early life

Agnes, born in 1939 with male physical attributes and assigned male at birth, knew herself to be female. When Garfinkel first met her, she had a penis and testicles in conjunction with secondary female characteristics such as breasts. At seventeen, she began dressing and acting as the woman that she knew herself to be. She wanted to have the penis removed and replaced with a vagina. The nineteen year old Agnes was the youngest of four children, supported by her mother who worked in an aircraft plant. Her machinist father died when Agnes was eight and her mother did semi-skilled work in an aircraft plant to raise the children. She was raised Catholic, but no longer believed in God. From the age of twelve Agnes took her mother's post-hysterectomy estrogen pills and feminized her body. At 17 she was living as a woman. She was tested in Portland, Oregon, and found to have XY chromosomes, and neither a uterus nor the hypothesized tumor that might produce estrogen.

In 1958 she was working as a typist for an insurance company, and had a boyfriend. His insistence on intercourse and marriage led to a series of quarrels, and she disclosed her details to him. The affair continued.

Appearance

Agnes was presenting with what nowadays would be referred to as an intersex condition – in that she possessed physiology typically associated with the social categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’ at the same time. To quote from Dr. Garfinkel's account directly:

Agnes’ appearance was convincingly female. She was tall, slim, with a very female shape. Her measurements were 38-25-38. She had long, fine dark-blonde hair, a young face with pretty features, a peaches-and-cream complexion, no facial hair, subtly plucked eyebrows, and no makeup except for lipstick. At the time of her first appearance she was dressed in a tight sweater which marked off her thin shoulders, ample breasts, and narrow waist. Her feet and hands, though somewhat larger than usual for a woman, were in no way remarkable in this respect. Her usual manner of dress did not distinguish her from a typical girl of her age and class. There was nothing garish or exhibitionistic in her attire, nor was there any hint of poor taste or that she was ill at ease in her clothing, as is seen so frequently in transvestites and in women with disturbances in sexual identification. Her voice, pitched at an alto level, was soft, and her delivery had the occasional lisp similar to that affected by feminine appearing male homosexuals. Her manner was appropriately feminine with a slight awkwardness that is typical of middle adolescence.

Medical life

She was tested in Portland, Oregon, and found to have XY chromosomes, and neither a uterus nor the hypothesized tumor that might produce estrogen. She was referred to Dr. Robert Stoller at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center, and interviewed by him, Dr Alexander Rosen, a psychologist, and Harold Garfinkel, a sociologist interested in the way sex works in society.

Agnes was taken to be an example of testicular feminization syndrome. She refused to meet or be classified with any other transgender people or homosexuals.

She was recommended for surgery as an intersex patient, at a time when such surgery was regularly denied to transgender people. Surgery was done in 1959 by a team of doctors including Elmer Belt. Stoller presented his findings at the 1963 International Psychoanalytic Congress in Stockholm; Garfinkel included an extensive chapter on Agnes in his pioneering 1967 book on Ethnomethodology.

Post-operative infection of and partial closure of her vagina, weight loss that led to a reduction in breast size, and unpredictable mood changes led to problems with her boyfriend.

In 1966 Agnes confessed to Stoller that she had indeed taken external estrogens. This did cause Stoller to doubt his own theories. He retracted his earlier findings at the 1968 International Psychoanalytic Congress in Copenhagen.