The Fourth Sex: Part 1

Television has loved medical shows from Richard Boone in Medic to George Clooney in ER. You can't name one that never had a decent run on television or gave us some top drama.

One of the very best was the two part season opener of the 1975 fall season. One of the hospital staff, married with a wife and teenage son, has decided to no longer submerge his true self. Robert Reed, a closeted gay man in real life ironically enough, plays the doctor. Needless to say his decision to have Sexual Reassignment Surgery causes a jolt among family, friends, and colleagues.

Gay/Lesbian issues were rarely talked about in those days, gay rights as an issue was finally getting introduced in various legislative arenas in the country during the Seventies. Transgender people were totally off everyone's radar.

I remember the episode to this day, but I've told any number of transgender friends who've in fact never heard of it. For myself I keep hoping that the TV Guide Channel will pick up Medical Center so that people can see this episode and the following one.

Maybe they will some day.

In 1975 I was twelve years old. I had my own TV in my bedroom and I secretly watched this episode. I remember it being very good and somewhat "taboo" for that time. I was intrigued by the plot and subject matter of this episode. As far as a kid in 1975 goes, this was something that I had never heard of. Sex change operations? Men becoming women? I remember sitting so close to my black and white television set so I could quickly change the channel in case my parents walked in my room and caught me watching such a thing. This was one of the very first shows that I can remember having the parental supervision warning before the show started. It was all a big deal back then.

The Fourth Sex has been praised by the woke left and LGBTQ community as innovative and ahead of its time.

Robert Reed, of Brady Bunch fame and a closeted gay man much of his life, plays Dr. Patrick Cadisson. A renowned surgeon seeking sex reassignment surgery in this two part episode.

As we all know, men cannot become women. And Vice versa. Gender is not something we choose. It is encoded in our DNA and cannot be changed through any amount of hormones or surgery.

In addition, the detransition and suicide in the Transgender community is very high. Many such procedures have gone horribly wrong, men who transition to women must exercise their vaginaplasties up to two hours a day to prevent them from becoming open sores. Also, being on hormone therapy leaves one highly vulnerable to health problems.

To its credit Hollywood presents a subject very much on the fringe in 1975. Through the magic of hormones, and doctors' God like abilities as surgeons a wrong of God and Mother Nature has been righted. This individual will live happily ever after. If such was only the case. It can be so only in La La Land.