Customer Reviews

The Last Time I Wore a Dress

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Daphne Scholinski wore the label of "inappropriate female" for much of her life. As a tomboy youth, she was often mistaken for male. On one grocery trip, a clerk caught the "boy" for using the women's restroom. When the clerk confronted Daphne's father, instead of correcting the clerk, her weary father slapped her hand: "Bad boy. I told you to stop doing that."

In 1981, at odds with her raging father and abandoned by her free-thinking mother, 15-year-old Daphne was committed to a psychiatric hospital, at which a treatment plan was designed to help her identify as a "sexual female." Over one million dollars (you read that right) of insurance money was spent on three years of make-up lessons, encouragement of flirtation with males, and points for hugging male staff members. Daphne was indirectly blamed for all her family's troubles and told that her depression and confusion were symptoms of her improper gender identification. Desperate for a mothering relationship, she latched onto nurses, begging to be adopted by the most compassionate one, and attempting suicide when her efforts were rebuffed.

In a series of institutions, Daphne busied herself working the system to earn more privileges. To entertain themselves, she and other patients competed to shock the staff and get unusual diagnoses added to their charts. Their every movement was already analyzed and reduced into psychobabble, so why not? Daphne often embellished alcohol and drug abuse to make her case more interesting, but she realized she was out her league when she was transferred to rehab. All the while, a host of therapists and staff failed to identify sexual assault in Daphne's life, both before and *after* entering treatment. At age 18, when Daphne's father's insurance money ran out, she was discharged as no more "appropriate" a female than when she entered, but without a traditional high school experience or preparation for the world, and a few more years of victimhood under her belt.

Daphne Scholinski survived institutionalization with her intelligence, sense of humor, and sassy rebellious spirit. Every time she was transferred, she felt hope few her new situation. She writes that she knows she was lucky to be middle-class and be offered treatment, instead of being kicked onto the streets. As an adult, Daphne channeled her traumatic past into an artistic career, and now lives as Dylan Scholinski in the San Francisco area (Dylan's identification as male occurred after the 1997 publication of this memoir). I only discovered Scholinski's gender identity when I started composing my review, and in many ways, Daphne's "actual" gender identity is irrelevant to this story of the failure of the mental health system to help a depressed youth and her family.

Having come from an abusive home, I can relate to what Daphne/Dylan must have felt and how he behaved while trying to cope with his Gender-Identity and the far-from-sympathetic world around him in the 1980's. I came out as gay in 1970 and then as Transgendered in 1993, after having wrestled with "my self-knowledge - vs - what other people tried to make me act like" for MANY years prior -- it was a rocky hellish road at times, but (despite the abuse!) my parents accepted me (grudgingly at times) for who/what I was. I have nothing but kind words for those Tansgendered friends of mine, who like Dylan, persevered through their own private torment, and who accepted me for who I was and for how I identified myself.

I applaud Dylan for having the inner strength to keep going - keep going, no matter the present torment, no matter how horrible the present situation is - keep going forward with your own goal in mind, no matter how clear-cut or nebulous it is. This book has and will inspire others out there who "think they are the only ones" going through this.

We may have come far but in too many parts of this country, children and young adults -- who are trying to reconcile their birth gender with their personal gender identity -- are still being put thru a living nightmare; parents abusing, insulting dismissing them from their households, with no nurturance, no desire to understand their own offspring; even their classmates, teachers, strangers, even friends turning against them. It takes HUGE inner strength to rise above all that and to keep going, keep going forward.

This book will shock, inspire and galvanize. I hope it also EDUCATES those who harbor any prejudices against transgendered individuals, ESPECIALLY those who treat patients with Gender Identity "Disorder".. Since the beginning of time,the spectrum of Masculine and Feminine has run through ALL genders in varying degrees, and not necessarily always corresponding to the individual's birth gender.

In today's civilized and educated society, it is abut time that young people like Dylan are raised with compassion and understanding instead of with psychodramatic brutality. It is my hope that this book also reaches out to those in Child Protective Services as well as those professionals in the fields of Therapy.

it disturbs me when people read memoirs, especially those geared at or focused in psychology, and take it upon themselves to diagnose the writer. that is not dylan's(daphne's) intent (dylan is fTm and is currently living in washington dc). this is a memoir, most importantly...a first-hand creatively written perspective and critique.

having met and visited with dylan at his studio in washington dc, i know that the reality of a tormented past is ever-present. his art reflects this. not only does dylan wrestle with demons of his past, he still must fight against the close-minded bigotry that some people have portrayed in these reviews. my understanding of psychology has always been that of a people-science...a science committed to helping people live good lives. it is not a science of manipulation and judgments, such as the reality that dylan had to face.

my only hope is that you read this book and realize that it is neither fact nor fiction, but one person's perspective on his reality. we cannot fault him for that...only applaud him for sharing his voice.

Ever since she had been little, Daphne Scholinski had always had a somewhat masculine appearance, causing her to suffer the embarrassing fate of being mistaken for a boy in supermarkets, kicked out of public ladies' rooms, and even skated in pairs with unwitting females. When her parents separated, when she was thirteen, and her mother left her in the care of her physically abusive father, Daphne also took on the masculine role of protector for her "girly" younger sister, Jean. As she grew older, she was sent to a therapist because she was flunking out of school, exhibiting anti-social behavior, and had joined a gang. When her behavior persisted, at the age of fifteen, she was sent to the first of a series of three mental hospitals where she would stay until she was eighteen, being treated for depression, substance abuse, an anti-social personality, and above all a mysterious Gender-Identity Disorder, costing more than one million dollars in insurance.

The book starts out with Daphne's father driving her to the first hospital in Chicago, and her casually asking him not to send her. After she arrives, the narrative is a mixture of past and present, as Daphne talks about rebelling against her father and the consequences of that (being whipped with his belt), or how she would spend time at her mother's apartment (performing sexual acts for Frank, a man with a knee-holster who said he was a hit-man.) We hear about those who helped Daphne, such as a kind psychology intern at one hospital, and her third grade teacher; and those who hurt her, such as the best friends who pinned her down and smeared her face with lipstick, and the boys who cruelly raped her during her third and final hospitalization, knowing that because of her diagnosis of a Gender-Identity Disorder, she would never report them. The point Daphne Scholinski seems to be trying to make is that how was anyone else's business whether she chose to behave as a male or a female? No matter what happened, the failing grades, the drug use, the physical abuse--the question people kept asking was "Why won't she wear a dress?" "Why doesn't she want to be a girl?" As an outsider reading about her experiences, I would have to remark, "How could she want to be a girl, given all the abuse she endured because she was female?"

In the end, Daphne Scholinski has made great strides at trying to create a life for herself in spite of her traumatic past. She is an artist, has spoken at the UN conference on Women at Beijing, China, and has been on countless television programs. This book was like a techni-color version of "Girl, Interrupted", filling us in on the author's day-to-day experience in a mental hospital, and her past. It is difficult to write-off Scholinski's trials as whining or self-pitying, as she describes the abuse she endured, physically--at the hands of her father; sexually, five times--twice while she was hospitalized--and emotionally, with such restrictions as being forbidden to have even a friendship with a female patient, because the hospital feared that this might lead to homosexuality. This isn't any ordinary sort of grief. A really neat thing at the end of the book is that if you go to the back where the author's notes are, Daphne Scholinski has an AOL e-mail address where you can contact her and she will write back! Although I can't say this is a book to enjoy, it is definitely one of the more profound books I have read.

this book rings true in a society that cannot accept the notion or idea of gender diversity. daphne is brave and sad, true to herself but forced to be someone else. No matter who you are, reading this book will change the way you feel about the medicalization of social "norms"- the ways in which society treats people who do not live inside a socially constructed box created by people in society.

It could have been my life Ms. Scholinski was writing about. I, too, was placed into an adolescent facility for being "different." I was astonished that someone else actually experienced the same ordeal I had, and ended up much in the same puddle of confusion with gender, appearance, and relationships with family. I applaud this book for its honesty, its beauty, and its raw message. Thank you Daphne for telling my story as well.

Scholinski delves into the feelings and history of one who's felt completely different in regard to her own gender. It's not really about "confusion" on the part of the character, as she appears fairly secure in her gender identity. It's those around her who are not so accepting. Family problems, sexual abuse, and drugs and alcohol also lead her to develop and act out behaviors that push others away.

When she is admitted into the mental health system as a young teen, she learns that there are manipulations and a merit/demerit system ruled by the powers that be. She learns who her enemies are, and forges fierce friendships that are tested and torn. Fellow "patients" accept her more than her own family.

The reader observes her character grow with each new discovery--whether a genuine spark of realization about herself, or a reluctant compromise on the part of a desperate soul willing to do nearly anything to escape her hell.

I found this book on the "gay and lesbian" shelf of a mainstream bookstore. It's refreshing to read such a memoir, and I highly recommend it to anyone in the LGBT community (and friends and family) who struggles with gender identity, or just feeling so darn different.

Perhaps it's because of my own experiences in mental hospitals, or perhaps because I've lived my entire life in a rather liberal area, but I found this book to be one of the most disturbing and terrifying I've read in a long time. So I, naturally, had to read it again and pass it along. It's an important book and I'd recomend it to anyone.

An absolutely astonishing and touching book

This is a must read with anyone who is struggling with gender identity. This book dealt with gender issues openly and honestly, in an otherwise taboo subject. Three cheers for Daphine and Jane!