{{short description|American physician}} {{Infobox medical person | honorific_prefix = | name = Stanley H. Biber | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name above --> | birth_date = {{birth date|1923|05|04}} | birth_place = Des Moines, Iowa, US | death_date = {{Death date and age|2006|01|16|1923|05|04}} | death_place = Pueblo, Colorado, US | education = University of Iowa (1948) | occupation = Physician | years_active = 1948–2006 | known_for = Sex reassignment surgery | website = | profession = Surgeon | field = | work_institutions = Mt. San Rafael Hospital | prizes = }}
'''Stanley H. Biber''' (May 4, 1923 – January 16, 2006) was an American physician who was a pioneer in sex reassignment surgery, performing thousands of procedures during his long career.<ref name="nytobit">Fox, Margalit (21 January 2006). [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/national/21biber.html Stanley H. Biber, 82, Surgeon Among First to Do Sex Changes, Dies]. ''New York Times''</ref>
==Early life== Biber was born to a Jewish family in Des Moines, Iowa as the older of two children and the only son of a father who owned a furniture store and a mother interested in social causes.<ref>Auge, Karen. [https://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16843484 "Well-known Trinidad sex-reassignment doctor leaves; Sex-reassignment doctor moves out of Trinidad, leaving the town to forge a new legacy"], ''The Denver Post'', December 13, 2010. Accessed February 24, 2013. "Mike Gerardo, like most Trinidadians of his era, was ushered into life by Bowers' predecessor, Dr. Stanley Biber. Doc Biber, as he's known, wasn't from Trinidad. He was Jewish in a town that, back then, was overwhelmingly Catholic."</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=1998-11-08|title=Dr. Stanley Biber profile on Sexual Reassignment Surgery|pages=26|work=Arizona Daily Star|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/92374573/dr-stanley-biber-profile-on-sexual/|access-date=2022-01-12}}</ref> His parents hoped he would become a pianist or a rabbi, and he briefly considered both before World War II began.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|last=yongli|date=2016-08-30|title=Dr. Stanley Biber|url=https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/dr-stanley-biber|access-date=2022-01-12|website=coloradoencyclopedia.org|language=en-US}}</ref>
==Personal life== While studying at the University of Iowa, Biber practiced weightlifting. He tried out for the Olympic team and narrowly missed the cut.<ref name=":4"/>
Biber was divorced several times. He was survived by his wife of 11 months, Marylee Biber.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web|title=Dr. Stanley Biber {{!}} History Colorado|url=https://www.historycolorado.org/story/2020/06/26/dr-stanley-biber|access-date=2022-01-12|website=www.historycolorado.org}}</ref> He was survived by seven children, seven stepchildren and twenty-two grandchildren, including singer Snatam Kaur by his daughter Prabhu Nam Kaur Khalsa, also a new age singer.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Fox|first=Margalit|date=2006-01-21|title=Stanley H. Biber, 82, Surgeon Among First to Do Sex Changes, Dies|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/us/stanley-h-biber-82-surgeon-among-first-to-do-sex-changes-dies.html|access-date=2020-03-12|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name="martin"/><ref>{{Cite web|date=2013-10-23|title=Prabhu Nam Kaur|url=https://www.eomega.org/workshops/teachers/prabhu-nam-kaur|access-date=2020-03-12|website=Omega|language=en}}</ref>
Stanley and Marylee married after working together for four decades; Marylee was a nurse involved with his practice.<ref name=":5"/>
Later in life, Biber said that he did not see himself as a religious man.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|date=1985-02-07|title=Colorado doctor transforms lives with sex changes|pages=45|work=Austin American-Statesman|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34230200/colorado-doctor-transforms-lives-with/|access-date=2022-01-12}}</ref>
==Career== === Military service === Biber served as a civilian employee with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, stationed in Alaska and the Northwest Territory. After the war, he returned to Iowa and enrolled in school, with plans to become a psychiatrist.<ref name=":4" /> He graduated from the University of Iowa medical school in 1948.<ref name="martin">{{cite web |last=Martin |first=Claire |date=17 January 2006 |url=https://www.denverpost.com/2006/01/17/pioneer-sex-change-surgeon-dies-at-82/ |title=Pioneer sex-change surgeon dies at 82 |website=Denver Post}}</ref>
He began performing surgery while in residency at a hospital in the Panama Canal Zone. Biber then joined the Army, where he was the chief surgeon of a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War.<ref name="LAT 019-09-11">{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-11/la-na-col1-trinidad-gender-change-surgery-legacy|title=He made this town the world's 'sex-change capital,' but he's not honored here|last=Smith|first=Martin J.|date=2019-09-12|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-14}}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> He finished his service at what is now Fort Carson, Colorado.<ref name="frazier">{{cite web |last=Frazier |first=Deborah |date=19 January 2006 |url=http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4398447,00.html |title=Sex-change pioneer a beloved friend, mentor |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930201554/http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0%2C1299%2CDRMN_15_4398447%2C00.html |archive-date=2007-09-30 |website=Rocky Mountain News}}</ref><ref name=":5" />
===Settling in Trinidad=== In 1954, retiring from military service, Biber took a job at a United Mine Workers clinic in Trinidad, Colorado.<ref name="frazier" /><ref name=":5"/> His original office was in the First National Bank building at the historic heart of the city.<ref name=":4"/> Though he originally came to serve the miners, Biber sought to help the whole community and delivered babies, set broken bones, and was considered an excellent surgeon by the town.{{r|LAT 019-09-11}}
===Sex reassignment surgery=== Biber performed his first sex reassignment surgery in 1969<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|date=2021-04-15|title=New book highlights Seattle's role in transgender movement|url=https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/new-book-highlights-seattles-role-in-transgender-movement/|access-date=2022-01-11|website=The Seattle Times|language=en-US}}</ref> after a trans woman asked him if he would be willing and able to do so.<ref name=":0"/> This woman was a friend of Biber's and a social worker whom he worked with often.<ref name=":5"/> She had been living as a woman and on hormone replacement therapy under the supervision of Dr. Harry Benjamin for some time.<ref name=":4"/> At first he did not know how to do this kind of operation, but he learned by studying diagrams and notes from Johns Hopkins Hospital.{{r|LAT 019-09-11}}<ref name=":5"/><ref name=":4"/>
By this point in time, Biber's practice had moved to Mt. San Rafael Hospital, which had been built by the Catholic order in 1889.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web|date=2019-09-12|title=How Stanley Biber, a pioneer in gender change surgery, won over the Sisters of Charity|url=https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-11/how-stanley-biber-a-pioneer-in-gender-change-surgery-won-over-the-sisters-of-charity|access-date=2022-01-12|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The nuns running the hospital had just turned over ownership and control to the Trinidad Area Health Association in December 1968.<ref name=":6" /> Dr. Biber kept his first few surgeries secret from the Catholic nuns who operated the hospital, due to concerns that they would react negatively. During this period he kept his records in the hospital administrator's safe.<ref name=":6" /> However, after enough procedures and secret-keeping the doctor knew he had to come clean to his bosses and the community. So Biber, who was respected within the town as an Ob/Gyn, gathered together citizens, clergy, and town officials to explain that the people he served needed help.<ref name=":4"/> He also spoke about his point of view on the matter to the local paper in 1973.<ref name=":6" /> After this the attitude towards this aspect of Trinidad became generally accepting.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite news|date=1995-01-23|title=Profile on Dr. Stanley Biber|pages=49|work=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/92374043/profile-on-dr-stanley-biber/|access-date=2022-01-12}}</ref> He also made the point that the visitors brought in business to the local economy by staying in local hotels and eating at local restaurants with their families while they received and recovered from surgery.<ref name=":0"/> As another more pragmatic point he said that the profits brought in from his expensive surgeries were a key element in making Mt. San Rafael Hospital profitable.<ref name=":0"/> Though, according to his wife Marylee Biber, Dr. Biber did occasionally perform surgeries off the books for people who could not afford it.<ref name=":5"/> Trinidad was becoming known as the "Sex Change Capital of the World" because of his renown.<ref name="nprobit">Brady, Jeff (19 January 2006). [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5163832 Sex-Change Pioneer, Dr. Stanley Biber]. ''All Things Considered'', National Public Radio</ref><ref name=":0" /> The nuns who worked at the hospital actually worked with Dr. Biber and cared for his trans patients as well.<ref name=":6" /> ���I couldn’t understand why the Sisters were looking over me while I was in the hospital and making sure transsexuals weren’t mistreated, and coming in to check on us,” recalled one of Biber's patients to the Los Angeles Times, “It never made sense to me. But I was grateful.”<ref name=":6" />
Dr. Biber began performing vaginal construction surgeries when they were fairly rudimentary and refined the procedures around a half dozen times to achieve a more natural and realistic look.<ref name=":3" /> Biber's practice became the first private-practice transgender surgery center in the United States.<ref name=":2" /> During his career, Dr. Biber performed more than 2,300 male-to-female genital reassignment surgeries and 1,000 female-to-male surgeries.<ref name=":2" /> At the height of his practice he was doing as many as five gender change operations a week.<ref name=":5"/>
When Dr. Biber began his practice on gender changing surgeries, they were so rare in number in the United States that none of it was covered by any medical insurance and there were no widely used restrictions or guidelines on who qualified for a procedure.<ref name=":1"/><ref name=":4"/> Biber made up his own criteria, trying to avoid performing an operation on someone who might later regret it. He identified schizophrenics and "effeminate homosexuals" and populations who may mistake themselves for transgender whom he wished to not operate on. Some of Dr. Biber's practices in restriction became codified with insurance companies or more common place among practices as the number of doctors performing the surgeries increased and insurance companies began to cover some operations.<ref name=":4"/> Those practices included psychological evaluations, a certain period of time spent with a psychiatrist, at least a year spent presenting in feminine dress, and at least a year spent taking feminizing hormones.<ref name=":1"/> If Dr. Biber was unsure whether to approve a patient for surgery he would sometimes recommend a more reversible procedure such as breast implants and invite the patient to return if they still wanted the genital reconstruction after having done that.<ref name=":1"/>
Biber also trained dozens of other surgeons in sex reassignment surgery techniques and maintained a regular surgical practice of delivering babies, removing tonsils, and replacing knee and hip joints.<ref name="apobit">{{cite web |agency=Associated Press |date=17 January 2006 |url=http://cbs4denver.com/health/local_story_017222927.html |title='Sex Change' Doctor From Trinidad Dies |website=cbs4denver.com |publisher=CBS Broadcasting |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926230110/http://cbs4denver.com/health/local_story_017222927.html |archive-date=2007-09-26}}</ref> In 1985 Biber reported that transexual surgeries accounted for about 20% of his total work.<ref name=":1" /> Dr. Marci Bowers, another ob/gyn by practice and a trans woman herself, was trained by Biber and began to study under him in order to take over his practice so he could retire in 1998.<ref name=":2" />
===Political career=== In 1990 a seat on the Las Animas County Board of Commissioners was vacated due to a recall, and Biber ran to fill it.<ref name=":4" /> His opponent ran ads in the local paper alleging that Dr. Biber's work had made an unseemly impact on the public image of the community.<ref name=":4" /> His campaign countered this with ads saying he had put Trinidad on the map and brought in $750,000 annually to the local economy.<ref name=":4" /> Biber won the election by a comfortable margin.<ref name=":4" />
==Retirement and late life== Biber retired in 2003, at age 80, because his malpractice insurance premiums had risen to levels which he could not afford.<ref name="apretire">{{cite web|agency=Associated Press |date=3 January 2005|url=https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2005/01/03/49208.htm|title= Colo. Sex-Change Surgeon Retires After Losing Malpractice Insurance| via= Insurance Journal}}</ref><ref name="werner">Werner, Dan (17 January 2006). [http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=db100e21-0abe-421a-0053-ad24e27609d6&TEMPLATEID=4525fe63-ac1f-02d8-002a-f131478a1f55 Colorado's famed sex change doctor dies]{{dead link|date=May 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. KUSA-TV.</ref><ref name=":4" /> Dr. Bowers finally took over his practice after five years of studying under him. Biber was hospitalized in January 2006 with complications from pneumonia, to which he succumbed on January 16.<ref name="garrett">{{cite web |last=Garrett |first=Mike |date=18 January 2006 |url=http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1137586860/4 |title=Sex-change surgeon Stanley Biber dies |website=Pueblo Chieftain |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20070928001815/http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1137586860/4 |archive-date=28 September 2007 }}{{subscription required}}</ref> Bowers said, shortly afterwards, that she never expected to "fill his shoes".
==Related media== On March 9, 2005, the television show ''South Park'' first aired the episode "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina". In the opening scene, school-teacher Mr. Garrison believes that he is a woman on the inside, and decides to undergo a gender change surgery, which is performed by a "Dr. Biber" of the Trinidad Medical Center.
The documentary film ''Trinidad'' (2008) is about the town of Trinidad and its reputation as the "sex change capital of the world". Dr. Biber is mentioned often in the film, as is his protegée Dr. Bowers. The documentary-style reality series ''Sex Change Hospital'' (2007) gives a glimpse of Bowers's practice after Biber's retirement.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tvguide.com/news/sex-change-hospital-58306/ |last=DiNunno |first=Gina |date=11 November 2008 |title=Transgender Doctor Talks ''Sex Change Hospital'' |website=TV Guide |access-date=2017-02-17}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.westword.com/news/trinidad-gets-its-closeup-tonight-in-sex-change-hospital-5899787 |last=Roberts |first=Michael |date=14 October 2008 |title=Trinidad Gets Its Closeup Tonight in ''Sex Change Hospital'' |website=Westword |access-date=2017-02-17}}</ref>
Journalist Martin J. Smith published a biography of Dr. Biber and Trinidad called ''Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town, and Stories from an Unlikely Gender Crossroads'' in April 2021.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Zoellner|first=Tom|title=He Loved Everyone in Trinidad: On Martin J. Smith's "Going to Trinidad"|url=https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/he-loved-everyone-in-trinidad-on-martin-j-smiths-going-to-trinidad/|access-date=2022-01-12|website=Los Angeles Review of Books|date=15 April 2021 }}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[https://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2003/georgiegirl/resources_04_biber.html Article on Dr. Biber] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090526193925/http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2003/georgiegirl/resources_04_biber.html |date=2009-05-26 }} via PBS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Biber, Stanley}} Category:1923 births Category:2006 deaths Category:Jewish American scientists Category:University of Iowa alumni Category:United States Army Medical Corps officers Category:United States Army personnel of the Korean War Category:People from Trinidad, Colorado Category:Surgeons specializing in transgender medicine Category:Deaths from pneumonia in Colorado Category:20th-century American surgeons Category:People of the Office of Strategic Services Category:20th-century American Jews Category:21st-century American Jews Category:Military personnel from Des Moines, Iowa Category:Military personnel from Colorado