When she returned home, she was obviously distraught and her father became deeply concerned. It was decided that she should talk to Mary Margaret's husband, a well-respected physician who practiced at Massachusetts General. "The school had thought that she needed some counseling." Mary Margaret had said, and her husband, who had been reading the journals and saw the benefits, even in those early days, of psychoanalysis, agreed. "He said, "Fine, I'll set you up...at Mass General. You have your own car.' But she backed out."

Camilla's father at Ricefields front entrance

chapter continues

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To those who remember the stifling social norms of the early 1950s and the patrician prejudices of the old aristocracy of the time, it is hardly surprising that that her family naturally supported her decision. Perhaps, they believed her reluctance to undergo tests and treatment was based on the fear of the prevailing social stigma of the time regarding psychiatry rather than on some fear that some buried demon — an Electra complex of unparalleled intensity, perhaps — would be released. Mary Margaret explained, "My parents were absolutely dead-set against any kind of tests. It simply wasn't done. So she missed her opportunity and I always thought that was a great tragedy."

So it was also hardly surprising hat when Camilla decided to fully begin her transformation, she did it alone and with a cocktail of over-the-counter dog drugs.

What was surprising was that it worked so well. As a woman, Colon recalled, Lyman "was always what you would refer to as a big girl...lots of bone and substance, as we say in the dog world...not very attractive." But, as a man, well, that was a different matter altogether.

It was even more intriguing that everyone around her seemed to take her self-administered sex change in stride. Even her sister, raised in the same stifling aristocratic fishbowl that had so vexed Camilla, came to accept Camilla's new identity. At least that's what Mary Margaret had said. While Camilla still lived under the frigid rule of her mother, there was, of course, never any discussion of gender identity issues. "We all grew up not knowing anything about any of those things. We never never talked about anything like that," Mary Margaret had said. "Of course she did become a gorgeous man."

Her friends took her transformation in stride as well. "It didn't surprise me," Maitland had said. "It was one of those things that you figured, well, that's possible. Mainly because I knew there was no romantic involvement. There was none either way."

In fact, Camilla's change of gender seemed to have little to do with traditional ideas of sex and sexual identity. For all intents and purposes, Camilla Lyman appears to have been asexual. She had been as a woman. And all the evidence available seemed to indicate that she remained so as a man. "She used to joke about it, you know, at her age, that she was still a virgin," Maitland had said.

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