Parting Glances: Our Forgotten Transgender Hero

Tamara A. Rees is 92. She leads a quiet, uneventful, grandmotherly life with her adopted children's children somewhere in Los Angeles, California.
In 1954 — two years after serving as a Bronze Star wounded and decorated World War II U.S. Army paratrooper — then Robert Rees, age 30, transitioned in Holland from male to female.
The transition was made after personal years-long introspection, determination, inner self trust, and against much cautious, ignorant, expensive, psychiatric opinions. It lead to much international media publicity. The notoriety would be short-lived.
Most know about Christine Jorgensen. Army Sergeant George, who transitioned M-to-F in 1953. These days only a handful of LGBT history buffs know who Tamara Rees is, or, who she was for a brief two years as a curiosity, celeb nightclub entertainer.
I made Tamara's acquaintance by a chance reading of an article in an old copy of a Sexology Magazine anthology. The article is dated 1959. It's title: "Male Becomes Female: The life story of one of the most widely publicized cases of sex change in recent history."
The Sexology piece is among the first published first-person accounts dealing openly with what it means to be a trans person.
A true confession of sorts, the commentary carries the byline Tamara A. Rees, with faded photographs of a visibly awkward young Robert in paratrooper gear, contrasted with a fully dynamic Tamara in a sequined gown, ample cleavage uplifted in a here-I-am, I'll-show-one-and-all who I've at long last become.
Tamara speaks openly of her early fascination with a neighbor girl's clothes and pretty ribbons. Her innate desire to play with dolls. Of being bullied by school boys. Of secretly dressing in her sister's and mother's clothing. Of her great success at Halloween as a 14-year-old dressed as a woman.
Of parental misunderstanding and censure. Of her rebellious year of running away from home. Of brief Navy service, followed shortly after as a paratrooper.
Her initial adult visits to several psychiatrists in search of answers proved frustrating. Their responses varied from disbelief, belittlement, Freudian psychobabble, and get-over-it-Robert!
While stationed in Europe, Robert found a German psychiatrist who recommended operative advances then currently being made in Holland to persons like Christine Jorgensen (1926 – 1989).
Summing up, Tamara observes, "The road is a long hard one, full of heartaches, disappointments and great expense. Surgical transition is a prolonged and complicated one. The surgery does not create a woman where the patient was once a biological male, nor can the patient hope to birth children. It merely brings the physical appearance of the patient into harmony with the mental pattern."
The publicity that Tamara received when returning to America, unfortunately, proved to be problematic. She embarked upon a show business career that was almost her psychological and emotional undoing.
"Upon my return to this country, I had hoped to escape publicity and start a new life, my past unknown to anyone. Unfortunately, this was not the way matters turned out." (She married a James Courtland in 1955, which is now regarded as the first transgender wedding.)
"With the temptation of large sums of money and contracts offered to me, I must admit that I strayed from the course and was almost lost by my decision to enter show business. After two years of nightclub appearances I became ill as a result of the fast pace and irregular hours.
"During this illness I had the opportunity to reexamine the situation and came to realize that I would never find peace and happiness as long as I remained in the public spotlight."
So said, one can only wonder: Caitlyn Jenner, is there a lesson to be learned here?