Colorado’s Sex Change Capital of the World

There is a town in southern Colorado that is “Western” to its core. Hard on the banks of the Purgatory River, the town’s red brick streets and Old West Victorian architecture speak of a history as a cattle town, a stop on the Santa Fe Trail, and a frontier coal mining center. At first wild and wooly, this town was eventually tamed by lawmen like Bat Masterson.

This town may be the least likely candidate for “Sex Change Capital of the World”, because at the time this moniker was bestowed, the local hospital was run by Catholic nuns.

Welcome to Trinidad, Colorado. Though some residents would rather not acknowledge it, Trinidad has witnessed an estimated 65% of the world’s sex change operations…all because of just one prolific surgeon. His name is Dr. Stanley Biber.

The year was 1969. A social worker, whom Biber knew as a woman, but in fact was a man, asked the surprised surgeon if he could perform a sex-change operation. With drawings received from another surgeon, Biber performed the delicate surgery. Years later he commented, “It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.”

For this and subsequent surgeries, Biber hid the

medical records in the administrator’s safe. But Biber understood that he would soon need to inform the Catholic sisters who then ran Mt. San Rafael Hospital. To a hushed audience, Biber presented his opinion that sex change surgery is legitimate treatment for "gender dysphoria" - the rare condition in which a person feels trapped in a body of the wrong sex. Surprisingly, the nuns okayed Biber’s wish to continue performing the surgery.

In those early days, nearly all the surgeries were male to female. That trend changed, and today almost half the sex change surgeries performed in Trinidad are female to male. Of 4,500 who have had the surgery in Trinidad, only four have asked for subsequent surgery to switch back to their original gender.

Based on the total surgeries performed, unlikely Trinidad is indeed the world’s sex change capital. But don’t expect to see that fact trumpeted in any of the area’s several museums, or in the lobby of Mt. San Rafael Hospital…or anywhere. However, if you’ve undergone the required psychological evaluations, had appropriate hormone therapy, dressed as your new gender for at least one year, and have eight days to recover in the local hospital, you too can experience Trinidad’s ultimate make-over. And one more thing…make sure you have $11,500 in your purse or wallet!

The Real Story of the Stanley Hotel

You already know the many weird tales coming out of the majestic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. You know that Steven King used the hotel as inspiration for his novel and subsequent blockbuster movie The Shining. You’ve heard that it is considered one of America’s most haunted hotels, something hotel management is not shy about (witness the hotel’s own website, http://www.stanleyhotel.com/history, and the official “ghost tour” given each day.).

You may even know of the eccentric brothers, F. O. and F. E. Stanley, builders of the hotel and inventors of the famous Stanley Steamer automobile in 1897. But read on to discover that part of the story you probably don’t know-

The Stanleys’ horseless carriage was the monster car of its era, featuring a 10-horsepower, two-cylinder engine with only 13 moving parts. The power source was steam, of course. The steam was heated by kerosene, which also illuminated the headlights. In 1907, a Stanley Steamer set a world speed record of

127.659 miles per hour. And although the standard roadster version of the Steamer could do 60 miles per hour, unfortunately at that speed it would be running faster than the primitive brakes could stop it.

Handsome profits from the Steamer were used to build the Stanley Hotel. But there is a more profound connection between automobile and hotel. The hotel was specifically designed to be the world’s first resort hotel reached by auto. Prior to this time, all resort hotels received their guests via railroad.

So it was that F.O. Stanley’s financing of a mountain road from Lyons to Estes Park was for the sole purpose of transporting hotel guests via his fleet of Stanley Steamers. They were magnificent mountain cars, with direct drive spur gears that allowed the machine to climb like a goat. Automobile historian Ed Howard claims that a Stanley Steamer cannot stall, and could easily climb up the steep front steps of the Stanley Hotel. While there is no evidence of that stunt being performed, it is true that F.O. once drove a Stanley Steamer up the steps of the U.S. Capitol!