New Sketch of "Julie Doe", Transgender Woman Still Unidentified After 27 Years

[moriah]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/21/1452995/-New-Sketch-of-Julie-Doe-Transgender-Woman-Still-Unidentified-After-27-Years

The Lake County Sheriff's Office has issued a new reconstruction for "Julie Doe”, the unidentified transgender woman found dead in 1988 who has remained nameless for the last 27 years. The 1988 autopsy determined she had given birth to at least one child in the past, but DNA testing revealed she had an XY genotype.

She was between the ages of 22 and 35 according to her profile on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, and was about 5'10 with naturally brown hair. Her upper body reassignment surgery was likely done no later than 1984, because her 250cc silicone breast implants had been discontinued for five years at the time of her death, and was most likely performed in either Miami, Atlanta, New Orleans, New York City, or California. She also had a rhinoplasty, and had likely been on hormonal therapy for several years before her death.

Someone knows who she is. Police are requesting that any physicians who treated patients with gender dysphoria in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as anyone who transitioned or was close to the transgender community during this timeframe, to search their records/recollectione for Julie. She may have mentioned at least one physical assault that fractured her cheekbone and likely broke her nose. She also had a healed rib fracture. You may have seen her as a patient in one of the six clinics that treated gender dysphoria at that time in the United States, or in a support group for individuals transitioning during those years. You may also have seen her in 1988 or thereabouts in the Orlando LGBT community.

If you recognize Julie Doe, or have any information about the circumstances surrounding her death, please contact the Lake County Sheriff's Office at 352-343-2101.

[Delphinus]

1. How can she

have given birth? Wasn't she born a male and transitioned to female?

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

2. It's a confusing article.

nt

[moriah]

5. I think the police were confused, too!

She wasn't exactly in great shape when they found her -- someone dragged body her into the woods east of Orlando and hid her in five foot tall weeds... in either late August or early September. Her pantyhose had been left rolled down and no underwear was recovered, meaning predators had easy access to the area that would have clued them in, and decomposition would have been accelerated there.

When she was found on September 25, 1988, her body was too decomposed to even ascertain a cause of death.

[Brickbat]

3. The people who performed the first autopsy thought she had been born a cisgender woman and

had given birth. Since then, they realized they were wrong.

[moriah]

4. There's more detail in the linked articles.

At that time, forensic science thought that "pitting" of the pelvis only happened because of childbirth. Because she had noticeable pitting, and nothing to contradict that had been found, they believed she was a cisgender female (if very tall and strongly built). Since then they have learned that many women thought never to have given birth because of a lack of such pitting had multiple children, and it's been found in men with typical male hormonal balance too. However, they think in this instance the pitting was caused by estrogen therapy.

Florida has always been one of the better states to be found unidentified in, because they were the first to start keeping a central database of unidentified decedents. But two women found there in the 80s were revealed by DNA to be missing women previously ruled out because of old and bad science, and this caused Florida to pretty much reopen every cold unidentified decedent case. When they removed her skeleton from storage, the new ME was sure it belonged to a XY male, but all of the x-rays taken in 1988 matched so they had the right body. He thought maybe he was wrong, and sent in the DNA.


Original Orlando Sentinel article

Longer Kos Article

Follow-up from the Sentinel

Facebook page made by Redditors for Julie Doe