by Lynette Alice

Created on: December 18, 2008

Dr. Stanley Biber wore many hats during his long life as a man and a practitioner of medicine. Accolades were showered upon him his entire career for everything from the procedures that wouuld be considered routine to those that are far more exotic. Dr. Biber is not a household name outside of a small segment of society to whom he is both a pioneer and a hero, which is the transsexual population. Long before television networks were running documentaries and programs like Sex Change Hospital, Dr. Biber was changing the lives of thousands of male to female (MTF) transsexuals every year performing Gender/Sexual Reassignment Surgery (GRS/SRS) with such skill and in such large numbers that his adopted hometown of Trinidad, Colorado became known as the "Sex change capitol of the world."

On May 4, 1923, Stanley H. Biber was born in Des Moines. Iowa. His father owned a furniture store while his mother concerned herself with carrying the banner of social causes, particularly those assoiciated with human equality, something she seems to have passed on to her son. Like many Jewish fathers of the time, Stanley's father had hoped he would become a rabbi, and for a brief period of time so did Stanley. However when America entered into World War II Stanley put that desire and his secondary dream of becoming a concert pianist on hold and took a position with the Office of Strategic Services. The experience changed his life and after the war Stanley planned to become a psychiatrist. As fate would have it while attending the University of Iowa Medical School he again changed his mind and graduated with an M.D. in 1948 planing to be a general practitioner.

The next phase of Dr. Biber's life led him to the Panama Canal Zone where he began performing surgeries while a resident. This was something that was driven by need more than choice and Dr. Biber proved to have great hands and instincts which instantly identified him as an excellent candidate to become a surgeon rather than a general practioner. Upon leaving Panama, Dr. Biber enlisted in the Army and served in a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) while in Korea, the type made famous by the television show of the same name without the plethora of zany hijinks, but the all too real challenges and stresses of combat medicine. Biber proved his worth and was named Chief Surgeon during his tour before finishing his enlistment at Fort Carson Colorado. After discharging he moved to Trinidad, Colorado where he worked at the United

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