Speaking of nuts, one little-noted subplot to the story of Ted Kaczynski, the “Unabomber”, who died prison at the age of 81 on 2023-06-10, is that in 1998 it was revealed that, according to a Washington Post article on 1998-09-12, “Gender Confusion, Sex Change Idea Fueled Kaczynski’s Rage, Report Says”:
Convicted Unabomber Theodore J. Kaczynski considered having a sex change operation when he was in his twenties and his confusion over his gender identity filled him with a rage that contributed to his bombing spree, according to documents released today.
The new details about the mental health of Kaczynski, who pleaded guilty in January to a string of terrorist bombings that killed three people and injured 23 others, were part of 47-page forensic evaluation ordered by U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. during Kaczynski’s January trial.
This is based upon a Psychiatric Competency Report [PDF] filed with the court on 1998-09-11:
In the summer after his fourth year, he describes experiencing a period of several weeks where he was sexually excited nearly all the time and was fantasizing himself as a woman and being unable to obtain any sexual relief. He decided to make an effort to have a sex change operation. When he returned to the University of Michigan he made an appointment to see a psychiatrist to be examined to determine if the sex change would be good for him. He claimed that by putting on an act he could con the psychiatrist into thinking him suitable for a feminine role even though his motive was exclusively erotic. As he was sitting in the waiting room, he turned completely against the idea of the operation and thus, when he saw the doctor, instead claimed he was depressed about the possibility of being drafted. He describes the following, “As I walked away from the building afterwards, I felt disgusted about what my uncontrolled sexual cravings had almost led me to do and I felt humiliated, and I violently hated the psychiatrist. Just then there came a major turning point in my life. Like a Phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope. I thought I wanted to kill that psychiatrist because the future looked utterly empty to me. I felt I wouldn’t care if I died. And so I said to myself why not really kill the psychiatrist and anyone else whom I hate. What is important is not the words that ran through my mind but the way I felt about them. What was entirely new was the fact that I really felt I could kill someone. My very hopelessness had liberated me because I no longer cared about death. I no longer cared about consequences and I said to myself that I really could break out of my rut in life an do things that were daring, irresponsible or criminal.” He describes his first thought was to kill someone he hated and then kill himself, but decided he could not relinquish his rights so easily. At that point he decided “I will kill but I will make at least some effort to avoid detection so that I can kill again.” He decided that he would do what he always wanted to do, to go to Canada to take off in the woods with a rifle and try to live off the country. “If it doesn’t work and if I can get back to civilization before I starve then I will come back here and kill someone I hate.” In his writings he emphasized what he knew was the fact that he now felt he had the courage to behave irresponsibly.
Mr. Kaczynski describes in his writing and on interview, that these thoughts went through his mind in the time it took to walk about one block. This new understanding persisted from that point on in his life. He developed a plan to complete his degree and to work for two years, so as to save enough money to live in the wilderness. As already noted, this plan was accomplished through teaching for two years in Berkeley and subsequently locating land and building his cabin in Montana. During that time period he writes that he would have to discipline himself to avoid reading newspapers except occasionally because if “I read papers regularly I would build up too much tense and frustrated anger against politicians, dictators, businessmen, scientists, communists, and others in the world who were doing things that endangered me or changed the world in ways I resented.”
Steve Sailer, who recalls the information in a 2023-06-10 Unz Review post, “The Unabomber’s Transgenderism”, notes:
So maybe society would have been better off if this autogynephilic had been encouraged to have himself castrated? One argument in favor of letting adult autogynephilic fetishists have themselves castrated is that while Theodore Kaczynski blew up all those people, a testicleless Theodora Kaczynski probably wouldn’t have.
