The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - The Testosterone Serum

“There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul.”

Many interpretations of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde" have been made in the past.

The most common reading of the story revolves around the duality of man and the hypocrisy of respectability culture in Victorian society.

But for this reading, I thought I’d look into the duality of how transgender men and our transitions are perceived, even by other queer people.

How testosterone is said to transform us into ugly and evil beings, and how many of us have trouble accepting our connection to manhood and masculinity because of it.

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“I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.”

The protagonist of the story, the admired and respected Dr. Henry Jekyll, is a well-mannered, proper Victorian man. He's seemingly prosperous, well-established in the community, and known for his decency and charitable works.

But he feels an evil stirring inside himself, because of the dissolute behaviors he's secretly been engaging in since his youth.

Jekyll despises his dark side and undertakes experiments to separate his good and evil selves from one another, creating a serum that will alleviate him from this internal monstrosity.

However, the serum backfires and transforms Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.

Edward Hyde is Jekyll’s opposite. He’s malicious, selfish, and aggressive. Every time he takes control, he kills and assaults whomever he sees fit.

He’s often described as ugly and deformed - yet no one can exactly explain what appears weird about him. He seems to instill an uncanny valley effect onto those who see him.

“All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.”

This kind of sentiment runs similar to the misinformation spread by cisgender people on the effects of testosterone, especially lately, because of the spike in conversations surrounding detransitioning.

We’re often told it will make us ugly, or dangerous. We’re told we’re joining the enemy's or the oppressor's side, and suddenly we’re scary to those around us.

Hyde is the version of manhood that a transgender Jekyll is afraid will come out of him once he takes his serum: testosterone.

Because even though Jekyll hates Hyde, and never wants to be him, he can’t help but keep taking the serum.

He can’t stop wanting to be a man. But he’s afraid he’ll become a monster if he does so.

And even when he stops taking the serum, he stays Hyde.

Because he is Hyde. At least in appearance.

He’s a man.

But does that mean he's evil?

We don't have the answer to that question, because Jekyll can’t come to terms with his manhood. He commits suicide.

Perhaps being evil was something he couldn’t help, but maybe his manhood didn’t have to be monstrous, just because everyone saw Hyde as hideous and frightening.

Just because everyone thought Jekyll would become Hyde.

But Jekyll’s mind is made. He'll become a man; and not a respectable man, an ugly, deformed, wrong man. So he must die.

And the serum that transformed him is lost forever.

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“Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.”

The admired and respected Dr. Henry Jekyll, is a well-mannered, proper Victorian man. He's seemingly prosperous, well-established in the community, and known for his decency and charitable works.

Hyde is Jekyll’s opposite. He’s malicious, selfish, and aggressive. Every time he takes control, he kills and assaults whomever he sees fit.

He’s often described as ugly and deformed - yet no one can exactly explain what appears weird about him. He seems to instill an uncanny valley effect onto those who see him.

Jekyll doesn't want to be Hyde. But Hyde is a perception of manhood he'll have to reckon with, and realize he's not destined to become just by virtue of being a man, in order to be happy.

»----------•---------«

“With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.”

To close this reading of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", this is the story of a transgender man picking up the pieces of his manhood, but struggling to feel accepted when he's seen like a monster, or told he'll become one, once he transitions.

And just like Henry Jekyll, there are plenty of transgender men or transmasculine people out there, who are scared they'll become evil, or oppressors, or ugly Mr. Hyde if they dare take the serum.

To all the Henry Jekyll of this world: Edward Hyde is a role that people will try to claim you've become, or will become.

But you are still Henry Jekyll, admired and respected, well-mannered, proper Victorian man. Seemingly prosperous, well-established in the community, and known for his decency and charitable works.

And it is not your job to make them see that.