Jeffrey (Mildred) Dickemann

Oct 12, 1929 - Feb 21, 2021

Jeffrey Dickemann passed away peacefully at his home in Richmond, California, on February 21, 2021, with friends and caregivers at his side.

Jeffrey was born Mildred Dickeman on October 12, 1929, to Charles Theodore and Mildred Rogers Dickeman in Seattle, Washington. Mildred remembered wanting to be a boy from an early age and eventually had gender reassignment surgery in 1996, changing her name to Jeffrey.

Mildred and her sister Margaret, born in Hawaii in 1927, travelled frequently with their parents. Eventually Charles, a U.S. Navy civil engineer, was transferred to Rhode Island and the family moved to Brooklyn, New York. There, Mildred attended high school at Packer Collegiate Institute.

Mildred graduated from the University of Michigan in 1950 with an A.B. in Anthropology. After completing a Ph.D. in Anthropology at U.C. Berkeley in 1958, Mildred spent a year doing fieldwork in New Guinea before getting a junior college teaching credential and teaching for four years at what would become Merritt College. At Merritt, Mildred sponsored an “Interracial Club,” where she was “gently educated” by her African-American students and club members and began to develop her political views on race.

In search of more research opportunities, Dr. Dickemann took a teaching job at the University of

Kansas, where she helped found a chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and spent the spring and summer of 1965 with a group of CORE volunteers registering voters in Louisiana. Towards the end of her three years in Kansas, Mildred did fieldwork among the Oklahoma Cherokee studying Indian education in public schools.

After this project, she moved back to Berkeley and taught for a year at Merritt before getting a teaching job in Sociology at Sonoma State College (later University) in 1968. There, she and David Fredrickson designed a new major in Anthropology; Mildred served as its first department chair, and was twice Chair of the Academic Senate. She retired from teaching in 1990 and concentrated on research and publishing on topics that interested her— educational anthropology, human ecology-behavioral anthropology, and genderhomosexuality.

Mildred (and later as Jeffrey) was a keen organic gardener, camper, and birder, and supported many political and environmental organizations.

Jeffrey Dickemann leaves behind many friends and colleagues who remember his sharp mind and biting critiques. He is survived by his sister Margaret, nephew Carl, and niece Alison. As per his wishes, Jeffrey’s remains were cremated and scattered along the Marin County coast.