Conjoined twins who set a world record as the oldest with the rare phenomenon and were the first to identify as different genders have died at the age of 62.
Lori and George Schappell died at a Pennsylvania hospital on April 7, according to their obituary. The craniopagus twins, joined together at the head, shared 30% of their brains, but pursued radically different careers and interests.
“Dori had a career as a country singer, performing all over the United States; and Lori is a trophy-winning bowler,” their obituary notes.
“I don’t wake up thinking, ‘Oh, I’m a conjoined twin.’ I have two arms and two legs. I’m just a regular person…I live a normal life,” Lori told the Los Angeles Times in a 2002 interview.
Doctors had given them only a year to live when they were born in 1961, but they managed to defy the odds and live independently in their own apartment, with Lori pushing George, who had spina bifida, into a Wheelchair.
With no surgery at the time to separate the two, the twins faced a series of grim prognoses and doctors eventually convinced their parents to place them in an institution for more than two decades. But they chose to always look forward and charted their own paths throughout adulthood.
In 2007, George announced his decision to transition, making them the world’s first conjoined twins to identify as different genders. They had different rooms in their Pennsylvania apartment and changed their sleeping arrangements each night, showered at different times, and learned to “ignore each other” when they didn’t get along or the situation called for it, a Lori noted in the 2002 interview.
“Whatever we do with it, it’s normal, but we’re very happy,” she said.
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