Time 4 Trans Justice

Good morning on this frigidly cold Monday morning! Today is Monday, so that means it’s time for another installment of: Notable Transmen in History!

Today is all about Dr. Michael Laurence Dillon, a physician who was born in 1915 as Laura Maud Dillon. He transitioned fully in 1949, three years before the famous case of Christine Jorgenson. Before transitioning, he used a belt to bind his breasts, and wore masculine clothing, and acted as himself–a man. He did everything he wanted to do, which just happened to be masculine in nature/stereotypical. While in college, he began taking testosterone, and then had chest surgery in 1942. In 1944, he officially changed his birth certificate to read male, and changed his name as well. During this year, he also had bottom surgery–a phalloplasty.

While this is all fascinating, I’m sure, there is a point. Someone was doing some snooping into his genealogy, and noticed a discrepancy by who was actually born, and who was listed later in another place. Of course, they couldn’t keep it a secret, and published it in many newspapers. This made him leave the country and go to India, where he became a monk and famous author under his ordained name. Is it any wonder he went to hide? During this time, anything remotely “smelling” like homosexuality was an abomination and could only be made right by violence. Oh–wait–that’s like that now!

We’ve got trans-men and women being brutally beaten, and sometimes killed…we’ve got judgments against us for being who we are…we have discrimination without federal protections…misunderstandings…abandonment…and families disowning their own flesh and blood. Is it any wonder the suicide rate for our Trans community is higher than for any other segment of our community?? This is way too depressing and hard for some people to handle it, and if their “support” network isn’t supportive, it can make people feel alone and rejected.  In the past 50-60 years, have we learned nothing about letting people be who they are called to be, regardless of what that may be?

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Live and let live. If the way a person is conducting themselves, and they are true to who they are without infringing on other people’s basic human rights to safety and survival, why is it such a big deal? Why do we have to fight for our right to not be discriminated against?

But I digress–I have went off topic, which is talking about historical Transmen. We (in the transmen sense) have always been here and ready to contribute to society, once we have the freedoms and ability to live how we are called to live as. So instead of judging, how about giving us a hand to transform the world?

  Today’s entry in the Notable Transmen series is about Dr. Alan L. Hart, Physician and Radiologist. He was born in 1890 as Alberta Lucille Hart and was said to have identified as a boy from earliest memories. The FtM History site says this about him, “He transitioned in 1917 after graduating from medical school in Portland, Oregon. He had his surgery in 1918 and changed his name. Soon after, he married and started a medical practice. His second marriage in 1925 lasted until the end of his life. Alan published five books, including four novels and a text on his medical specialty (radiology). He had successful medical practices in Tacoma, Washington and Hartford, Connecticut. He lived as male successfully for many years without hormones till late in his life when male hormones became available.“

Obviously, this is not a new phenomenon, hatched up only in the last 20 years, as so many people would like to think. This has roots back before there were hormones, and  a Harry Benjamin Standards of Care. It apparently has roots way, way back to the time of queen Hapshetsut. (But that is another story…) Perhaps going back further than that. My point is that if this was just a thing of the mind, or a feeling, would it have been so prevalent before there were any media attention about it? Or was the media attention a result of so many people identifying as the opposite gender from what they were born as? One would never know, but can only speculate. It gives cause to think, doesn’t it?

“There is nothing new under the sun.” A very old saying that may have some ring of truth to it. In every generation, there has always been people who were born to break the rules of strict gender roles. And there have always been people who don’t care what those roles are, and will do what they want to do, or feel that they need to do. Though this seems a new oddity in our culture, this has really been going on for millenia; only, not many people knew about it, nor did they understand what this really was. Female-bodied individuals always have “infiltrated” the “men’s” world by dressing in male clothing, and living as men. Today, this would be classified as “Gender Identity Disorder”. Then, it was just a woman living as a man. Or, more as was the case, a man living a normal life, then found out at death, or during a medical physical.

Every Monday, I will be posting the profile of a notable FTM transgender man that have made notable contributions to the world throughout history. Not much is known of these heroic individuals before the medieval period, but even in ancient times, there have been female bodied individuals who have lived as men, identified as men, and have transitioned, as best as possible, to presenting as men. For example, the Roman author, Pliny, witnessed one such transition and wrote that, “A transformation of females to males is not an idle story.” Apparently, this was known about long before there were any standards of care, or rules, or laws about Transgender issues. Generations before this, in fact. Not much is said, however, about theses courageous people before sometime in the 16^th century.

One such individual was Dr. James Berry, born Miranda Stuart in 1795. He entered medical school as a boy at the age of ten, then went on to become the first doctor to perform the first successful Caesarean section, where both the mother and child lived. He also served in the military, going on to become the Inspector-General of the British Army Medical Corps. He died in 1865, where it was found that he was anatomically female. However, this was denied by his medical colleagues. Gee—I wonder why?

Click here to learn more about FTM HIStory.