Dr James Barry, the first doctor to perform a successful C section wherein both mother and child survived, was a huge champion of handwashing at a time when most doctors didn’t wash their hands. For this reason, many of the chilldbirths he delivered resulted in healthier babies and mothers. He was also a gay trans man, who specifically wrote that upon his death he wished for his body to be taken in its nightshirt, wrapped in his sheets as a shroud, and placed into the coffin so that nobody would see his body. His wishes were not respected, and as a result he was outed at his death.
i’ve also been informed he had a poodle. He named his poodle Psyche. I’d just like to congratulate him on being an excellent human being, who not only pioneered modern medicine but also had good taste in dogs. that is all.
If you’d like to know more there’s a delightful podcast out there called Sawbones that did an episode on him.
My least favorite fact about James Barry is that people hold him up as an example of a Powerful Woman, so dedicated to her desire to practice medicine that she spent her whole life as a man! What a pioneer!
Yes, we need to hear more about women in history, because there were thousands who made amazing contributions whose names we never learn.
But just…let us have our guy.
The fact that Barry wanted to be buried and remembered as a man, rather than taking satisfaction in going “HAHA I WAS A WOMAN THIS WHOLE TIME! SEE, WOMEN ARE JUST AS GOOD AS MEN!” Seems to strongly corroborate the fact that he was a trans man and not a “secret woman crossdressing for her career”, at least to me. It would be fantastic if those wishes could be respected in these days when trans people still face so much oppression for simply being who they truly are.
Dr James Barry should be lauded as a powerful, successful and skilled trans person and not as one of “history’s great women”.
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