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”.
This is a complex question, but I have a few minutes, so what the hell:
First and foremost, yes, I do believe there are more than two genders, just as there are more than two biological sexes. In my meager experience, rarely does anything or anyone fits into a neatly categorized binary.
In simplified terms, I define my bisexuality as being attracted to my own gender plus other genders. I really can’t imagine only being one gender exclusively, and in hindsight, a lot of my childhood crushes reflect this (even the ones I didn’t recognize as crushes at the time.)
To elaborate a little bit, I tend to be attracted to people on a person-to-person basis. I can’t quantify which gender I’m more attracted to, because it depends a lot on the person in question. In addition to physical attractiveness (I have a lot of really specific “types” I find attractive), personality and emotional depth plays a big part of it.
As such, I tend to be more attracted to fictional guys than I am real life guys, because they’re often more attractive and emotionally profound than most of the straight guys I know. Similarly, I tend to be more attracted to real life women than I am fictional women, because fictional women are less well-written and developed than the real women I know. But I have the potential to be attracted to people of any gender, provided I find that specific person sexually, romantically, and emotionally attractive.
The reason I don’t classify myself as pan (i.e. attracted to people regardless of gender), is because a person’s gender does make a difference to me in how my attraction towards them feels. I can’t explain it all that well, but feeling attracted to a guy, for example, is profusely different than being attracted to a girl, even though one isn’t necessarily less strong than the other. It’s just a different sensation.
Kids that young are essentially gender neutral, and are still being taught ‘gender norms’ by adults who should know better.
I have the world’s most precious nephew. When he was 3, he asked his mom and grandma if he could be a girl. Now, my family is smart. Both his mom and his grandma asked “why?” He said it was so he could have long hair.
His mom showed him photos of famous musicians with long hair, along with Johnny Depp. His grandma showed him photos of Brad Pitt, Troy Polamalu, and Jared Leto with long hair. Then they told him “Boys can have long hair, see?” He said “oh” and went on about his life being a boy.
When he was 4, this same nephew decided again that he wanted to be a girl. This time, the reason was so he could wear skirts and paint his nails. Same reaction: his mom and grandma showed him photos of men in kilts, and men with painted nails, and said “boys can do that, too.” He said “oh”, and decided he was okay being a boy.
At the root of it, he didn’t really want to be a girl. He just wanted to do the same things he saw his mama doing. When he understood he didn’t have to be a girl to do those things, he shrugged it off and was cool with being a boy.
Now, if he ever adamantly decides that he is a girl, not that he wants to be a girl, myself, his mom, and his grandma will be okay with that. We just want to make sure he actually is transgender instead of deciding “oh he wants to do these things, so he is a girl.” We are extremely firm believers in making educated decisions.
I feel that a transgender four year old is more like a cat who is vegan because the cat’s owner’s misunderstood the cat eating grass to mean it is vegan.
black sails at its very CORE is about putting homophobes in the fucking ground for having done you wrong & being able to survive countless battles and wars against all possible odds by sheer force of gay love alone. water also plays a big role in it
this is probably targeted toward transmasc people but i have a feeling this could apply to potentially every variety of trans person on the planet and thats incredible
sparksoffandommagic 