Some Words on #TransDocFail by Our Founder
Posted on January 11, 2013 by Cheryl
http://www.cheryl-morgan.com/?p=15749Yesterday I went up to London to read a book by Michael Dillon. If you've not heard of him, Dillon is the first recorded instance of medically-assisted female-to-male gender transition. Dillon, an Irishman, began his treatment in 1939 while living in Bristol. Later he trained as a doctor and is believed to have assisted with the gender surgery for Roberta Cowell, a British trans woman. The American, Christine Jorgensen, who is generally lauded as the world's first transsexual, did not have her surgery until a year after Cowell.
Dillon's influence, however, goes far beyond these pioneering surgeries. During his transition, he wrote a book, Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology. This is the book that I needed to go to the library of the Wellcome Trust to read. I have to admit that Dillon's prose is pretty turgid, though he was trying to write a medical treatise so perhaps that can be excused. However, there is no doubting the passion with which he argues on behalf of himself and people like him. In the light of the #TransDocFail controversy, I'd like to share a few quotes with you.
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"Surely, where the mind cannot be made to fit the body, the body should be made to fit, approximately, at any rate to the mind..."
And that is pretty much how trans people are treated to this day, using the same techniques of hormone treatment and plastic surgery that Dillon pioneered.
