#Michael Dillon

[queerasfact]

Happy birthday Michael Dillon!

Michael Dillon was born on the 1st of May in England in 1915.

While working nights as a fire watcher at a Bristol garage during the Blitz, Michael began reading texts on medicine, and endocrinology. In 1946 he published Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology which argued that an individual should have the final say over what medical treatment they underwent to affirm their gender identity. That same decade, he himself became the first trans man to undergo a phalloplasty.

Learn more

[Image: Michael Dillon in his merchant navy uniform]

[answersfromzestual]

We hear about the surgeon of the first phalloplasty procedure, but we don't hear about the man under the knife Laurence Michael Dillon, or Michael Dillon (article)

Pink News Article about Michael

Commonly known as Michael Dillion, he was born in 1915 London, but grew up in Iceland.

After graduating university in 1938, he began to transition, and was prescribed hormone tablets (testosterone).

After a horrible experience working (being misgendered and mocked), he found a plastic surgeon who performed his top surgery and allowed legally change his name, with the note of the surgeon.

Some time after his transition, he became a follower of Buddhism and settled in a Buddhist colony without anyone knowing he was transgender.

And that's just a tiny snippet of his amazing, yet tragically short, life.

Be sure to check out the amazing articles I have found on him!

Sources: https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/03/31/laurence-michael-dillon-trans-man/

https://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/life-here/library/blog/michael-dillon/

[boghermit]

Transphobes be like "she" and the "she" looks like this

[excelsian]

Also shout-out to Harold Gillies who in the 30s/40s performed the first phalloplasty by using specialized techniques developed by him and his staff during restorative surgeries in WWI.

And Michael Dillon who approached Sir Harold Gillies for it!

Hirschfeldes Institut layed the groundwork for such a treatment.

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

[thekotaroo]

Profiles of Pride: June 5th!  🏳️‍🌈Michael Dillon🏳️‍🌈

Laurence Michael Dillon (May 1st, 1915 - May 15th, 1962) was a British physician and the first trans man to undergo phalloplasty.

Dillon had long been more comfortable in men’s clothing and knew that he was not a woman. In 1939, he sought treatment from Dr. George Foss, who had been experimenting with testosterone to treat excessive menstrual bleeding; at the time, the hormone’s masculinizing effects were poorly understood. Foss provided Dillon with testosterone pills but insisted Dillon consult a psychiatrist first, who gossiped about Dillon’s desire to become a man, and soon the story was all over town. Dillon fled to Bristol and took a job at a garage. The hormones soon made it possible for him to pass as male, and eventually the garage manager insisted that other employees refer to Dillon as “he” in order to avoid confusing customers. Dillon was promoted to tow truck driver and doubled as a fire watcher during the Blitz.

Dillon suffered from hypoglycemia, and twice injured his head in falls when he passed out from low blood sugar. While he was in the Royal Infirmary recovering from the second of these attacks, he happened to come to the attention of one of the world’s few practitioners of plastic surgery. The surgeon performed a double mastectomy, provided Dillon with a doctor’s note that enabled him to change his birth certificate, and put him in contact with the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies.

Gillies had previously reconstructed penises for injured soldiers and performed surgery on intersex people with ambiguous genitalia. He was willing to perform a phalloplasty, but not immediately; the constant influx of wounded soldiers from World War II already kept him in the operating room around the clock. In the meantime Dillon enrolled in medical school at Trinity College, Dublin under his new legal name, Laurence Michael Dillon. A former tutor of Dillon’s persuaded the Oxford registrar to alter records to show that he had graduated from all-male Brasenose rather than the women’s college St Anne’s, so that his academic transcript would not raise questions. Again he became a distinguished rower — this time for the men’s team.

Gillies performed at least 13 surgeries on Dillon between 1946 and 1949. He officially diagnosed Dillon with acute hypospadias in order to conceal the fact that he was performing sex-reassignment surgery. Dillon, still a medical student at Trinity, blamed war injuries when infections caused a temporary limp. In what little free time he had he enjoyed dancing, but he avoided forming close relationships with women, for fear of exposure and in the belief that “One must not lead a girl on if one could not give her children.” He deliberately cultivated a misogynist reputation to prevent any such problematic attachments.

Dillon qualified as a physician in 1951 and initially worked in a Dublin hospital. He then spent the six years at sea as a naval doctor for P&O and the China Navigation Company.

Dillon had not revealed his own history in Self, but it came to light in 1958 as an indirect result of his aristocratic background. Debrett’s Peerage, a genealogical guide, listed him as heir to his brother’s baronetcy, while its competitor Burke’s Peerage mentioned only a sister, Laura Maude. When the discrepancy was noticed, he told the press he was a male born with a severe form of hypospadias and had undergone a series of operations to correct the condition. The editor of Debrett’s told Time magazine that Dillon was unquestionably next in line for the baronetcy: “I have always been of the opinion that a person has all rights and privileges of the sex that is, at a given moment, recognized.”

The unwanted press attention led Dillon to flee to India, where he spent time with Sangharakshita (Dennis Lingwood) in Kalimpong, and with the Buddhist community in Sarnath. While at Sarnath, Dillon decided to pursue ordination and became Sramanera Jivaka (after the Buddha’s physician). Because Sangharakshita refused to allow Jivaka full ordination, and other frustrations with Sangharakshita’s management of Triyana Vardhana Vihara, Jivaka turned to the Tibetan branch of Buddhism. He went to the Rizong Monastery in Ladakh. He was reordained a novice monk of the Gelukpa order, taking the name Lobzang Jivaka, and spent his time studying Buddhism and writing. Despite the language barrier he felt at home there, but was forced to leave when his visa expired. His health failed, and he died in a hospital at Dalhousie, India, on 15 May 1962, age 47.

After Dillon’s death, his brother said he wanted to burn Dillon’s unpublished autobiography, but the manuscript was saved by Dillon’s literary agent and published as Out of the Ordinary in 2017.

[chelestials]

nothing is more humbling when you’re watching an edit of your favorite actor and then the screen goes black and you see yourself on your screen basically thirsting over them

[stereax]

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Contact LBJerseys on Twitter or their site for more details.

If you can, please reblog this for exposure! Thanks!

[variousqueerthings]

modern phalloplasty and many of the tenets of modern vaginoplasty were co-invented by the man considered the father of modern plastic surgery, harold gillies (with support from trans man and all-around fascinating person michael dillon -- the latter gender affirming surgery was performed on famous spitfire pilot and racer, roberta cowell), a surgeon who specialised in reconstructing the faces and bodies of men who had had serious injuries in wwi and wwii. not all plastic surgery is done for the wrong reasons, and in fact its origins are deeply progressive and with the intention to help support and heal

On his work for Cowell and Dillon, he remarked: “If it gives real happiness, that is the most that any surgeon or medicine can give.”

NO you absolutely WANT your PLASTIC SURGERY procedures to be done by a PLASTIC SURGEON.

As in someone who is specifically trained in it and does it every day.

Someone who is not specifically trained in pleasing cosmetic results and not actively practicing pleasing cosmetic results is how you get horrifying cosmetic results

I cannot tell you how many episodes of Botched I've seen where someone with a mangled nose job says some shit like "My dentist did 2 for 1 rhinoplasty...."

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[lilyxlovelyy]

Dallas moterboating.Thats it.

[avese23]

Michael Dillon moment

I’ll be honest sometimes the urge to run away and become a monk is there but most monasteries don’t take trans men to my knowledge so that’s the major barrier holding me back from my desire to have a career where I can sit in a room praying and spreading gossip all day

[shiberamune]

send post

[acidvapz]

Bros going shopping 😋

(I'm back :3)

[ava0brx]

[alleeamore]

Not mine off tiktok 🎀 !!