Michael Dillon (1915-1962)


  


Laurence Michael Dillon (born Laura Maud Dillon; 1 May 1915 – 15 May 1962 – The World’s First Transsexual Man

Dillon's mother died of sepsis ten days after giving birth. Dillon, then physically female and known as Laura, was raised with his older brother Bobby by their two aunts in the town of Folkestone in Kent, England. He received his undergraduate education at Oxford, where he was president of the Oxford University Women's Boat Club and won a University Sporting Blue award for rowing. After graduating he took a job at a research laboratory in rural Gloucestershire.Michael wanted nothing more than to be invisible, to be one of the guys.  Problem: he was born with a woman’s body and was more comfortable in men's clothing and felt that he was not truly 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. Everything he did toward realizing his humble dream — the cross-dressing, the hormones and surgeries and the chimera that resulted — pushed it further from his grasp. He went through life as the most visible sort of human being: a physical anomaly.

Self brought him to the attention of Roberta Cowell (born Robert Cowell), who would become the first British trans woman to receive male-to-female sex reassignment surgery.

Though Dillon was not yet a licensed physician, he himself performed an orchidectomy on Cowell, since British law made the operation illegal. Cowell's vaginoplasty was later performed by Gillies.

Michael fell in love with Roberta. Cowell was the only woman who might understand and even love him. Dillon had written an obscure book about hormones and transsexuality, which Cowell read. With Dillon’s help, Roberta could become Dillon’s modest fantasy: a woman to whom he could reveal his secret (“a semierect, mostly numb sexual organ that resembled a small party balloon”), and who might have him anyway.

Dillon had not revealed his own history , 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 in the Buddhist community in Sarnath.
Writing under both of his Buddhist names, Jivaka he published Growing Up into Buddhism, a primer on Buddhist practice for British children and teens, as well as A Critical Study of the Vinaya, which looks at the Buddhist rules for ordination and defeat. Both books were published in 1960. Additionally two books by him were published in London in 1962: The Life of Milarepa, about a famous 11th century Tibetan yogi, and Imji Getsul, an account of life in a Buddhist monastery.
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, Punjab, on 15 May 1962, aged 47.

Michael Dillon (Wikipedia)

Michael Dillon (Transgenderzone)

Michael Dillon NY Times

Michael Dillon  (Gendercentre) Hypoglykemie
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