Dr James Miranda Barry

@CountFosco it's like certain people are trying to paint her mother, Mary-Ann Bulkley, as a Regency Susie Green.

Her wiki states, "A conspiracy appears to have developed between Barry, Mary-Ann Bulkley and some of the late James Barry's influential, liberal-minded friends (General Francisco de Mirandaa^, Dr Edward Fryerr^, who had become Barry's personal tutor, and Daniel Reardon, the family's solicitor) to enable the teenage Barry to enter medical school". Do they really think that all those people would have known about and supported transition because of "feels"? Or was the plan cooked up because she couldn't find a position as a tutor (probably because she was a woman!) which was the original plan? I think the fact that she likely had a child at that stage who needed financial support along with her own mother and sister only adds weight to the fact that this seemed like the best way to make decent money when women had incredibly limited opportunities open to them.

I'm tempted to email the publisher in support of the author.

I saw the twitter thread this morning. It looked to me like the author had walked in to something she hadn't been expecting. It seems unlikely the publisher didn't realise that using the she pronoun would make them enemy number one of the trans rights twitter crowd - but maybe its possible.
I didn't know anything about Dr Barry. A look on Google scholar suggests some recent academic publishing has used she. But obviously Barry has been claimed as an ancestor of trans people rather than of female doctors.

It's so frustrating that we now can't celebrate women's inventiveness to get around restrictions imposed on them in the past, we need to ignore all of that female ingenuity and talk only about how they were trans and MEN and so their actual accomplishments are no big deal.

my recollection is that it was almost family decision that she should masquerade as a man in order to attend medical school

Yes, there was nothing in her childhood to suggest she struggled with her 'gender identity' and it was a letter from a family solicitor that conclusively proved the link between the girl and the man. Really interesting story actually (didn't know about it until I read Jenni Murrey's 21 women then googled furiously, all the trans stuff now on Wiki has been added fairly recently ).

In an area of Afghanistan some girls pretend to be boys when they're growing up as they can earn money for their families that way. Or are all these girls actually trans and pretending to be boys because of their feelz 🙄

So many of those twitter posters openly admitting they know nothing about Dr Barry but he was a he dammit!

Indeed they do. Fans of other kinds of fantasy and science fiction call that retcon, or retrospective continuity. Can't make the facts fit your current view of the world? Reinterpret known history and impose your opinions anachronistically. We're all susceptible to it, but some of the AWAs make it an art form.

Trying to apply the modern concept of transgender to a person who lived centuries ago

TRAs would argue that transgender people have existed across cultures, since the beginning of time...

Let's not forget how transgender extremists usually react if gender-critical feminists say, "the first transwoman to do X is actually a man".

The transgender extremists shout "T**F die in a fire!" and rape threats.

Trying to apply the modern concept of transgender to a person who lived centuries ago, using e.g. Stonewall's current ultra-inclusive definition, is nothing more than wishful thinking by people who are desperate to claim role models or heroic figures to support their cause. It's a type of "what if" fantasy history.

Obviously, I never met Dr. Barry nor any of their family, friends or associates. All I can give is my opinion: Dr. Barry was a woman who adapted her behaviour to succeed in a role that women were not allowed to do under normal circumstances. I think the social restrictions imposed on women during Dr. Barry's lifetime make it more likely that she was not transgender in the "man trapped in a woman's body" style. I have no idea if my opinion matches the actual truth of Dr. Barry's situation, but the same applies to the people trying to trans Dr. Barry.

Even if women were able to practice medicine at the time (I think it was about 100 years too early, maybe more), no woman would have been have been able to join the military and rise to such a high rank. At her death she was the second highest rank possible for a doctor in the army, which would have come with a nice salary and status which were unavailable to her as a woman.

Also, given how women were treated at the time (Barry was raped at age 12 by her uncle and had a daughter at age 13, and her family faced being evicted from their home when she was still a girl) it's absolutely understandable why she pretended to be a man all her life. Any woman with the intelligence and opportunity to do so would make that decision I think.

What TRAs are saying that this woman, who achieved so much, must have had a male brain/soul... she couldn't have been a woman. Which is actually quite insulting.

From the Twitter thread: There were plenty of places it was legal for women to practice medicine in the 19th century

I don't believe this to be true - does anyone know different?

Dr Barry was an amazing person who did what she had to do in order to provide for her family (her father had died leaving her mother and at least one sister iirc) and succeed in the profession she had chosen. There was an article on this book in the Spectator a while ago, and my recollection is that it was almost family decision that she should masquerade as a man in order to attend medical school. This was borne from necessity, not wokeness or a desire to be a man.

The posters on that twitter thread would do well to look at someone like Pili Hussein for a modern day example, not the Blue haired crew.

Ok, that's an annoying article, thewitchofwentworth.

It's obviously not unheard of for a lesbian to be married. I made the choice to get married to a man myself when I still thought I was a lesbian, because I was convinced religiously that my sexuality was sinful and I hoped that marriage would solve that. I've since realized that actually, there are men I'm attracted to, and therefore I'm not going to claim to be lesbian, I must be bisexual. It's nonsense to cling to a label that is manifestly not true. I mean, ok, you found just one man in the sea of men who you fell in love with. I'm happy for you. But stop pretending you're a lesbian. It would be like me claiming to be an atheist, even though I discovered there was one God I did believe in.

hackmum sounds about right.

While the author is correct on this occasion she has written a lot of nonsense before. For example,

www.salon.com/2014/07/29/im_a_lesbian_marrying_a_man/

George Elliott will be next.

Isn't this just another way of writing women out of history?

Ever since the 1980s, feminist historians have done sterling work in seeking out and drawing attention to many notable women whose lives have just been written out of the record book by male historians.

Now those male historians have found a novel way of erasing those women: by retrospectively transing them. I guess the patriarchy will always find a way.

what a bunch of whiners!

There’s no way to prove whether Dr Barry identifies as male or female. The only certainty is that James presented as male in order to be allowed to be a doctor. Apparently the autopsy showed evidence of having given birth, and there were accusations of homosexual affairs, which suggests that Dr Barry had relationships with males.

And the bit I missed there is the fact that if her friends believed her to be male, there would be no reason to suggest she travel to Latin America.

The only reason to suggest the trip was because they knew she was a woman.

This can only mean she was actually, really and truly, a man, because there was no reason for a woman to want to stay in her own country and not travel to a completely different country.

Well, of course Floral. After all, why wouldn’t she be keen to leave home, friends and family in order to undertake a lengthy sea journey to a foreign country where she had no connections and didn’t speak the language.

Oh yeah. And the first woman to graduate from medical school in Venezuela didn’t do so until 1936, so colour me dubious about the openly practicing medicine in Venezuela thing.

The first female Latin American doctor didn’t graduate until 1834, by which time Dr Barry was already 42 and well on in her career.

Do people making these ridiculous claims never stop and check their facts?