Memoir of first transman to undergo SRS

[Mermoose]

I thought this was interesting. Short article about the memoir of Michael Dillon, born Laura Maud Dillon.
www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/ireland-s-remarkable-trans-pioneer-people-thought-i-was-a-woman-but-i-was-just-me-1.4577866

Dillon's Wikipedia page is interesting in that it mentions the editor of Debrett's listed Dillon as next in line for a baronetcy, which I think current law still does not allow for?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dillon

From the Irish Times article there's an insight into how gender dysphoric people may come to the conclusion that they should have been born the opposite sex:
Aware of his gender-nonconformity from a young age, Dillon crossed a threshold while walking with an acquaintance shortly before he left for Oxford, to study at St Anne’s College, which at the time was for women only. Dillon’s companion on the walk, the nephew of a local vicar, held a gate open for Dillon in a mannerly gesture. Dillon was immediately struck by a thought: He thinks I’m a woman. The moment underlined for Dillon the discordance between who he knew himself to be and how others perceived him. “People thought I was a woman,” he recalled, “but I wasn’t. I was just me.”

It's interesting that the last line is 'I was just me', not 'I was a man' - to me that sounds like Dillon had the belief that women were those people over there, who felt comfortable being treated a certain way, whereas Dillon was an individual, a self. Dillon's book on gender was called 'Self'.

“People thought I was a woman,” he recalled, “but I wasn’t. I was just me.”

What woman hasn't had this moment of insight at some point early in their life? That awful moment when you realise that you are not just a person, but that you are a woman and will be treated as such for the rest of your life. Although it's tempting to want to jump ship to avoid this awful realisation, I strongly believe it's better to come to terms with it, value it, cherish it and find a way instead to change the differential treatment of women by society.

alexyyy yes, I think most girls have to work out that the way women are represented is not really true of any woman. I wonder if this is something Dillon never realised. Interested now in reading 'Self' to see if that was the case.

When Dillon says the man who held the door thought Dillon was a woman, it sounds like Dillon was unhappy with stereotypes around being a woman. I think their reaction says more about their internal thoughts than the person holding the door’s view. I like to hold the door open for both men and women. I don’t think the men I do it for are women. It’s just courtesy.

I’d like to read Self too. From that article I get the impression Dillon was unhappy with what they saw as the limitations of being female and men’s view of women as perhaps weak and incapable.

Sad they died so young. No age at all.

I think most girls have to work out that the way women are represented is not really true of any woman.

By and large I can't think of a woman with whom I identified in MSM when I was growing up. The ones in film and TV were mostly stupid, incapable, slowed up story lines and were either faithless or loyal to the point of self-harm.

“ Dillon's Wikipedia page is interesting in that it mentions the editor of Debrett's listed Dillon as next in line for a baronetcy, which I think current law still does not allow for?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dillon”

It also mentions an older brother (and nothing about having a different father) so wouldn’t he have been the one in line anyway?

Ignore me, it says in line to the brother’s baronetcy, not their father’s

That is fascinating and horrifying in equal measure. I also followed the link to biog of Roberta Cowell which is an interesting mirror experience.

It's all there, so long ago. The deep rooted sexism is much less surprising given the era. The reckless experimental treatments. The appropriation of intersex conditions. The homophobia, again much more understandable in the social context of that time. The female identifying as "just me" - that's how I always felt, it took me the longest time to identify as feminist as woman just wasn't part of my self image.

@Mermoose

alexyyy yes, I think most girls have to work out that the way women are represented is not really true of any woman. I wonder if this is something Dillon never realised. Interested now in reading 'Self' to see if that was the case.

Yes! It's the meaning we make of experiences that is so important. I think that is exactly why extreme trans ideology is so damaging because it provides a ready made meaning that might be unhelpful at best and damaging at worst.

Dillon was immediately struck by a thought: He thinks I’m a woman. The moment underlined for Dillon the discordance between who he knew himself to be and how others perceived him. “People thought I was a woman,” he recalled, “but I wasn’t. I was just me.”

And Dillon thought the vicar's nephew was a man. Whereas no doubt the vicar's nephew also thought he was just himself - as does everybody.