Dr James Barry, the first doctor to perform a successful C section wherein both mother and child survived, was a huge champion of handwashing at a time when most doctors didn’t wash their hands. For this reason, many of the chilldbirths he delivered resulted in healthier babies and mothers. He was also a gay trans man, who specifically wrote that upon his death he wished for his body to be taken in its nightshirt, wrapped in his sheets as a shroud, and placed into the coffin so that nobody would see his body. His wishes were not respected, and as a result he was outed at his death.
i’ve also been informed he had a poodle. He named his poodle Psyche. I’d just like to congratulate him on being an excellent human being, who not only pioneered modern medicine but also had good taste in dogs. that is all.
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i thought this was fake but it’s not
here’s the sawbones episode about him
cis people
He was also reportedly quite the ladies’ man, and he’d apparently carried a child to term and gave birth.
he’s one of my favorite historical figures and ive read a lot on him including the biography Scanty Particulars by Rachel Holmes. a lot of the details of his life are difficult to figure out, partly cause he was very private and partly cause he had so many rumors surrounding him. here are some of my fave facts about him:
-he was very concerned with protecting poor people, women and people of color, aka all the people most of upper class british society at the time cared the least about. he worked to reform prisons and hospitals in south africa at risk to his own career, and also improved the conditions under which poor enlisted british soldiers and their families lived
-he was kind of a known hothead. he was rumored to have fought at least one duel (probably not true though). florence nightingale hated him even though they had similar ideas about medicine because they had such a clash of personalities in the brief time they worked together
-he was a vegetarian and took a goat with him on sea voyages so he could always have fresh milk
-even though he had an abrasive personality and made a lot of enemies, his patients, especially the women, really loved him because they felt like he knew what he was doing and actually cared about their health
-he died poor because the british army ripped him off >:/
edit i almost forgot the best thing. he didn’t just have one poodle named psyche. he had a bunch. when one died he would get a new poodle and name that one psyche too
You know sometimes I see those useless lesbian stories and I think to myself that can’t be true
Then I remember that before she asked me out my first gf kissed my cheek as a causal greeting, would always hold my hand in the hallway, gave me pet names such as “sweetums” and “babe,” would talk about how she wanted us to buy an apartement and raise a dog together in our twenties, one time literally straddled me and told me that she thought it was adorable that I was so flustered, like the list goes on and like,,, I still had absolutely NO IDEA that she liked me. And it wasn’t even that I was questioning if she liked girls because she was openly bi
Then when she asked me out I thought she was joking. Like. She had to do it again a week later, I was dating this girl for an entire goddamn week and I had no idea. And when she asked me out again, guess what? I STILL DIDN’T TAKE THE HINT!!!
Wanna know how I finally figured out that this girl I had a crush on for like almost a year at that point liked me? Because after she asked me out for the second time and we had our first kiss she said it was fun and we should do it again, so I told her to kiss me if she wanted to, so she did. Then she started making out with me. And. I still. Was not entirely 100% sure so. I stopped making out with this girl so we could have like a 5 minute “what are we” discussion. After she had already asked me out twice.
The real kicker? We had this discussion while she was not wearing a shirt. And I still felt like we had to have that conversation.
So yeah. If that can happen, I’m quite sure that someone could be on her 5th date with a girl and not know it. Like anythings possible for us lesbians at this point
Happy Pride Month Eleanor Roosevelt was queer, the Little Mermaid is a gay love story, James Dean liked men, Emily Dickinson was a lesbian, Nikola Tesla was asexual, Freddie Mercury was bisexual & British Indian, and black trans women pioneered the gay rights movement.
Florence Nightingale was a lesbian, Leonardo da Vinci was gay, Michelangelo too, Jane Austen liked women, Hatshepsut was not cisgender, and Alexander the Great was a power bottom
Freddie Mercury is well known for his attraction to men but was also linked to several women, including Barbara Valentin whom he lived with shortly before he died. Friends have talked about being invited into their bed and walking in on them having sex (documentary Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender)Â
Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are two of the best-known activists who fought in the Stonewall riots