Michael Dillon

Michael Dillon
Dillon in the Merchant Navy
Born	(1915-05-01)1 May 1915 Kensington, England
Died	15 May 1962(1962-05-15) (aged 47) Dalhousie, India
Other names	Sramanera Jivaka Lobzang Jivaka
Known for	First trans man to undergo phalloplasty

Laurence Michael Dillon (1 May 1915 – 15 May 1962) was a British doctor and author, and the first transgender man to undergo phalloplasty.^[1]: vii Dillon was an early user of masculinising hormone replacement therapy and one of the first recorded recipients of a double mastectomy for the purpose of gender reassignment. His 1946 book Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology is considered a pioneering work in the field of transgender medicine. As a surgeon, he performed an orchidectomy on Roberta Cowell, the first British trans woman to receive male-to-female sex reassignment surgery.

His transition became a subject of public attention when it affected his listing as the heir presumptive for the Dillon baronetcy of Lismullen in Ireland. He later moved to India and became devoted to Buddhism, changing his name to Lobzang Sramanera and then to Lobzang Jivaka. Between 1960–1962, he wrote four books on Buddhism, including Imji Getsul: An English Buddhist in a Tibetan Monastery. His autobiography Out of the Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions was completed in 1962, and published in 2017.

Early life[edit]

Dillon was born on 1 May 1915 in Ladbroke Gardens, Kensington.^[2] Assigned female at birth, he was the second child of Robert Arthur Dillon (1865–1925), a Royal Navy Lieutenant and heir to the baronetcy of Lismullen in Ireland.^[3][4] His Australian mother, Laura Maud McCliver (née Reese)^[5] (1888–1915), died of sepsis when he was less than two weeks old.^[2][4] Robert Arthur Dillon suffered from alcoholism and was forced to leave the Navy. He was unable to look after Michael Dillon and his older brother Robert 'Bobby' William Charlier Dillon, so the children were raised by their two paternal aunts, Toto and Daisy, in Folkestone, Kent.^[3][4] The children's aunts lived in economic hardship which was self-imposed due to their prudent financial practices.^[6]

Robert Arthur Dillon died in 1925, making his son Bobby the immediate heir to the baronetcy of Lismullen. Less than a month later, the current baronet—Sir John Fox Dillon—also died, thereby passing the title onto Bobby, who at the time was eleven years old.^[4][7] With the title, Bobby inherited the family estate in County Meath where he and his sibling would spend their holidays over the coming years.^[4]

Michael Dillon was educated at Brampton Down Girls' School.^[3] He enjoyed learning about theology and spirituality, a passion he would retain throughout his life.^[8][9] He was brought up in the Church of England and had close relationships with the local vicars. He later recalled that one in particular, Reverend Watkins, helped him further his philosophical knowledge and practice.^[10] Dillon also enjoyed sports and masculine-oriented activities.^[4][8] Later in his life, he claimed that as a child and teenager, he never thought of himself as a girl.^[6] He recalled a particular incident from his teenage years when a boy held open a gate for him and he realised for the first time that others perceived him as a woman, which jarred with how he felt internally.^[4]

Education at Oxford[edit]

Dillon was encouraged by the local vicar to study theology at Oxford. In 1934, he enrolled in the Society of Oxford Home Students (now St Anne's College, Oxford).^[6] Dillon initially had ambitions of becoming a Deaconess post-graduation, but decided to switch his course to Greats, also known as Classics.^[2] At university, Dillon discovered a passion for rowing. He became the president of the Oxford University Women's Boat Club and fought for greater recognition of the women's sport and increased parity between men's and women's rowing.^[3][4] At the time, women's rowing involved rowing downstream, unlike the men, and the women wore clothing unsuitable for more strenuous action.^[4] The women's teams did not race against each other but rowed in turn and were timed.^[6] Dillon reversed these practices as captain and he achieved blues in 1935 and 1936. His advancement of the women's sport gained him press attention, and he featured in a Daily Mail article in November 1937 titled "How unlike a woman!"^[4]

Whilst at Oxford, Dillon began to question his gender identity more intently. He continued to feel as if he were not a woman.^[3] This led him to present more masculine; he began smoking a pipe and riding a motorcycle.^[2] He confided in a close friend who helped him buy men's clothing and took him to boxing matches where women were not allowed.^[4] Despite the difficulties of having to live as a woman whilst not feeling like one, there is evidence to suggest that Dillon remembered his time at Oxford fondly, later describing himself as an "Oxford man".^[11] He graduated in 1938 with a third.^[3]

Bristol and initial gender transition[edit]

After graduation from Oxford, Dillon began working as a laboratory assistant in Stapleton, Bristol.^[6] The work involved dissection of brains which fostered his growing interest in the connection between the mind and the body.^[3] At this time, Dillon heard about the work of Doctor George Foss who was experimenting with the recently synthesised hormone testosterone; initially intended to ease severe menstrual symptoms in female patients, the drug caused masculinising side effects.^[4] Dillon approached Foss and asked to be prescribed the hormone for personal use. Foss was willing to help Dillon on the condition that he spoke to a psychiatrist first.^[6] After this condition was fulfilled, Foss began to worry that he would be called up to fight in World War II and thus leave Dillon's treatment unfinished, so he provided Dillon with testosterone pills to try out on himself.^[12] Although Dillon had only confided in Foss and the psychiatrist about his desire to experience the masculinising effects of testosterone, the psychiatrist betrayed his trust and told another doctor in the lab Dillon worked at. He felt forced to leave that job after more colleagues found out and gossiped about him.^[13]

Dillon moved from the outskirts into the city of Bristol. His desire to be a man and uncertainty on what profession to pursue restricted his job opportunities,^[8] and he ultimately found employment as a petrol pump attendant at College Motors, a garage.^[6][14] Whilst at the garage, Dillon continued to self-administer testosterone. He faced frequent taunting from his colleagues who would inform customers about how Dillon was a woman who wanted to be a man.^[4][15] Over the four years he spent at the garage, Dillon's physical transition became more apparent and he was able to present more confidently as a man. Eventually, his gender was accommodated by the garage staff and customers would immediately assume he was male.^[6] It was whilst working at the garage that Dillon started using the name Michael.^[3] He felt more accepted after volunteering to become the garage's firewatcher during heavy bombing of Bristol during the Second World War.^[4] Whilst working as a firewatcher, Dillon wrote his first book Self: a study in ethics and endocrinology. Written from the perspective of a neutral third party, the book argues for greater empathy for patients who wish to change their sex and advocated for a patient-informed basis of treatment whilst not revealing Dillon's own personal interest in the matter.^[4][16] Despite the growing acceptance of his gender Dillon later recounted that he did not enjoy his time at the garage, describing it as "The Darkest of Days".^[14]

Dillon suffered from hypoglycaemia and sometimes ended up in hospital. During one admission to Bristol Royal Infirmary in 1942, he received a double mastectomy from a sympathetic plastic surgeon.^[a] The surgeon encouraged Dillon to legally change his name and sex, and informed him of the work of renowned surgeon Harold Gillies.^[4][17] Gillies was a surgeon who had become well-known partly for his pioneering surgeries on intersex patients and injured soldiers which included reconstructing penises.^[4] Dillon contacted him that same year about possible similar treatments for himself.^[18] Dillon officially changed his name to Laurence Michael Dillon in 1944.^[3] He was able to change his birth certificate with a medical certificate authorised by a doctor and a family member—his cousin.^[18]

Trinity College and surgeries[edit]

Whilst working at College Motors, Dillon's interest in medicine had grown through research on hormones and sexuality and his correspondence with Gillies. In 1945, after completing initial training at Bristol’s Merchant Venturer’s Technical College, he enrolled in Trinity College Dublin to study medicine. Dillon was able to enrol under his new name thanks to assistance from a former oxford tutor who changed the university records to show that Dillon had studied at Brasenose College, which only accepted male students at the time.^[4]

Gillies was willing to perform a phalloplasty on Dillon, but only after World War II had concluded.^[4] At the time, the standard medical view of gender-affirming surgery was that it amounted to a mutilation of a healthy body. Gillies, however, believed that performing such surgeries was necessary and morally correct if it brought happiness to the patient. Dillon shared this belief, believing that patients should have the agency to decide if the "mutilation" would end their psychological distress.^[19] Because operations to change gender were deemed controversial,^[18] Gillies falsified Dillon’s condition in order to be able to perform surgery without scrutiny, diagnosing Dillon with acute hypospadias.^[20][b] From 1946, during his holidays from medical school, Dillon travelled to visit Gillies at Rooksdown House in Basingstoke for a series of surgeries.^[3] The phalloplasty involved using flaps of skin from Dillon's legs and stomach to form a penis. The surgeries led to infections and difficulty walking, which Dillon would falsely claim were wounds suffered during the bombing raids of Bristol.^[4]

At Trinity Dillon again became a distinguished rower, this time for the men's team. He achieved a blue, therefore being very likely the first person to have won blues as both a man and a woman.^[4] Dillon was reported to be misogynistic and was careful to avoid advances with women, later reporting that he felt it was unfair to court women if he was not able to have children with them.^[21] He felt great comfort, however, in knowing that he could be in public and automatically perceived as a male by passers-by. While his aunts grew to accept him as a male, his brother Bobby never would, and Bobby forbade Dillon from revealing his relation to the baronetcy.^[4]

Roberta Cowell[edit]

In 1946 Dillon published Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology, a book about what would now be called transsexuality, though that term would not be introduced into the English language until 1949, when David Oliver Cauldwell introduced the word directly based on Magnus Hirschfeld's coinage (in German) of the term Transsexualismus in 1923. Dillon described "masculine inverts" as being born with "the mental outlook and temperament of the other sex", using Stephen Gordon in the 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness as an example. Since this form of "inversion" was asserted to be innate, as a hidden physical condition similar to intersex, Dillon said it could not be affected by psychoanalysis and should instead be treated medically. "Where the mind cannot be made to fit the body," he wrote, "the body should be made to fit, approximately at any rate, to the mind."^[22]

Self brought him to the attention of Roberta Cowell, on whom he would perform an operation to help her become the first British trans woman to receive male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. After a period of correspondence, they first met in 1950 while Dillon was studying at Trinity.^[4] Despite the operation being illegal under British law and his not being a qualified medical practitioner, Dillon operated on Cowell to perform an orchiectomy (removal of the testicles). Dillon had also developed a strong romantic interest in Cowell, but she rejected his advances after he performed the operation. Dillon also introduced Cowell to Gillies, who then performed a vaginoplasty for Cowell.^[23]

Medical career and Merchant Navy[edit]

Dillon graduated from Trinity in 1951 and began working as a physician in a north Dublin hospital.^[24] Dillon learnt from the holistic care he had received at Rooksdown House and decided to implement some of the elements in his own workplace: these included taking the patients on picnic trips, installing a library, providing patients with personal radios, and practicing occupational therapy.^[4] In 1952, he started working as a doctor for the Merchant Navy and worked at sea until 1958.^[6][3] Throughout his career he took contracts for P&O, British India Steam Navigation Company and the China Navigation Company.^[3][4] As a doctor in the Merchant Navy, Dillon experienced privilege and high social status with his own cabin and servant. Lau and Partridge write that it was whilst in the Navy that Dillon’s entrenched imperialist and xenophobic views became more apparent. He did, however, write about his experiences of seeing racial integration at The Mission to Seafarers and feeling the injustice of exploitation of people in India. Dillon also tried to escape his prior conditioning by reading widely, including the works of George Gurdjieff, Peter Ouspensky, Tuesday Lobsang Rampa.^[25] Dillon discovered that Rampa, author of The Third Eye, lived in Dublin and decided to visit him for a fortnight in 1957 to seek mentorship in Buddhism.^[26] Although Rampa was later discovered to be a fraud, Dillon maintained that he had learned a lot from him.^[4][6] Dillon was inspired to spend time in India to pursue the religion further.^[27]

In early 1958, Dillon’s ship stopped in Calcutta and Dillon used this as an opportunity to explore Buddhism further. He travelled to Bodh Gaya to visit the Mahabodhi Temple, where he met Dhardoh Rimpoche. Although Dillon was not initially interested in converting to Buddhism, he started to feel at home in the culture.^[28] Rimpoche urged Dillon to visit Kalimpong the next time he came to India.^[4]

Outing in the press[edit]

Since he joined the Merchant Navy, Dillon had not had to explain his gender transition to any new acquaintances and he was living fully as a man.^[29] In 1953, he decided to request to change his name in the Debrett's and Burke's Peerage genealogical guides, which still listed his old name and sex in the Dillon baronetcy lineage. Dillon, now officially the brother of the Baronet Lismullen rather than the sister, became the immediate heir to the baronetcy.^[4] In May 1958, news of Dillon’s past life as a woman was uncovered in the press. A discrepancy had been discovered between the two peerage books: Debrett’s had recorded Dillon’s current name, but his old name and sex was included in the Burke's.^[6] Dillon's ship had docked at Baltimore when he received a cable from the Daily Express, asking whether he intended to claim his aristocratic title since his "change-over".^[29] Dillon told the press that he was a male born with a severe form of hypospadias and had undergone a series of operations to "correct" the condition after he began to display masculine features.^[30] The editor of Debrett's told Time magazine that Dillon was unquestionably next in line for the baronetcy, saying: "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."^[31] Dillon found the sudden reveal of his transition distressing and retreated from his colleagues for ten days after the news broke.^[32] He felt that he needed to travel to India and remain there for a few years in order to let the negative attention subside.^[33]

Buddhism[edit]

Theravada Buddhism[edit]

When Dillon's ship travelled back to India, he stayed in the country and travelled to Kalimpong, as suggested by Rimpoche.^[4] When Dillon returned to visit Rimpoche, however, he found that the monk was unwilling to meet him. This was due to an incident involving a former Catholic nun, who had been ordained by Rimpoche, making sexual assault allegations against monks and laymen and allegedly was spying on people for the Communists. Because of this, Rinpoche was unwilling to admit any other Europeans into the monastic order.^[34] Rimpoche suggested that Dillon stayed at a monastery of the Theravada tradition which was directed by an English monk named Sangharakshita.^[4] Dillon informed Sangharakshita of the teaching he had received from Lobsang Rampa, which made the monk perceive Dillon as gullible. Dillon and Sangharakshita did not get on well; the monk found it difficult to teach Dillon, and Dillon thought he was being over-charged for his education in the religion.^[35] Despite their disagreements, Dillon revealed the details of his transition to Sangharakshita and the reason that he left the Navy. Dillon assumed that this information was under strict secrecy, but Sangharakshita later claimed that this was not the case. Wanting to avoid the difficulty that came with his current identity, Dillon decided to change his name. He was given the name Jivaka by Sangharakshita—the same name as the Buddha's doctor.^[36][4]

Jivaka stayed for a period at the Theravada Vihāra in Sarnath.^[35] For the first few months there, he was unable to access the library or read the dharma. It was only when Sangharakshita left on business that he was able to access the materials.^[36] While Sangharakshita was away, Jivaka decided he wanted to ordain as a novice monk (a samanera). Although feeling uncomfortable with the situation, knowing that Jivaka had been born a woman, Sangharakshita initially did not intervene.^[35] Jivaka decided to leave the monastery as he found the environment, full of young children, to be difficult, and he found Sangharakshita to be unsupportive of his ambitions.^[36]

Jivaka assumed a life of poverty and gave away his estate of £20,000,^[c] consisting of savings and inheritance, to charity and the people he deemed most in need.^[37] He also renounced his peerage.^[38] He was interested in pursuing higher ordination but learnt that the Theravada tradition did not allow anyone from the so-called ‘third sex’ to ordain.^[4] Jivaka’s interpretation was that he should not be stopped from ordaining. He wrote to Sangharakshita to explain his reasoning and informing him of his upcoming ordination, but the monk did not share his views.^[39] When Sangharakshita found out about Jivaka’s intentions to further pursue ordination as a bhikkhu, he wrote to the monks at the Vihāra and told them Jivaka used to be a woman. He decided he should let the monks make the final decision on whether Jivaka could be ordained, and they ultimately forbade Jivaka's ordination.^[40] Jivaka's essay A Critical Study of the Vinaya, published by the Sarnath Maha Bodhi Society in 1960, does not reveal Jivaka’s own personal experiences of discrimination but argues for greater acceptance of “deformed people”, “hermaphrodites” and eunuchs, who were not allowed to be ordained. Jivaka argued that Buddhism was meant to be a religion of tolerance and that people who were in some way disabled had a lot to offer to the religion. José Ignacio Cabezón writes that “there is no question that A Critical Study of the Vinaya is in part biographical”.^[41]

Tibetan Buddhism[edit]

Following this setback, Jivaka turned to the Tibetan branch of Buddhism. In Sarnath, he became the first European to be ordained as a Tibetan novice monk (a getsul). The senior monk there, Denma Locho Rinpoche, did not see Jivaka’s transition as an issue and instilled hope of full ordination.^[42] Jivaka next decided to travel to the Gelug Rizong Monastery in Ladakh. Because Ladakh was an area disputed between India and China, prolonged access to the area by foreigners required a specific permit.^[43] He got in touch with a diplomat there, and in 1960 was granted both entry and ordination as a novice into the Rizong Monastery—the first person from the West to do so.^[39] Despite his low rank as a monk, he was granted entry into the monastery’s library.^[4] Jivaka felt welcomed and secure at the monastery, writing that he felt "at home among strangers who were no strangers at all.^[44][43] Despite this, Jivaka struggled to afford food and was often on the verge of starvation.^[3]

Jivaka was not able to renew his visa and had to leave the Rizong monastery after three months. He returned to Sarnath and published two books, including Imji Gestul, which recounted his residency at the monastery.^[45] He wished to return to Ladakh, but without wanting to reveal his gender transition, he struggled to secure entry. He was accused by a communist newspaper of being a British spy, and a different newspaper revealed his transition, calling him a “lady-doctor”.^[4] Jivaka assumed that Sangahrakshita was behind the rumour. He wrote to the monk asking to be sent his incomplete autobiography, driven by a wish to write his life story in his own words.^[46]

Jivaka published Growing Up into Buddhism, a primer on Buddhist practice for teensagers, in 1960. Two additional books by him were published in 1962: The Life of Milarepa, about an 11th-century Tibetan yogi, and Imji Getsul.^[4]

Death and legacy[edit]

At the age of 47, Jivaka eventually passed away in Dalhousie, India, on 15 May 1962 according to the timeline in the appendix to his autobiography.^[1]: 236

After Dillon's death, his brother said he wanted to burn Dillon's unpublished autobiography,^[1]: 2 but the manuscript was saved by Dillon's literary agent and published as Out of the Ordinary in 2017.^[47]

Works[edit]

• Self: A Study in Endocrinology and Ethics (1946), as Michael Dillon
• Poems of truth (1957), as Michael Dillon
• Growing Up into Buddhism (1960) as Sramanera Jivaka Maha Bodhi Society of India, ASIN B0007JB4I6
• A Critical Study of the Vinaya (1960) as Sramanera Jivaka Maha Bodhi Society of India
• The Life of Milarepa (1962), as Lobzang Jivaka
• Imji Getsul: An English Buddhist in a Tibetan Monastery (1962), as Lobzang Jivaka
• Out of the Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions (1962; published 2016) as Michael Dillon / Lobzang Jivaka, Fordham University Press, ISBN 978-0823274802

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Sources[edit]

Books and chapters[edit]

• Cabezón, José Ignacio (2017). Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism. United States: Wisdom Publications. ISBN 9781614293507.
• Lau, Jacob; Partridge, Cameron (2017). ""In His Own Way, In His Own Time": An Introduction to Out of the Ordinary". Out of the Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions. By Dillon/Jivaka, Michael/Lobzang. Lau, Jacob; Partridge, Cameron (eds.). (First ed.). New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823280391.
• Stryker, Susan (2017a). Foreword. Out of the Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions. By Dillon/Jivaka, Michael/Lobzang. Lau, Jacob; Partridge, Cameron (eds.). (First ed.). New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823280391.
• Stryker, Susan (2017b). "Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka: A Timeline". Out of the Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions. By Dillon/Jivaka, Michael/Lobzang. Lau, Jacob; Partridge, Cameron (eds.). (First ed.). New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823280391.

Journals[edit]

• Anderson, Carol S. (1 August 2019). "More Questions than Answers in Out of the Ordinary". Transgender Studies Quarterly. 6 (3): 455–461. doi:10.1215/23289252-7549626.
• Collins, Aiden (March 2017). "Laurence Michael Dillon of Lismullen: World's first transsexual man". The British Journal of Psychiatry. 210 (3): 179. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.116.196642.
• Gailey, Nerissa; Brown, AD (2016). "Beyond either/or: Reading trans* lesbian identities". Journal of Lesbian Studies. 20 (1): 65–86. doi:10.1080/10894160.2015.1076233.
• Griffiths, David Andrew (17 January 2018). "Diagnosing Sex: Intersex Surgery and 'Sex Change' in Britain 1930–1955". Sexualities. 21 (3). doi:10.1177/1363460717740339.
• Lewis, Penny (20 December 2017). "The Lawfulness of Gender Reassignment Surgery". American Journal of Legal History. 76 (4): 392–416. doi:10.1093/jhmas/jrab037.

Newspapers[edit]

• Anonymous (1 July 1962). "The Three Tormented Lives of Dr Dillon". The Sydney Morning Herald. pp. 66, 71.
• Wordsworth, Christopher (13 April 1962). "Far Out And About". The Guardian. p. 8.

Websites[edit]

• Partridge, Cameron (2015) [2008]. "Dillon, Michael (1915-1962)" (PDF). glbtq.com.
• Taylor, Clare L. (23 September 2004). "Dillon, (Laurence) Michael". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/76743. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Ward, Lauren; Jones, Duncan. "Michael Dillon: A Biographical Exhibition". St Anne's College, Oxford. Retrieved 3 April 2024.
• White, Lawrence William; Evers, Liz (June 2023) [October 2009]. "Dillon, Michael". Dictionary of Irish Biography. doi:10.3318/dib.002610.v1.

Further reading[edit]

• Taylor, Clare L. "Dillon, (Laurence) Michael". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/76743. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Michael Dillon, The World's First Transsexual Man, Transgender Zone Media Archives.