Which historical trans man/doctor would win in a fight?
James Barry (1789 - 1865) and Alan L. Hart (1890 - 1962) were both doctors who were born female and chose to live as men for most of their lives. I feel no qualms about claiming they were both trans men, though they didn’t have those exact words. Hart was born a hundred years after Barry, and I was born a hundred years after Hart. It’s interesting to compare our experiences (would be more interesting if I was also a doctor, but alas).
If we are talking about both of them in their physical prime (both lived into their 70s), I would put my money on Barry winning in a fight. If we’re talking about them later in life, then Hart would have the advantage of synthetic testosterone (available after WWII) and just a lifetime of better healthcare. However, Barry seems to have had a much more combative temperament, and he was a surgeon in the British army. Not to stereotype, but Hart was a writer in addition to his medical practice, and was known for his sensitivity in treating TB, calling himself a "chest doctor" so patients wouldn't feel stigmatized. Both seem to have been of slight stature, so I think it would come down to experience. As a noted belligerent, who participated in duels and carried a rapier, I’d expect Barry to have more experience fighting.
I don’t want to praise Barry too much because he was definitely a colonizer. He might’ve advocated for better conditions for his indigenous patients around the British empire, but it doesn’t change my opinion that the British shouldn’t have been there to begin with. Bringing advanced medicine to the Global South has long been used as a justification for colonialism, but it was never the actual goal. Who knows how many Black and brown gender non-conforming people were doctors before their histories were erased by the British?
Hart is an easier guy to like in 2025. He did make a eugenics argument for his own hysterectomy in 1917, but he doesn’t appear to have been a eugenicist outside of that, so it seems like he was just trying to appeal to doctors of the time. He was the first person to use X-rays to detect tuberculosis, a technique that saved countless lives. Also, since he lived later, his life is better documented, though his letters and photographs were destroyed after his death, according to his wishes. He received early gender affirming care, and though he was still posthumously claimed by lesbians at one point, historians are less likely to misgender him now.
A world without trans people has never existed and never will.