Rachel Weisz to play real-life "gender-fluid" Victorian doctor

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Rachel Weisz is to play Dr James Barry, the mysterious figure who was a high-achieving medical doctor in the all-male profession in the first half of the 19th century, but who was identified as a woman after dying of dysentery in 1865.

Based on Rachel Holmes’s book The Secret Life of Dr James Miranda Barry: Victorian England’s Most Eminent Surgeon, this is due to be the first feature on the subject. Barry was born Margaret Ann Bulkley in Cork, Ireland, in about 1790, but then gained a place at Edinburgh’s celebrated medical school after adopting a male disguise. 

Barry rose to the position of inspector general, HM Army Hospitals, after spells serving in British colonies in South Africa, the West Indies and St Helena. Also recorded is a posting to the Crimea in the 1853-56 war, during which Barry had a ferocious argument with Florence Nightingale.

Barry’s gender remains a subject of controversy, with speculation around a sexual relationship with Lord Charles Somerset (over which Barry fought a duel), governor of the Cape Colony, and questions as to whether Barry identified as male, adopted the identity in order to succeed, was gender-fluid or intersex.

Source

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This article and other outlets that are talking about this keep referring to Dr Barry as 'gender fluid' or implying that they were dressing as a man to disguise their femininity, and that's incredibly problematic. This person, in all the evidence we have of their life, lived as a man and died as a man, and asked to be buried in the clothes that they died in. We surely don't know how they chose to identify, but implying that they lived the way they did was disingenuous and a means of disguising their identity is sad. I'm really not feeling this trend of media picking and choosing which types of trans people to feature in their movies. 

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25 minutes ago, QUINN said:

This article and other outlets that are talking about this keep referring to Dr Barry as 'gender fluid' or implying that they were dressing as a man to disguise their femininity, and that's incredibly problematic. This person, in all the evidence we have of their life, lived as a man and died as a man, and asked to be buried in the clothes that they died in. We surely don't know how they chose to identify, but implying that they lived the way they did was disingenuous and a means of disguising their identity is sad. I'm really not feeling this trend of media picking and choosing which types of trans people to feature in their movies. 

Ngl, I was ready to come in here and clock you for (what I thought) was you erasing gender-fluid people. Idek why I thought that considering you've always been one of the most conscious members here  

 

But I agree with you entirely, the media (particularly Hollywood) can't wrap their heads around gender identity and sexual orientation. It still angers me that so much of our trans representation in films is portrayed by cis people. Not too mention the recent mainstream fetishisation of transgender, and the longtime fetishism of homosexuality. I could talk for DAYS about this bullshit  

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2 minutes ago, KILLS said:

Ngl, I was ready to come in here and clock you for (what I thought) was you erasing gender-fluid people. Idek why I thought that considering you've always been one of the most conscious members here  

 

But I agree with you entirely, the media (particularly Hollywood) can't wrap their heads around gender identity and sexual orientation. It still angers me that so much of our trans representation in films is portrayed by cis people. Not too mention the recent mainstream fetishisation of transgender, and the longtime fetishism of homosexuality. I could talk for DAYS about this bullshit  

I was gonna change the title, but I figured keeping it as it was written would make their failure a little more obvious. 

It's really unfortunate that the people that are creating these movies are "socially aware" enough to understand that people want to see more stories about trans people, but they're completely out of their element in the execution, or even in grasping the stories that they're telling. The fact that they keep taking actual historical trans people and diluting their stories in a way that makes them palatable for the GP is so damaging. It's like a strange, 21st century version of black face.

[Enigma 984]

6 hours ago, QUINN said:

I was gonna change the title, but I figured keeping it as it was written would make their failure a little more obvious. 

It's really unfortunate that the people that are creating these movies are "socially aware" enough to understand that people want to see more stories about trans people, but they're completely out of their element in the execution, or even in grasping the stories that they're telling. The fact that they keep taking actual historical trans people and diluting their stories in a way that makes them palatable for the GP is so damaging. It's like a strange, 21st century version of black face.

I've never thought of it that way, and you're right in a way. It's just pathetic really, it's not hard to love.