Michael Dillon (1915 – 1962)

Michael Dillon was the world’s first person known to have successfully transitioned both hormonally and surgically from female to male. Born into an aristocratic Dublin family, he was raised mainly by aunts in Folkestone. During the 1930s his conviction strengthened that he was a man in a woman’s body. He graduated from St Anne’s College Oxford in 1938 and moved almost immediately to Bristol to work as a laboratory assistant then as radiographer at Stoke Park Colony, investigating brain injuries. He lodged with a family at 26 Bush Avenue, Stoke Gifford.

In 1939 he was given hormone treatment by Dr George Lush Foss, a doctor who had encountered the masculinising side-effects of testosterone in treating menstrual problems. Dr Foss practised as a GP from Cloud’s Hill House in St George. Foss insisted that Dillon first see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told friends and colleagues about Dillon’s condition, and the ensuing gossip forced him to leave Stoke Park. Foss therefore supplied testosterone but refused to take Dillon on as a patient. He took the name Michael, and attended the Merchant Venturers’ Technical College, while working as a mechanic at College Motors, Rupert Street. Considering the changes brought about by Dillon’s hormone therapy, the garage manager insisted that other staff treat him as male to avoid confusion. He served as a fire watcher during the Bristol Blitz and bravely saved the garage’s scarce stock of tyres from a burning building during a bombing raid.

In 1942, attending the Bristol Royal Infirmary for another reason, Michael met by chance a surgeon, probably Geoffrey Fitzgibbon who was a senior plastic surgeon. He performed Dillon’s double mastectomy. On June 10 1944 he had his birth certificate amended at Somerset House, changing ‘daughter’ to ‘son’ and his birth name to ‘Laurence Michael’, finally enabling his “escape from what had been a prison of darkness”. He then obtained new identity papers at Bristol Labour Exchange in Nelson Street. His brother, Sir Robert Dillon, was horrified and cut Michael out of his life.

At the end of the war, Fitzgibbon put him in touch with Sir Harold Gillies at Basingstoke, a pioneer in the development of plastic surgery to treat mutilated servicemen. Here Michael underwent a long process of surgical transition in 1946-9, whilst also studying medicine at Trinity College Dublin. Dillon published an autobiography, ‘Self: a study in ethics and endocrinology‘ in 1946. It presents a view on transgender medical care decades ahead of its time.

During his training he was contacted by Roberta Cowell, a trans woman who had read ‘Self’ and asked Dillon to assist her transition. Dillon, although not yet qualified as a surgeon, probably performed an orchidectomy (removal of the testicles) on Cowell. Dillon was in love with Cowell but she rejected his marriage proposal in 1951. During the 1950s he worked as a ship’s doctor, partly to escape publicity.

Dillon’s transgender status was disclosed by Sunday Express in May 1958. He disembarked at the next port in India, convinced he would never be able to lead a civilised or private life under the glare of publicity. Eventually he was ordained as a novice in a Buddhist monastery. After further ‘outings’ in Hindi newspapers, he wrote the manuscript of ‘Out of the Ordinary‘, hoping to tell his story on his own terms. Two weeks after completing the manuscript he died suddenly on his way to Kashmir, aged only 47 years old. It would take a further 55 years to be published in its entirety.

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References:
Michael Dillon, Self: A study in Ethics and Endocrinology (1946).
Liz Hodgkinson, Michael née Laura (1989)
Pagan Kennedy, The First Man-Made Man (2007).
St Anne’s College, Oxford: https://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/life-here/library/blog/l-m-dillon/
Cheryl Morgan, Bristol’s remarkable trans pioneer: Michael Dillon.

Andrew Foyle
Last edited: 26/2/2026