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Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
historical-nonfiction

A Puzzling Cold Case

In Ramsgate, a town on the coast of southeastern England, on September 20th, 1930, a mysterious murder occurred. At 6p.m., a 12-year-old girl was sent across the street to buy a blancmange powder (used to make jellies) from the neighborhood sweetshop. When the owner, 82-year-old Margery Wren, came to the door, the girl was shocked to see blood streaming down her face.

Wren was taken to the hospital and she suffered for five days before dying of her wounds. She had eight wounds and bruises on her face, and the top of her head had seven more. Wren gave multiple, conflicting statements including that she had fallen over the fire tongs, that a man had attacked her with the tongs, that he had a white bag, that it was another man with a red face, that it had been two men, and that it had been an accident.

Note these were all made to people other than the police – Wren refused to make a statement to the police. When the Ramsgate vicar visited, she promised him she would make a statement after he left, but she never did. At one point Wren said she knew her attacker but that “I don’t wish him to suffer. He must bear his sins.” Just before she died she said, “He tried to borrow 10 pounds.”

Wren had been seen alive and well at about 5:15pm by another schoolgirl. That meant she was attacked between about 5:30pm and 6pm. However no one reported seeing a man entering the premises. In the end, the police had three main suspects who stood to benefit from Wren’s death, but no hard evidence to tie any specific one man to the crime. The case was never solved.

Source: futilitycloset.com
history uk crime law england
terrypratchettappreciation perletwo
It would be a pretty good bet that the gods of a world like this probably do not play chess and indeed this is the case. In fact no gods anywhere play chess. They haven’t got the imagination. Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god’s idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.
Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters (via perletwo)
GNU Terry Pratchett Discworld
trans-flint trans-flint
trans-aziraphale

The point of having ancestors I feel is to show that we as trans people have a history of existing and living and having rich and varied lives and all the recent articles about James Barry have basically been just “cafab surgeon”, might reference the fact that he performed a successful c-section. 

Which irritates me. Barry is a fascinating and lively man and I would love to be able to read a biography about him that actually respected his identity. 

So here’s an very incomplete list of other interesting things about him. (I’ve tried to make sure all of these are true but there’s a lot of misinformation and rumors out there, and I’m not citing these bc pretty much every article out there misgenders him and just, no) 

  • Had several dogs throughout his life, at least one was called Psyche, but also possible that they were all called Psyche
  • Traveled with a goat for milk 
  • Seems to have collected animals, several people have remarked on his kindness and fondness for them  
  • Vegetarian and teetotaler 
  • I posted about this before but the baby he delivered by c-section was named after him and his name was passed down through the family to the extent that as far as I can tell there are still people today living in South Africa who bear his names
  • His thesis at the University of Edinburgh Medical School was on femoral hernias 
  • Short, red-haired asshole. Varying reports put him either at 5ft or something like 5ft 6in.
  • Something of a dandy, well dressed and somewhat ostentatious and fastidious (well tailored! swords! heeled shoes!)
  • Clashed with superiors pretty much constantly and made enemies with a lot of them 
  • Consistently sided with marginalized people and worked to make sure they got the same standards of medical care and living as those in power and reserved most of his ire and rudeness for those who behaved cruelly of unfairly towards those marginalized groups 
  • While he rubbed colleagues and superiors the wrong way he was said to have good bedside manor and was kind and gentle towards patients (and anyone who didn’t try and pry into his personal life) 
  • Was involved in at least one pistol duel for running his mouth, but seems to have challenged people to them more than that 
  • He seems to have left his posting in Jamaica without permission and when asked why he said bc he ‘couldn’t get a good haircut there’
  • Had something of a public argument with Florence Nightingale, though the specifics have been lost to time 
  • The governor of Cape Town, Lord Charles Somerset called Barry “genius at medicine and absurd in everything else” and Barry called Somerset “my almost only friend.” The two were very close, living together and traveling together. Somerset probably kept Barry from being punished for being so insubordinate and supported many of Barry’s attempts at reforms. Their relationship was plagued with rumors and accusations that they were having an affair, illegal at that time. When Somerset fell ill back in England, Barry went AWOL from his military posting and stayed with Somerset until he passed away.

Look at that (and this is just a sampling). A fascinating and multi-dimensional man who lived a fascinating and multi-dimensional life. This is our history; an asshole with a kind heart, a gentleman and a surgeon who was sure of himself, sure of who he was, sure of who and what he loved and what he hated, and who lived his truth in spite of so much adversity. 

A man whose wishes and body were violated after his death so that transphobes today can titter and misgender him and and try and claim him.

James Barry knew himself, he knew the man he was. We know the man he was. And he would absolutely challenge everyone saying otherwise to a duel. 

(and he’s trained with a gun and swords) 

queued reblog