Out of the Ordinary

Susan Stryker; Cameron Partridge; Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka; Jacob Lau

ISBN 10: 184351821X / ISBN 13: 9781843518211

About this Item

: Disponible por primera vez, más de 50 años después de su escritura, la autobiografía de Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka (1915?62), el médico británico y novicio monástico budista conocido principalmente por los estudiosos del sexo, el género y la sexualidad por su transición pionera de mujer a hombre entre 1939 y 1949, y por su innovador libro de 1946 Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology. Aquí por fin está la extraordinaria historia de la vida de Dillon/Jivaka contada con sus propias palabras.Out of the Ordinary captura los diversos viajes de Dillon/Jivaka (a Oxford, a la medicina, a través del mundo en barco) dentro de las principales narrativas de sus viajes de género y religiosos. Dillon/Jivaka comienza cronológicamente con su infancia en Folkestone, Inglaterra, donde fue criado por sus tías solteronas, y cuenta sus días en Oxford inmerso en la teología, los clásicos y el remo. Relata su transición hormonal mientras trabajaba como mecánico de automóviles y vigilante de incendios durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial y su transición quirúrgica bajo Sir Harold Gillies mientras el propio Dillon asistía a la escuela de medicina. Detalla sus viajes por todo el mundo como cirujano de barco en la Marina Mercante Británica con extensos comentarios sobre sus interacciones con súbditos coloniales y postcoloniales, seguido de su "salida del armario" por la prensa británica mientras servía a bordo del The City of Bath.Out of the Ordinary no es sólo un registro destacado de una transición sexual temprana, sino también un relato único de la conversión religiosa a mediados del siglo XX. Dillon/Jivaka narra su cambio gradual del cristianismo anglicano a los sistemas espirituales esotéricos de George Gurdjieff y Peter Ouspensky al budismo Theravada y finalmente Mahayana. Concluye sus memorias con las controvertidas circunstancias de su ordenación monástica budista en la India y el Tíbet. En última instancia, aunque Dillon/Jivaka murió antes de convertirse en monje, su ordenación como novicio fue significativa: le convirtió en el primer hombre blanco europeo en ser ordenado en la tradición budista tibetana.Out of the Ordinary es una publicación histórica que libera una voz distinta de la historia del movimiento transgénero. EAN: 9781843518211 Tipo: Libros Categoría: Otros Título: Out of the Ordinary Autor: Susan Stryker| Cameron Partridge| Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka| Jacob Lau Idioma: en Páginas: 256.

Seller Inventory # Happ-2026-10-02-99eb967a

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Out of the Ordinary
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 184351821X
• ISBN 13: 9781843518211
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

Now available for the first time in Ireland and the UK – more than half a century after it was written – is the memoir of Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka (1915–62), the Anglo-Irish doctor and Buddhist monastic novice chiefly known to scholars of sex, gender, and sexuality for his pioneering transition from female to male between 1939 and 1949, and for his groundbreaking 1946 book Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology. Here at last is Dillon/Jivaka’s extraordinary life story told in his own words.

Out of the Ordinary captures Dillon/Jivaka’s various journeys – to Oxford, into medicine, across the world by ship – within the major narratives of his gender and religious journeys. Moving chronologically, Dillon/Jivaka was from Lismullin House, County Meath, but spent his childhood in Folkestone, England, where he was raised by spinster aunts, telling of his days at Oxford immersed in theology, classics, and rowing. He recounts his hormonal transition while working as an auto mechanic and fire watcher in Bristol during World War II and describes his surgical transition under Sir Harold Gillies while Dillon himself attended medical school at Trinity College, Dublin (1945-51). He details his travels as a ship’s surgeon in the British Merchant Navy with extensive commentary on his engagement with colonial and postcolonial subjects in Asia, followed by his ‘outing’ by the British press while he served aboard The City of Bath.

Out of the Ordinary is not only a unique record of early gender affirmation but also a compelling account of religious conversion in the mid-twentieth century. Dillon/Jivaka chronicles his gradual shift from Anglican Christianity to the esoteric spiritual systems of George Gurdjieff and Peter Ouspensky, to Theravada and finally Mahayana Buddhism. He concludes his memoir with the contested circumstances of his Buddhist monastic ordination in India and Tibet. Ultimately, while Dillon/Jivaka died before becoming a monk, his novice ordination was significant: it made him the first white European man to be ordained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

This first-person narrative, written in the early 1960s and first published more than a generation later in the US by Fordham University Press, is both ahead of its time and distinctly of its time and class, with Dillon’s views being sometimes enlightened, sometimes colonial. A Foreword by Susan Stryker from the Fordham University Press edition describes Dillon as ‘a seeker after truth, who traveled wherever his queries led him’. An Afterword, ‘A Mapless Journey’, by London-based literary agent Andrew Hewson – unique to the Lilliput Press edition – traces the typescript memoir’s provenance and preservation prior to its eventual publication. An introductory biographical essay by consultant psychologist Aidan Collins gives an overview of the timeline of this remarkable individual’s history. Out of the Ordinary is a landmark publication that sets free a singular voice from within the history of the transgender movement.

About the Authors

Jacob Lau is a Carolina Postdoctoral Fellow through the Program for Faculty Diversity in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Cameron Partridge is an Episcopal priest, theologian, scholar of trans and religious studies, and an openly transgender man. He has taught at Harvard University, Harvard Divinity School and Episcopal Divinity School and is currently the rector of St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco.

Susan Stryker is Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. She has written and edited several books including, most recently, Transgender History.