Irish musician Wallis Bird has released a new single honouring transgender feminist physician, Dr James Barry.
The song ‘Dr. James Barry’ tells the story of the incredibly talented and visionary Irish doctor who was a leader in the medical world in the 1800s. The trans man and 19th-century physician is the first person recorded for performing a successful caesarean section, a procedure he learned from the women healers in South Africa.
Barry was born in Cork in 1795. His mother, Margaret Bulkley, recognised her son’s talent but knew he would not be able to go to university because he was assigned female at birth. Together, they moved to Edinburgh and made a plan to change his name to James Barry. He enrolled at the University of Edinburgh and studied medicine.
During his career, Barry was known for his caring disposition and bedside manner towards women as well as his activism and kindness towards lower-class patients. He was often scolded for his “radical vision” of medicine.
While some historians suggest that Barry only presented as a man to practice medicine and rebel against the patriarchal systems of the time, it is widely understood that Barry was a trans man.
Throughout his entire life, Dr James Barry lived as a man. He always used male pronouns and described himself as a gentleman, and his birth gender was only disclosed after an autopsy was completed after his death.
When speaking about the inspiration behind the new song, Wallis said: “I pondered the extremities of his mental wellbeing and what it must have been like to be a radical and compassionate feminist academic genius healer in the most masculine and violent of fields—to fight regardless of the cost to their career—because they believed in humane treatment for the destitute.”
She added: “What benevolence! What wildness! The fact that he was a trans man gave me a solid anchor as to where this beautiful courage and resilience came from.”
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Wallis is a genre-bending Irish singer-songwriter who performs as both a rocker and a poet. She also calls for female empowerment and LGBTQ+ rights in her music.
In her new album, Bird collaborated with a German classical quintet called Spark to showcase 1,000 years of female composers. The Visions of Venus album recognises composures from Clara Schumann to Joni Mitchell, and Björk to Hildegard von Bingen.
Wallis Bird’s new single ‘Dr. James Barry’ is out and streaming now. The full Visions of Venus album will be released on Friday, April 19.
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