An Old Timey Podcast - 120: A Trans Doctor Got Outed. He Fought Back. (Part 2)

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

In 1917, Alan Hart became one of the first trans men in the United States to undergo a medically-assisted transition. In the months after his transition, the life he’d envisioned took shape. He got an internship at San Francisco Hospital. He fell in love. But, when Alan applied for a job at another hospital, a former classmate spotted him. They outed him to his prospective employer. They outed him to his current employer. He was outed via a newspaper. Soon, the story was picked up by wire services. The experience was traumatic, but Alan held steady. In time, he established himself as a trailblazing trans doctor.Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Trailblazing transgender doctor saved countless lives,” by Leo DeLuca for Scientific American “Homo-sexuality and its treatment,” by J. Allen Gilbert for the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease“Alan Hart” by Morgen Young for Oregon Encyclopedia“This Kansas-born transgender doctor made a lifesaving tuberculosis breakthrough,” by Jacob Smollen for KCUR“Alan L. Hart: An innovative pioneer in radiology and transgender rights,” by Athena Reich and Katharine A. Colbert for PubMed Central“Dr. A. Lucille Hart wore male attire,” The Capital Journal, Feb. 1918“Intern unmasked as girl graduate of Oregon school,” The Oregon Daily Journal, Feb. 1918“Dr. Hart does work in male attire,” Albany Democrat, Feb, 1918“Dr. Hart explains change to male attire,” Albany Democrat, March 1918“Mrs. Robert Bamford dies at age of 78,” Albany Democrat-Herald, Feb. 1921“R.A. Bamford, aged 88, dies, pioneer of 61,” Albany Democrat-Herald July 1924“Manifesting Manhood: Dr. Alan Hart’s transformation and the embodiment of sex in early 20th century sexology,” by Colin P. CloseAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm Normie C. And on this episode, I'll be talking about a trailblazing trans doctor. Part two. Part two. Yeah. Kristen, the hoes have spoken. They loved part one. Very excited about this series. And you did a great job. Well, thank you. I did appreciate the people who were like, hello. I speak. for the entire trans community, and I think you're fine. They have given you the seal of approval, the trans seal of approval. It's so good when one can speak for so many.

Folks, here's an example of one speaking for many. I think our Patreon is amazing, and you should join it. Very good. It's at patreon.com slash old-time you podcast. And for just $5 a month, you get access to our entire back catalog of bonus episodes. And for $10 a month, you get $10.000 a month, you get early ad-free episodes plus our exclusive segment

at the end of each episode called The Slop where we talk about anything and everything. By the way, breaking news. Yeah. Do we have breaking news on the sound? I don't think we do. Just play something. Here's what I'll give you.

I'm about to bust. Our bonus episodes are also now available on YouTube. Whoa! Bye! Oh, that's not. No. That's everyone closing out of the episode.

Ding! There we go. Thank you. you. Hit it one more time, Kristen. Come on. There we go. She's still learning. Folks, this is why you come to this podcast for the level of professionalism. That's right. So yeah, all of our bonus episodes are now available on YouTube for just five bucks a month. Wow. Is that all you have to say? This is a major announcement. Sorry, I was trying to think of something funny and then just nothing came to mind. What a great frame of mind for me to be in at the start of the podcast, huh?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, please consider supporting this small, sexy, independent podcast at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Woo! Diggity dog. It's been a week. Well, you already know this. I'm not giving you any breaking news. But, folks, I have written and rewritten and then rewritten this script. And at first, I was terrified because I thought we were going to record the episode before we got feedback on episode one.

And I actually had a hilarious, adorable little intro. about how I've learned a big lesson about how I should never work ahead. Right. You know, procrastination is key. And then I actually procrastinated so much that it's no longer relevant. So I'm skipping my adorable intro. What a shame. I know.

You've definitely rewritten this episode more than any other, I think. Yeah. When you came to me the other day and said you've added a dinosaur that can talk to the episode. I was like, I don't know where this one's going. I decided, you know what? What's to stop me for making up? something really cool. Yeah.

And I realized nothing was to stop me. Yeah, it's our show. And Alan's about to write a dinosaur. Okay, but one thing I do want to say, seriously, to everyone who's reached out after episode one, thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate it. The same throat clearing still stands for this episode. If you feel like I miss the mark or get something wrong in my wording, please really do

reach out. I want to hear it. I want to improve. Blah, blah, blah. Should we give them our PO box? No. For all the hate mail. No, but I did write up a little something.

Trans folks, you've got enough going on in the current political climate. The last thing you need is a well-intentioned Midwestern gal fucking up your stories. So if you get to the end of this episode and you feel I've missed the mark, please feel free to do to me what my niece did to me last weekend when we were out shopping. And I, a middle-aged woman, suggested she try on a top that I thought, and kind of of new was very cute and trendy. She looked at me. She looked at the top.

She looked at me. She looked at the top. And then she sighed and said, no, thanks for trying. Did she not approve of the top you picked out for her? It was horribly traumatic, Norman. She didn't approve at all. And she was nice about it, which somehow made it worse. And I had to stop myself.

This was on the tippy, tip tip of my tongue-y-tip. tongue tongue, I was about to say something that my mother said to me when I was that age, I was about to say, what's wrong with this? It's just a talk. And I realized that's me admitting that I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. So I just kept it to myself. I think our niece is cool enough and old enough to pick out her own clothing. All right. I think she wanted the help of a 40-year-old. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My cool 40-year-old aunt.

She's always on top of the latest trends for high schoolers. Yeah. She's not creepy at all. And now, without further ado, Previously on an old-timey podcast. Alan Hart was assigned female at birth, but from as far back as he could remember, he'd always known that he was a man.

When he envisioned his adult life, he saw himself as a man. When he read romance novels, he pictured himself as the male lead. As he got older, he developed crushes on girls and had relations with them in secret. All of it felt so natural to Alan, but society told him that it wasn't natural, that he wasn't natural. So when he went to med school, he sought answers in the school's library. His research led him to the conclusion that he was what was then called a sexual invert. He was essentially a man trapped in a woman's body. Alan was devastated, but in time took comfort in knowing that he'd been born this way.

But that didn't make life easy. He was expected to present as a woman, and really expected to be a woman. But that wasn't possible. So in 1917, on the brink of suicide, Alan reached out to psychologist Dr. J. Allen Gilbert. Eventually, with Dr. Gilbert's help, Alan became one of the first trans men in the United States to undergo a medically assisted transition. He got a hysterectomy. He cut his hair. He wore men's clothing.

He'd been doing that before his transition, but it was permanent now, baby. His birth name? Gone. It was incredible. For the first time in his life, Alan felt the freedom of not just knowing that he was a man, but also presenting as a man. Soon, the adult life he'd envisioned for himself took shape. He got an internship at San Francisco Hospital.

He began dating a schoolteacher named Inez Stark. Everything was going so well. But what Alan didn't know was that when he went to apply for a laboratory job at Lane Hospital, one of his old classmates from Stanford recognized him, and that old classmate decided to out him. On this week's episode? shit hits the fan. Oof.

It's going to be rough. All right, Norm, picture it. 1917, San Francisco, with the help of Dr. Gilbert, Alan had recently undergone maybe possibly the first medically assisted transition in the United States. He was in uncharted territory. Unchartered? Unchartered, yeah. I thought it was uncharted.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Let's look it up. Unchartered. Unchartered is like a town that doesn't have enough people or something. Oh, no. How humiliating. AI just popped up with,

Did you mean uncharted territory, comma, you dumb, bitch? I'm not even two sentences into this thing. Anyway, as I was saying... Did I fix grammatical error? This is a miracle. Can you play something on the soundboard for me? Yeah, let me see here. Give me something here.

Let's see. what is speaking to me right now? What the fuck? Yeah, that's fun. Anyway, the territory he was in, Norman, was uncharted, uncharted, and off the charts, okay? Yeah, triple whammy. Jesus. Of course, trans people, do you trust me to tell the story?

Of course, trans people have always existed, but until that point, a trans man's transition might look like a haircut. wearing men's clothing, working a man's job, using he-him pronouns, adopting a new name, or maybe talking a lot about wars. Which major war going on in 1917, Kristen. Oh, God. Would you like to tell us about it? Yeah, it was called The Great Snooze. Oh, wow.

So trans people had been transitioning, but there wasn't really a term for it, at least not one that was widely known. In last week's episode, we talked about how the predominant school of thought amongst the medical community, if they thought about this stuff at all, which was usually, no, not at all, was essentially that sexual inverts had basically gotten a little mixed up in utero, and that it was bad, but also that people were born this way. Oh, and by the way, sorry, sweet cheeks, there's nothing we can do to help you. Not really well understood back then, huh?

No, not at all. Yeah. Okay, I did. I'm sorry. I'm going on a little tangent, but I did find this fascinating. Back then, they thought that bisexual people were just not highly evolved. What? They thought. I'd say maybe they're more evolved. No, they thought that like, oh, yes, back years ago when we didn't know our asses from our elbows, we were just fucking everybody. But now, now, you know, now that we're all hetero.

It's because we've evolved. And so if you're by, if you're gay, like, you know, maybe you're kind of cavemanaged. I don't know what they were thinking. But I found that really interesting. That's so stupid. Yeah. You know what? Hey, I've got something for that.

Um, hello. Are you fucking stupid? There we go. I'm glad you're having fun with the sounds. Me too. You're so afraid of it for so long. It's a terrifying thing. There's a lot of buttons.

Yeah, I mean, like the ancient Greeks were. fucking everybody. Yeah. They were in uncharted territory, don't you? They were just like, hey, uh, yeah, we'll get it on with anybody and everybody. Okay. Yeah. I just think it's funny that we've evolved to heterosexuality. And it's like, I don't think that's what happened. I don't think so either. Yeah. So, you know, they're saying, hey, some people are born this way, nothing we can do to help you. Goodbye. And although that sucks, 10 kinds of balls, it really doesn't compare to how the general public thought about trans men. Or trans women, sorry, I'm being exclusionary. In that time period, it was not at all uncommon for newspapers to run

stories about trans men, except the newspapers didn't refer to them as trans men. For one thing, the term transgender had not been coined yet, but also just the idea that someone's gender identity might differ from the sex they'd been assigned at birth, had not taken hold with the public at all. They had no clue. Yeah, I bet. For that reason, when newspapers printed these stories, it tended to be done with a lurid tone.

These weren't trans men just living their lives. They were women caught masquerading as men. Aha, we've caught you. It's terrible, but it is kind of funny, how stupid this is. Sherlock Holmes is on the case, apparently. Those stories where people were outed to their entire community were often written as though the subject of the article

had been some sort of con artist, some sort of criminal. And technically, since in a lot of places, it was actually illegal to wear clothing that didn't match your assigned sex or bump uglies with someone who'd also been assigned the same sex, Newspapers weren't calling you some sort of criminal. Instead, often, an actual criminal. I was going to ask, was it considered illegal to be trans back then? In the public space, the vast majority of people had no idea that being trans was a thing.

Right. So that's one thing. But, yeah, there were so many things that were illegal. And, yeah, this was one of them. In fairness, though, the newspaper articles weren't always 100% certified awful. Sometimes they were 100% certified awful and also kind of dumb. Oh. For example, approximately 250 people who were assigned female at birth, put on men's clothing, and fought as soldiers in the Civil War.

Future topic? I've wanted to talk about that. Okay, yeah, all right, that'd probably be... Give me a ding. There we go. I am obviously not saying that all of those people who did that were trans men, but I do find it very amusing that the takeaway for a lot of people at that time. And still to this present day is, wow, those gals sure did love America. They went to war for one reason and one reason alone.

America. I'm sure there were some that fought for the Confederacy, too. Yeah. But I'm saying like, they probably weren't all there for patriotic stuff. No, not all. It's never black and white. It's always complex, you know. You know.

You know. Other times when a person who was assigned female at birth was outed, newspapers chalked it up to a little lady just desperate for adventure. Or my personal favorite. An unconventional gal who just had to have a super tough job. for the big boys. Wow. Isn't that kind of interesting that that's the route they went down sometimes?

Mm-hmm. But even in those stories where trans men were incorrectly characterized as women-seeking adventure, there was also that message, that message that this person deceived us. This person tricked us. They lied. And now we are unmasking them. For trans people, there was always that threat. that threat, that threat of being exposed, that threat of everyone reading about you in the newspaper,

and that fear of what people might do with that information. At worst, the people in your community might feel justified in acting out violently against you. At best, the people in your community might completely fail to understand who you really were, what you were really doing, and what you'd been through to get there. And that meant that many trans people lived their lives. even the otherwise good parts of their lives with the incessant hum of fear. I'm saying this all past tense, but, you know, come on. Yeah, that must have been awful. Yeah.

It's like a shadow looming over you all the time. Yeah, I, you know, they talk about the effect of trauma on the body and how much it impacts everything about you. I just can't imagine, you know, even if you were to live your life and not have, you know, the worst possible things happen, I imagine your lifespan would be shortened. I imagine you'd have health issues, all kinds of stuff from the stress of this. Oh, yeah. Alan Hart had to have that fear, fear that the basic facts of his life, facts that he was not ashamed of, for the record, would be used against him. And the thing about that fear that would have been so torturous is that Alan Hart had to have known the horror stories.

But he did have an advantage. He had Dr. Gilbert. We love Dr. Gilbert. We do. He had some bad moments and he's going to have, you know, more bad moments. But still, overall, we love him. No one's perfect. And he has the best name ever for a psychiatrist.

Okay. Okay. So worth noting, Dr. Gilbert was not an expert on what was then called sexual inversion, and it's possible that prior to treating Alan, he'd never really thought much about gender identity, gender expression, any of it. But Dr. Gilbert was a compassionate person. He understood that for Alan, this was an issue of life or death. So Dr. Gilbert didn't just help Alan with the medical aspect of his transition. Transitioning is and was so much more complicated than that. A person's transition might involve surgery. It might not. These days, it might involve hormone therapy. It might

not. It might involve more of a social transition where you get a snappy new haircut and change your name. It might not. And while that process of transitioning can look different from person to person, One thing I think we can all agree on is that the most boring, soul-sucking part of it would have to be the goddamn paperwork. Oh, yeah. It's one thing to buy a new pair of Jinko jeans. It's another to change your name, you know. Well said, Norman. Okay, this is one part of the script that I was worried about because I was like, I hate paperwork more than anything on this earth. And yet here I am about to cram several paragraphs about paperwork into people's ear holes. Yeah. Are you ready, though?

I feel like you're going to find it interesting. This is stuff I love, Chris. I know. You're a strange man. I would, I'd spend a whole episode talking about this probably. Let's get into it. Okay. So this is the part that's interesting.

What form did Allen file? And with what office? And on what? day. Yeah. So, okay, obviously, no one is like, wow, he transitioned in 1917. Sounds fun. Duh. This sucked. But I do think it's interesting that in 1917, Alan wouldn't have had nearly the amount of paperwork obstacles that trans folks face today, for starters. In 1917, most states did not issue driver's licenses. So that would not have been a problem. And although so, so. So, Social Security cards don't include a person's sex, the records that go along with them do.

But why am I even bringing that up when the Social Security Administration didn't even exist back then? It did not. That's right. As we learned in the previous topic, Francis Perkins, right? I was thinking, we did, and then it was my topic that I covered. Two-part series, by the way. Check it out. I remember it well. Then there was the issue of passports. Why are you smiling at me? Just you.

You being you. Okay, but passports wouldn't have really been a problem either because at that time, you could just like submit a couple of letters from cool people and a document or two, and bing, bam, boom, you got your passport. Nice. That's a lot easier than it is today. All this to say, that in 1917, Americans didn't have all the official documentation that we have today that includes our birth names and our assigned sex and a little photo of us.

But there were still occasions where Alan needed to establish that he was a man, officially on paper. Years later, Dr. Gilbert wrote in vague terms about helping Alan get all the legal steps squared away. There's evidence that, for example, when Alan applied for the draft and requested an exemption from service is the last time I'm talking about World War I. So enjoy it, buddy. Dr. Gilbert probably stepped in to ensure that he would not have to serve. What was the exemption listed?

It wasn't. It wasn't. This was all in very vague terms. And Dr. Gilbert didn't say, here's a list of the things I did. In the article he ended up writing, he kept it very intentionally vague. Okay. Because he said, no one gives a shit. This is about paperwork.

In fact, Dr. Gilbert probably stepped in a number of times to help Alan navigate a world that would more than likely be hell-bent on not understanding him. Dr. Gilbert was in Allen's corner. And thank God, because after Alan transitioned, he was itching to live the life he'd envisioned in his head, the life that would have been granted to him had he been assigned male at birth. He got started right away, or tried to. Before he landed that internship in San Francisco, Francisco. He'd gone to Seattle. He'd interviewed for an internship. Remember, he was top of his class. He was more than qualified for this stupid internship. But the physician in charge was suspicious of Allen. Allen didn't quite look right. He was small in stature. He'd gotten a

hysterectomy, but he hadn't gotten a mastectomy. We were still decades away from the popularization of testosterone therapy, which would have made Alistair. Allen's features more masculine. Mastectomy is the removal of breasts, right? Yeah. Okay. Just want to make sure. We call it titty's be gone.

Titties be gone. Yeah, and that's interesting to me. Oh, I won't get into all that. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm like, don't make me sing. No, I shan't. It's in my, you should see how long my scraps document is for this one. It's a big boy.

Oh, I bet it's like a junkyard. It's wild. There's dogs in there. Yeah, there's dogs barking in that document. An old couch. Despite his credentials, Alan didn't get that internship in Seattle. So he'd gone to Idaho. And he did get a job at a hospital there.

But it wasn't long before that jackass from Seattle came by and told Alan's boss about his suspicions. What? All the from Seattle? Yeah. That's weird. This is more about the... them than anything. Yeah. That's weird. It's awful. Yeah. Alan left Idaho. He landed in San Francisco. He'd found acceptance in San Francisco when he'd lived there years earlier as a student at Stanford.

And that started to happen again. He got that internship at San Francisco Hospital. He and Inaz fell in love. And when Alan moved into a boarding house with a bunch of other interns, he hung Inaz's picture in his room. Before he'd transitioned, he'd had to settle for secret relationships, one where he and his partner couldn't be a public couple. They had to deny one another or pretend that they were just really good friends. But now, post-transition, Alan proudly told the other guys about Inez. He didn't have to hide anymore. And that had to feel so good. But Alan wanted more.

He wanted the dream he'd always grown up having. He wanted to get to get him. get married. But that was a tall order. When Alan went to Dr. Gilbert and said that he and Inez wanted to get married, Dr. Gilbert struggled a bit. Well, this is what I mean. We're like every now and then we go, Dr. Gilbert, come on. Dr. Gilbert, what did he say? He initially didn't like it. Was it like purely like a religious thing? Like that's not how marriage works in the eyes of God? Is that where you? he's going for. So here's what I love about Dr. Gilbert is he was pretty upfront years later about

like, yeah, I had the wrong opinion at first. And I had to sit down and examine, okay, why do I not want to help this couple get married? And he talked about how he realized when he really interrogated himself, the only actual reasons he had were like based on, you know, social norms and kind of his own ignorance. Right. And so he decided, you know, that's not a good reason to tell this loving couple that they can't get married. So I am going to help them. That's for Dr. Gilbert having a good idea.

Oh, very good. He had a light bulb moment. They eloped in February of 1918, with Alan using the name he'd often used on his school essays when he was a boy, Robert Allen Bamford, Jr., a tribute to his beloved great. grandfather, Robert Allen Bamford. So when Alan put Inez's picture up in that boarding room, he was able to proudly tell his new friends and coworkers, this is my wife. That's cool.

Yeah. I do that, too. Take Kristen's picture to the gym. Attention, everyone. This is my wife. You want to tell the people about the picture you took of me this week? Folks, let me have a vulnerable moment with you. The one of you eating?

Oh, you do that one too. Now I'm talking about a different one. Which one? Folks. Oh. Yeah, go ahead. Folks, I'm a moisturized gal, okay? Don't hate me for it.

I put my sunscreen on every morning, put some on the back of my neck. The other morning I was like, what is this on the back of my neck? And because it's me, I knew I somehow have become the first person on earth to have a pimple squarely on the back of their neck. I was mortified. But then, you know, I took off for yoga, hair and a ponytail, didn't think about how that might look for whoever's behind me. Then I get home, this one, you know,

we're talking in the kitchen. This one? Your husband? My husband, it's like, whoa, what's on the back of your neck? And I was like, I know it's huge. It's a pimple, blah, blah. And then later, I started thinking about it, and I was like, I kind of want to know what I'm up against back here.

Like, how big is it? know your enemy. Yeah. So I was like, hey, and we were downstairs. We were away from the mirror. So I was like, hey, would you take a picture of it so I can see it? I did notice that it was taking a while for the photograph to be taken. I was suspicious.

Well, no, I wasn't suspicious. I trusted you implicitly. And I think in the video version of this, which is also now on Spotify and YouTube and Patreon, hey, we should put the photo. Norm took a picture of himself posing with my gigantic neck. neck pimble. They did a little selfie. Selfie with Kristen's pimple. Anyway, that was a worthwhile tangent. Absolutely. I like to think that someone just discovered the podcast recently and they think

they're going to get like a really straightforward tale about this trailblazing trans doctor. And instead of we take a side quest where I talk about the pimple on the back of my neck. They're going to learn today. So I can say. It was kind of incredible how Alan's life was coming together. He was having that life he'd always wanted, but for so long had thought would be impossible. At his internship, he was just one of the guys. After work, they'd drink and smoke and play cards together. They had a good time.

Hell yeah. It's possible that Alan was at ease. He'd always been a really confident person. But when he thought ahead to what he'd do after his internship ended, he figured that working in a laboratory, would be his best bet. He'd get work done that wouldn't be so public facing. Probably more comfortable for Alan. Okay, so here's the sad thing. I don't think that's actually true.

He was an extremely outgoing person, very well-spoken, very charming. I think if he had just been allowed to live his life, who knows what he would have done. And I don't think he would have gone for a lab job. Well, yeah, obviously. But we're talking about in the context of this story. Yes. He was fortunate to be as intelligent as he was, and that gave him options. And so he figured, okay, I can go into a lab. I can, you know, make friends with the people there. And hopefully it won't be an issue. Yeah. You know. So in early February of 1918, just six months after he transitioned, Alan went to Lane Hospital, where he applied for a job in the lab. And it was there while he was applying for that job. that an old classmate from Stanford spotted him, spotted him and recognized him.

We don't know whether Alan realized he'd been spotted, whether he realized he was about to be outed, but we do know that that classmate told. They told everyone at Lane Hospital. Then they sought out Alan's current employer. Soon, word spread through both hospitals. And then the newspaper. And then another newspaper. And another. The story was picked up by wire services. Outlets in California, Oregon, and Washington ran the story with headlines like, Girl Poses as Male Doctor in Hospital.

Intern, unmasked as Girl Graduate of Oregon School. Woman poses as man intern in hospital at Frisco. The articles dead named him. They used she her pronouns. They listed his hometown and his mother's name. The details differed from article to article, but the message was the same. Alan wasn't who he said he was. Alan was a liar.

And now he'd been unmasked and he'd fled. What was missing in those articles was Alan, his perspective, his voice, or literally anyone's voice offering anything to contradict the narrative that this was a shocking story of deceit. We don't know exactly how Alan discovered that he'd been outed or how he handled it emotionally. It's possible that somewhere in those boxes that were burned after he died

was his account of that day and the days that followed. But we do know that when he was outed, he vanished. When his former colleagues looked for him, they found his room empty. He'd left behind clothes, some mail, a razor, and that photo of Inez. That's sad. It's terrible.

Yeah. It speaks volumes about how scared he had to be. Yeah. He later tried to put on kind of a brave face of like, oh, well, you know, I was able to say goodbye to everyone. But I think that's all that was. It was just a brave face because he very clearly had to take off. It had to have been a terrifying, traumatizing experience. But here is something beautiful.

And something that I think says so much about how Alan was able to become who he was. He had a supportive family. Specifically, he had a supportive vocal mother. That's great. In Kansas still? No, no, they moved to Oregon. Oh, that's right. They moved to Oregon.

My bad. Keep up, Norman. They got on the Oregon Trail. Ever heard of it? When the news hit the... the papers and everyone was gossiping. His mother did not cower. Instead, Edna Barton went to her local newspaper, the Albany Democrat, and she defended her child. And to their credit, the publisher of that small town newspaper listened. The publisher knew Allen. They knew his whole family. His grandparents

had come out to Oregon in 61. They'd been some of the early settlers. I think it's funny to see like 61 and have it be 1861. It's 1861, yeah. They had a good reputation. And plus, everyone in town knew that Allen had always dressed like a dude. In their small town, this was simply not news. Yeah, well, that ain't news. Yeah. Okay, I had a whole thing in this script and I took it out. But to me, this is what is so fascinating about a small town. You know, people shit on small towns. Oh, clothes minded all this stuff. But I do that. think there's an advantage to where in a small town people know you people know who you are as a person they know your history i mean they know too much about you and so i think that's what's

so interesting about alan's story is that all of these people were kind of like yeah that's that's allan there's no trickery here this is who alan has always been transphobia try that in a small town Oh, no. No, like speaking as someone who comes from a small, smallish town. Smallish. It's pretty big city. It's huge, huge. No, you're right.

That is one advantage is that everyone kind of knows each other. Yeah. And everyone can be protective of each other too in a small town. You know, I feel like you can kind of get away with less in a small town. Yeah. Or more, depending on the reputation you've built for yourself. More on that in a moment. moment here. As a result of Edna Barton's bravery, the article that followed was markedly different

in tone than anything that any other publication printed about Alan Hart. I'm going to read a portion of that article now. But before I do, okay, bummer alert, I want to warn everyone that I know it sounds like I'm building up to something that is just completely heartwarming. But your hearts will only be lukewarm by this. Because in this article, the writer, Mr. genders Allen, and so does his mom. And her defense of Allen is a little misguided. But boy, were their hearts in the right place. They did their best. Here we go. No one in Albany, who knows Dr. Hart, thanks anything about the report that she has been wearing male attire. She has done this for so long that her friends expect nothing else when she arrives in this city, then that she

will dawn her male apparel as soon as she gets home. Dr. Hart has always admired the freedom and lack of restriction that is placed upon members of her opposite sex and has wanted to do things in a big way. For years, she has shunned fluffs and frills of the girl, wearing tailor-made coats and other parts of her attire of a mannish appearance. After leaving college last June, Dr. Hart took the examinations for an officer in the medical reserve of the Navy and passed with the highest marks of any of the applicants, but was turned down because she was a woman. She then enlisted in the Red Cross and is available for service in France. Mrs. Barton is highly incensed and indignant that the fact should derive so much publicity. It is stated that there is nothing more wrong in wearing male attire

in a hospital than in wearing it in a factory, laundry, or workshop as hundreds of thousands of women are now doing in America, England, and France. Yeah, I thought that was pretty good. Like, for the time. That's not bad at all. That's remarkable for the time. It's essentially saying, saying everybody calm down. Yeah, it was like, get over it. It's saying this is a highly intelligent person, an asset to our community, an asset to any community. And you left out a major detail, Kristen. What?

That Alan volunteered for the Red Cross to serve in France. Yeah. A hero. Salute you, sir. That article got picked up by other bigger papers. It didn't run in full, but the gist of it did. And the gist of it was that Alan had people in his corner, people who were saying, this is not a scandal.

Yeah. And it's probably no coincidence that by late March, Alan had come back to his mother's home in Albany, Oregon. It had been nearly two months since he'd been outed. And while internally, he had to have been reeling, and while it had to have rocked his new marriage, Alan went back to his hometown with his head held high. One of his first stops was the local newspaper. Alan told the publisher that he no longer went by his old name. He was Alan now, and he would be referred to that way in the paper from now on.

Good. Later, he gave an interview sitting in his mother's home, and the resulting article was unreal. Ooh, let's hear it. Well, let me tell you a little more first. Oh, okay, okay. Calm down, Norman. Jeez.

It's unreal, not just for Alan's quotes about his own personal experience, but for the overall tone of the piece. It was written with startling compassion. It placed Alan not as someone trying to dupe or deceive other people, but as someone who had overcome a legitimate hardship. It essentially, in a small town newspaper in 1918, explains the experience of being transgender. it explains the reasons and the need for Alan's transition. Wow. Dr. Gilbert had been the one to help Alan through his transition, and he is definitely the unnamed psychologist who provided a statement to the paper,

explaining that Alan's previous life, when he was made to present as a woman, that had been the masquerade, not this, not now, and that this decision to embrace his true, actual inner identity, had been the best course of action. I'd like to read a few quotes from that article, and they come from Alan. Oh, first, before I read Alan's quotes, I want to read you the headline on this article, because I read you all those terrible ones. Yeah. This headline is, Dr. Hart explains change to male attire.

Okay. Nothing about a woman, nothing about she. Yeah. He said, I had to do it. For years, I had been unhappy. With all the inclinations and desires of the boy, I had to receive. I had to restrain myself to the more conventional ways of the other sex. I have been happier since I made this change than I ever have in my life,

and I will continue this way as long as I live. Very few people can understand. Even members of my own profession cannot comprehend, and I have had some of the biggest insults of my career in doctor's offices. I have long suspected my condition, and now I know. I had not intended to make it known on account of the embarrassment which it might cause on the part of former associates. But since it is out, the best thing to do is to tell the facts as they are.

I came home to show my friends that I am ashamed of nothing. Thoughts, comments, concerns? I'm proud of Allen for speaking up and defending himself and not being afraid. And that's big. It was wild to read this in a paper from 1918. Yeah, I bet. I mean, to go from some of the other articles to this one. Yeah.

It's amazing. Yeah. This feels like a, like, important story from history that's kind of mostly been forgotten. Yeah. I've never heard of this. I feel like a lot of people haven't. Right. So, yeah, this is incredible.

We'll talk more about why that is in a minute. Oh, Kristen's got the tea today. I've got too much tea. The scraps, the scraps document. is just all tea. Yeah. Alan was unquestionably brave, but it's probably also safe to say

that when he gave that interview to his local paper, he was putting on a brave face. Later that year, in 1918, he took over the practice of a former med school classmate in the small town of Gardner, Oregon. He probably hoped that he and Inez

would be safe there, but they didn't last long. Some sources say that the couple left town because Alan came down with the flu, but the more widely accepted story is that another former classmate recognized Alan and they outed him and Alan and Inaz had to flee again.

Good Lord. Yeah, you're having to live like you're a criminal. And I know this was a different time, but I'm sure it still happens to anybody but she's like, I don't understand why people care. Okay, thank you. I agree. I think is weird.

Like, why do you care? Who gives a shit? Yeah, we don't want culture war in this house, please. Class war only. Thank you very much. I think if there's a moral to this story, it's let people live. Yeah. Let's set aside the fact that Alan was doing a lot of good in the world.

He's a fucking doctor. Yeah, let's set that aside, though. Number one in this class. If someone is just being neutral, leave him alone. Yeah. If Alan and Inez, as a young couple, wanted to put down roots, then that was too bad. The newlyweds moved from place to place all over the United States, to Montana, to Albuquerque, back to Oregon, always hunting for a place where they could live and work in peace. But they never found that peace.

The constant moving and the constant fear took a toll on them. Inez left Allen. He tried several times to get her back, but she told him she just wanted to be friends. At one point, they ran into each other on the street, and she pretended not to know who he was. Ouch. Alan was devastated. He was lonely and more than likely scared. Maybe the life he'd hoped for had been too big a dream.

They divorced in 1925, but she'd left him years earlier. Yeah. I do think, like, the thing, I noticed the word fear keeps coming up in this, and of course there's fear. But I think there would also be such a profound loneliness. Uncommonly lonely. Yeah. Yeah. Some of it would be just from the way you're being treated by society,

but I think there might also be a feeling like you don't want to make bonds with people because then you might feel like, oh my gosh, I'm going to put them at risk. You know, who knows what Alan felt about the sacrifices that Inez made being with time, you know? Maybe Alan didn't want to put someone else through that. And it's not even fair because it's like he's not the one putting anyone through anything. Right. Everyone else is. And I think that's what makes this so sad and so unfair.

By that point, Alan was living in Eugene, Oregon, depressed out of his mind, which is not a thing. It's just a thing I say sometimes. Depressed out of his mind. Depression. Depression. That he was waking up early. Kristen just discovered the other day that Hey, when you wake up like three hours before you usually do

It's not that you're like a confident go-getter who's ready to start day It might just be that you have depression And Chris was like, what? Kristen who has Woken up early several days this past week Folks, we were sitting on the couch the other night We were watching one of those like What is it?

Like a wired interview where they like like interview experts or something. I can't remember. It was like ask a psychologist or something. Yeah. I think it's wired, does it? Yeah. And they were one of the first things this douchebag said to me personally was that a lot of times when people wake up super early for no reason, it's depression.

And I sat there. Shocked as shit. I know I have depression. But like historically. when I've done that, and I do that, like, very regularly. Yeah. I've always been like, God, today sucks, but you know what? I woke up really early, and that's a sign that I'm actually on top of everything.

Yeah, I'm a go-getter, you know, early bird gets the worm. Nothing's wrong with me. Me and Mark Wahlberg, we're in the same class. You know, he's doing his 3 a.m. workouts. Yeah, uh-huh. You know, when asked to compare myself to anyone, I always compare myself. to Mark Wahlberg. That's good.

That's good. Uh-huh. A potential hero of 9-11. Potentially. But he never got the chance, unfortunately. Just to fill you in, in case you somehow missed a great Mark Wahlberg moment, he famously said in an interview that if he'd been on one of those planes at 9-11, 9-11 wouldn't have happened.

He would have tossed those tears out the door, steered that plane to safety, and the whole plane would have cheered. Yeah. What a really cool, sensitive thing to say. It's just crazy. So, yeah, you and Mark Wahlberg, kind of in the same class. I'm so glad we brought him up. So Alan's depressed, but the one good thing about living in Eugene Oregon was that for the first time in years, he was near a really good library again. And all of that literature made him feel less alone. It spoke to him. It fed him. It reminded him of when he was much younger

back when he loved writing. He enrolled in a summer writing course. Fun. And that's where he met and fell in love with Edna Rudic. She went by Rudy. You know what they say about libraries, Kristen. Oh, no.

You're going to... You know what they say? Having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card. And Alan is proof of that. That's right. Rudy was a teacher. She was from New Jersey. She was smart as hell. She had a master's degree in sociology from Columbia. With Rudy, Allen found the love and partnership that he'd been seeking. They got married. Oh. And they moved around a lot.

Oh. New York, Illinois, Spokane, Washington, Idaho. Why did I include cities sometimes and just states the other? It's a mystery of my process. This was part of the rewrite. My neck pimple told me to. Rewrite number eight. In the first decade of his career, Alan practiced medicine in at least seven different states. He was never safe, could never really settle in. But he tried. He had the advantage of keen intellect.

He got a master's degree in radiology from the University of Pennsylvania. Dang. I know, right? That's impressive. I mean, he was a really impressive person. It is smart. It could be argued that Alan had a passion for radiology, but it could also be argued that he chose that path, one that wasn't so public facing, in the hopes that he might be able to work in peace. We don't have his personal writings from that time period, but we have something else, his novels.

He published four of them in the course of seven years. In one novel titled The Undaunted, Alan wrote about a gay man who, much like himself, went into the field of radiology. Alan wrote, He went into radiology because he thought it wouldn't matter so much in a laboratory, what a man's personality was. But wherever he went, scandal followed him sooner or later. His story would get around, and then he'd be forced to leave.

He had been driven from place to place, from job to job, for 15 years because of something he could not alter any more than he could change the color of his eyes. gossip, scandal, rumor always drove him on. So Alan put his experiences in this character in the novel. I was going to ask about the novels because when I was, you know, finalizing the last episode, I came across that Alan wrote books. Yeah. And I thought that was incredible.

Yeah. So he wrote several novels and they all kind of had themes of medicine. You know, he wrote about what he knew. medicine, sexuality, I mean, fear also. And what's interesting to me about that is I talked in the beginning of part one about how in his will, Alan had these two locked boxes. And he said, when I die, I want all of this information burned. Yeah.

And it was. And so, you know, of course, any historian is going to be sad about that. And I think we're all sad about that. But I think we're going to talk more about that. And I think we'll all kind of understand why he chose to do that. Okay. It's tough because especially in this part of his story, I would love to know more about what he was thinking and feeling and doing.

Because you have this man who's so brilliant and in many ways so confident and was actually, I think, really good at seeking out people who he could confide in. When he took that summer writing course, he talked to the professor about his experience. Of course, he talked to Edna about it. You know, he was good at reading people and knowing who he could lean on. And I'd just be fascinated to know more. You know, in part one, I had information about him that I thought was so, like, the humanizing stuff about, he spent way too much money on women trying to get them to, you know, like him and stuff.

Yeah, been there. And it's like, it's tough because post-transition, we don't really have a lot of that humanizing stuff. But we have information that we can lean on. And I do think, even though his novels are obviously works of fiction, everything's autobiographical to a degree. Like, you're putting your experiences. It's all coming from your head. and I just think this is pretty on the nose. Yeah.

So it's sad to think about why Alan might have entered that field of radiology, but thank God he did. At that time, tuberculosis, a word that Norman pronounces perfectly every time. He really hits the U. You want to say it? Tuberculosis. Oh, good job. Thank you.

And there's two U. Boy, what a dummy. Do I get a gold star? Ew, Norman, I hate that. He does these voices. I used to say tuberculosis. The tubes. He got the tubes in.

All these tubes are causing the losis. At the time, tuberculosis was the number one killer in America. I'm sorry, I'm saying that with a smile on my face, but I'm thinking about you and the joke you made. I was about to give you a giant foam hand. We're number one. The number one killer. Norman. Tuberculosis is very contagious.

It spreads through the air, it attacks the person's lungs first, and then moves on to other parts of the body. Back then, it was especially terrifying, in part because when people were initially infected, they almost never showed symptoms. And by the time they showed major symptoms, there wasn't much of anything that could be done. The tragic thing was that doctors could help treat tuberculosis if they caught it early, but like nobody was catching it early. But Alan Hart was one of the first doctor. to realize how tuberculosis spread. He made a medical breakthrough when he realized that you could spot early signs of it by looking at a simple x-ray of a patient's lungs.

To this day, we still use x-rays to diagnose tuberculosis. Wow. Alan knew that if he could just get the word out and show people how to spot tuberculosis in its early stages, then he could save countless lives. And so, even though he had every reason to want to hide, he didn't. He wrote articles. He held clinics where he taught other practitioners what he'd learned. And that got him noticed.

He got a job as the state of Idaho's tuberculosis control officer. He traveled the state, teaching and screening and treating. He knew that it wasn't just a matter of getting this information into the right hands. Tuberculosis had such a stigma around it. people who had it were treated like pariahs. There was a good chance that people would not seek medical care if they thought they had it. So, Allen sought to lift some of that stigma by changing the language around tuberculosis. First of all, the word tuberculosis, gone.

He wasn't a tuberculosis doctor. He was a chest doctor. His patients weren't tuberculosis patients. They were chest patients. His clinics weren't tuberculosis clinics. They were chest patients. clinics. I think that's such a beautiful example of like this compassion and understanding and taking away the stigma. But also, you know, there's that saying hurt people, hurt people.

Yeah. And he's such a great example of someone who had been hurt so badly by words. Yeah. And he understood the power of language, that language could keep you boxed in. And And, you know, I wonder if another doctor would have thought of this, would have thought of like what it's like to have this disease that makes people afraid of you, makes people not want to be around you, all that stuff, and makes you not even want to seek help for yourself. You know, he, I think he understood so much about that. And he used that for good. Yeah, really did.

By the way, I have a quick question. Yeah. Tuberculosis. Is this one of those diseases that is gone now because of vaccines but may potentially make a comeback, like measles or something? I don't know, actually. Yeah, there is a tuberculosis vaccine. Okay. But we won't get that in this house because we don't want to get autism.

And I'm sorry, that was a joke, obviously. Around the same time frame of his medical breakthrough, Alan published his novel. He could have easily written his books under a pen name, but he didn't. When his publisher told him they needed author photos for his book jacket, Alan initially protested. He said he didn't like having his photo taken, but then he sent them in. Is it the one of him with the pipe? He sent in several. Do you like that one of him with the pipe?

Are you even an author if you don't have a photo of yourself smoking a pipe? So distinguished. His first book came out to posit. reviews, and really all of his books got pretty good reviews. He promoted his books at bookstores and on the radio. He had to have still had that fear, that fear that he'd be outed, but it seemed that now, two decades after he'd transitioned, post-medical breakthrough, post-the-success of his novels, he had become braver and bolder.

I think it says so much that he didn't write under a pen name. Yeah. Or even like, you know, publisher asks for a photo, take a photo of my neighbor, send it in. You know, he could have, he could have gotten around that if he'd wanted to. And I imagine part of him did want to. But I think this is so amazing that after the horrible experiences he had, he put himself out there. Yeah. When you reach a certain age, I think you care less and less about.

how other people perceive you and look at you and treat you and you just want to be truly yourself. Yeah. And so I think maybe there was some of that there too. You know, I've also thought about safety. And I kind of wonder if it occurred to Allen that maybe on some level there can be more protection in being a prominent person. Yeah. Maybe.

It's true. Like, okay, I could play it small. or play it big. I'm running a risk either way, but I might as well try to play it big. Yeah. Oh, okay. Now I have to do another tangent.

But I think it's a fascinating one. One detail that people love to talk about is the fact that a book critic once said that Alan seemed to know, quote, surprisingly little about women. And people kind of goof on that as if the critic didn't know their ass from their elbow, but I submit.

that that critic probably did know their ass from their elbow because Alan's own publisher addressed that with him over his first book saying, hey, the woman character you've written here is just really wooden. There's nothing to her. You got to, you know, you got to do something. She got no personality, just giant boobs wearing skimpy clothing. Norman, Norman, thank you, yes.

Alan's response? Yeah, uh-huh. I think we probably need to up the sex appeal. There we go. Folks, okay. Her boobs bigger. Back in the day, there was an amazing Twitter, rest in peace, thread that was men writing women. Oh, that was good.

Where people would take excerpts of books, real books, where a man had written about a woman. And it was just so fun and, like, people started making fun of it. My favorite joke someone made was like, she came down the same. stairs, her boobs bouncing boobily. I mean, I just, I think it's so funny that Alan, to me, this just says, you know, I think people laugh about that critique for the wrong reason. To me, what this says is, no, Alan always thought like a dude. Right. And just because society saw him a certain way doesn't mean that he had any understanding, had

any. That wasn't his world. It was not his world at all. And so when he's told we need to make this woman come to life, he's like, yeah, I'll up the tits, oh, shorten the skirt. It was a dark and stormy night. Her

breasts were heaving. There we go. Oh my God. Remember when I read a John Griship novel for the first time? Okay, I was just about to bring that up. You read the firm. Yeah. And there was a female character in that. I was just like, oh my, Like her boobs were typing on the keyboard.

Oh, that's right. Oh, I forgot about that. Okay, okay, folks. I had never read a John Grisham novel, but this, like, it was a couple months ago, and I was like, he's a hugely famous author. I should probably read one of his books. I checked out the firm. Started reading it.

It was like, was this written in the 60s? No, it was written in like the 90s. Literally. Literally. every woman character in that book was introduced through the lens of do I want to fuck this woman or not and like of course every man was like

you know maybe some were handsome some were this but like no they were allowed to like be people and there was one passage that I read to Norman about this woman who like it was like she got excited and she was by a typewriter and like her boobs bounced on

I mean men are Women. Incredible. It was riveting stuff when you're reading it to me. I feel like now is a good time to say that when I said I rewrote this script so many times this week, it's because my boobs kept bouncing boobling on the keyboard here. And it was just a mess. And that's why it's so hard for me to get stuff written down.

That's shame. Don't be embarrassed by that, Kristen. Every single woman deals with that issue. Okay? I read it all the time. In the summer of 1943, Alan wrote his last will and testament. He wanted to be cremated. He didn't want his ashes stored in a crypt, mausoleum, grave, urn, or repository.

He didn't want a funeral. He wanted select documents and photos burned. He specified, no memorial be erected or created. And also, no contributions made in my name to any charitable, education, medical, or religious institution. Wow. What are your thoughts? Because that's a very unusual will.

Yeah, it's like I want to be completely forgotten. Yeah. It's sad. Why do you think Alan did that? Well, you're probably going to tell me the answer. I've got a ton of stuff on why I think he did it. Oh, okay. Let's hear it.

Another thing I want to talk about before I get into that is the timing of it. Because he wasn't sick. Now, this was World War II times. Sorry to bring that up. but and maybe it got him thinking about his mortality possibly. Sure. But I think that there are a couple things. The timing of it and the content of it speaks volumes about his state of mind.

By that point, he had bravely put himself out into the world as a public figure of sorts. And for that reason, I think he likely knew that when he died, his death might prompt some interest. You know, he wouldn't just get your standard obituary. Right. And he had to know the history of trans people being outed after they died. Did you know that this was a thing? Oh, is it like when they did the autopsy or something? They would be like, oh, you're not going to believe what we found out about so-and-so.

That's gross. It's terrible. Yeah. It's like there's no escape, even dead. Death is not an escape. Yeah. From that fear. Alan likely knew a very famous story.

It was the story of Murray Hall, and it dominated newspapers when Alan was a young boy. The story goes like this. First of all, are you familiar with this story at all? Mm-mm. Okay, I wasn't either. Murray Hall was a politician in New York City. He was part of the Tammany Hall political machine. Those Tammany Hall Hucksters?

Norm, calm down. We don't have time for another one of your Tammany Hall rants. He'd been part of that political machine for like 25 years. Over the course of his life, he'd been married to two women. He was well-respected, well-connected, the politicians he worked with, the men in his social circles, had no idea that he had been assigned female at birth. Marie Hall kept that fact to himself. He didn't have any other choice. But then, in the early 1900s,

as he was nearing his 60s, Murray realized something. He was dying, dying of breast cancer. Oh. He found himself in a horrific position. He could not seek medical help. Doing so would risk exposure.

Right. So he desperately tried to cure himself. He bought medical textbooks. He purchased a bunch of different medicines. He tried and tried and tried to beat the cancer without the assistance of anyone else. But he got weaker and weaker and sicker and sicker until finally he did call a doctor.

But by that point it was too late. He died soon after. And in his death, he was outed. He became famous or more accurately, infamous. He was laughed about, mocked, written about endlessly, always with the wrong pronouns. People loved the detail that his attention. adopted daughter didn't know, and now she was just finding it out. In an instant, Murray Hall lost

not just his life, but his legacy. He did not wear women's clothing, but he was buried in a dress. Oh my God. And none of his political friends attended his funeral. That's fascinating. I'd never heard that story. Yeah. It's disgusting. That happened in 1901. It was obviously a huge story. Yeah. Alan Hart would have been 11 years old when headlines like, she's dead the poor fellow, and Murray Hall fooled many shrewd men dominated newspapers. Alan Hart had to know that even death wouldn't exempt him from being outed. And if that happened, Rudy, his beloved wife, would be left to weather that storm alone. Yep. So now I get it. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I mean about, like, in part two of this, we can't say for certain what he was thinking. We don't have those documents. Yeah. But we can look at the context and apply some common sense. This is a great example of, like, trans people have existed. Forever. For, you know, tale is old as time.

You know, but, you know, people will say, this is some new thing. Yeah. I don't know why this is happening. It's like, no. been a thing, but it's things like this that make it seem like, oh, yeah, trans people didn't exist back then. It's like, yeah, Dr. Allen Hart destroyed evidence of his life to protect his loved ones and himself. Yeah.

And I think that makes perfect sense. Yeah. At 53 years old, Alan wrote that will, which decreed that so much evidence of his personal history be destroyed upon his death, that his physical body be burned, that it not be kept. You know, a lot of sources talk about those two boxes, but reading that he wanted to be cremated, I don't know how common that was at that time. I don't know either. These days, I mean, someone wants to be cremated.

Great. I think nothing of it. Scatter their ashes. Great. But there's something about the way it's written in his last Will and Testament that is just, so sad and it makes me, you know, maybe it's not sad. Maybe it's him taking some power back and saying, I don't want to be in a position where someone tries to dig up my body.

Yeah. I don't want there to be a memorial that gets vandalized. I don't want any of that. It's so interesting, like also the don't make charitable contributions in my name, which is so funny to me. Just, you know, the idea of anyone saying that. But especially him, you know, saving so many lives. He clearly cared so much about education.

But again, I wonder about, like, him not wanting those extra eyes on his name when he can't do anything to control. Right. So maybe that will gave him some peace of mind. Soon after he wrote it, Alan and Rudy moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Connecticut. That's right. where all incredible people come from. That's right.

And live. And it was there in West Hartford that they bought a home. They put down roots. Alan became the director of hospitalization and rehabilitation at the Connecticut State Tuberculosis Commission. He got his master's degree in public health from Yale. He took part in professional organizations. He took leadership roles in those organizations. He wrote medical articles.

He gave more than 150 speeches on. public health. Wow. Photos from him in that time period indicate that he may have started testosterone therapy. It made his features more masculine, his voice deeper, which I realize is weird when I say I was only looking at photos, but, you know, people say he had a deeper voice then. Well, and I'm just thinking about how, like, the time period, too. Yeah.

Like, society is changing a lot during this time, post-World War II. Yeah. So. You want to talk about them? I'm sure you're going to get into it. Not really. Go ahead. Well, I'm just saying there. I'm wrapping up here.

You know, there's just like more acceptance, like the hippie movement, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I'm wondering, are we in that time period yet? I may be jumping too far ahead. You have jumped so far ahead, my friend. Let me get back. Alan, you know, is nearing the end here. He's not going to see a lot of hippies.

Oh, man. Leave it to beaver times. Okay. So we're in the 50s? Yeah. Okay. My bad. Rudy became a professor at the University of Hartford.

Together, they became pillars of their community. They'd been married for nearly 30 years when in 1962, Alan died of heart disease. He was 71 years old. Rudy lived another 20 years. She never remarried. She spoke of Alan often. And when she died in 1982, she donated her estate to the, the Medical Research Foundation of Oregon in honor of her late husband, Alan Hart.

That's sweet. It's sweet. And I think there could be an argument. That's not what he wanted. But I think she knew that that is what he would really want. And maybe they kind of had an agreement like once we're both gone. Well, and okay, now I can talk about future times because she died much later than him. Yeah.

So by 1982, the culture is much different than 1942. So maybe she felt like more accepting. This is important stuff. Why are you smiling at me? It's about to get bad again. Oh, no. That's my hopium, I guess. Well, no, I mean, I think it's natural.

I mean, it's good and bad what's about to happen. because way back in 1920, just three years after Alan underwent his groundbreaking medically-assisted transition, Dr. Gilbert, the psychiatrist who'd helped him with that transition, published a case study about Alan in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, which was a title you made fun of last week. Our favorite magazine. He published it under the title, Homosexuality and Its Treatment. He didn't identify Allen by name. He referred to Alan only by the letter H. But he detailed Allen's family history, his education, his struggles, his course of treatment.

Fun side note, that article should have been really controversial, 1920. Dr. Gilbert might have published it thinking he'd get some blowback for his role in getting Alan gender affirming care, which was like not a thing at all. But I don't know. People must have skipped that issue because, like, it just didn't. not, you know, blip, no one noticed. And have enough subscribers, okay? You're working on it.

Ten people read that article. As someone who writes stuff myself, I just, I'm thinking about Dr. Gilbert and like, in a way, you know, how brave, because in it he really advocated for his patient and really, I think, probably thought he was putting his career on the line. Yeah. And then he publishes this thing. And like, there's no evidence that anyone reacted at all. This is going to be a bombshell article.

It's going to blow up. It's good that there wasn't some terrible thing that happened, but also there's kind of that funny moment of like, what's World War I still happening, 1920? It's over. Oh, well, then there's no excuse. I don't know. Great Depression.

The roaring 20s, 1920. Oh, you said like 1920 on the dot. Yeah. Okay. People were just roaring. The flappers were flapping. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

The dongs were donging. Sure. Women were voting. Well, the white women anyway. Stock traders were trading. Uh-huh. And Dr. Gilbert was writing his boring-ass article that no one read. So like I said, didn't make a splash at all.

But then, 50 years later, a historian named Jonathan Katz was working on a book titled Gay American History. He came across Dr. Gilbert's art. article. And using the details in that case study, Jonathan pieced together that Dr. Allen Hart was the patient described in that 1920 case study. It was an incredible find. Jonathan's book came out in 1976, so Rudy was still living. And it was groundbreaking. It was a foundational work. It included write-ups of influential people in gay history, including, of course, Alan Hart, a lesbian to be celebrated.

What the fuck? Oh, no. He was a trans man. He was not a lesbian. This, I mean, hats off to Jonathan for putting the pieces together, but he didn't quite. We commend you for that. I mean, it's like, how do you put it? It's like, it's like if you go to the grocery store and you get all the ingredients that you want,

but they're for all different dishes and you put them together and the end result is shitty. That was a long way of saying something. that I don't think needed to be explained. Anyway, this led to years of people misidentifying Alan Hart as a lesbian, and don't worry, it gets worse, celebrating him by using his dead name for an annual fundraiser. What the fuck? You said, 1976? Yeah.

Okay. But, I mean, this happened for a long time. There was this annual fundraiser using his dead name, referring to him as like this. celebrated lesbian. What's crazy is back in 1918, Dr. Allenhart was like, I do not go by that name anymore. Do not use that name. Yeah. Well, if we want to be more technical, when he was a child, he tried to get rid of that name. He did not want that name. Yeah. Anyone who had more than two brain cells to rub together. Sorry, that's kind of mean, but was like he wasn't a lesbian.

He was trans. Nobody gets, I mean, this is what drives me nuts. No one, no one on earth gets a hysterectomy and lives their life as a dude just because they want to be with a woman. You don't have to do all that. That is nuts. That is absolutely nuts. If that's what you had to do to be with a woman. Oh, my gosh.

I mean, obviously it would have been dangerous to be a lesbian in those times too, but tell everyone your cousins and that you live together and that you're great friends and that you share a bed because it gets cold at night. And also, I was married before, but my husband died in the war and I just can't get in over. Make shit up. But this idea that someone was like, I know what I'll do. I'll get a hysterectomy I'll present as a man and I'll be run out of several towns Yeah that's the easy

But I'm actually a woman and a lesbian Yeah Yeah yeah Yeah Hey call back to Francis Perkins Who did just that act Remember she had a long-term friend Yes yes yes

After her husband went to the asylum Yeah Yeah I'm keeping stuff in this in this noggin here Thank God one of us is You know Kristen presented that story You taught us well, Kristen. Not myself.

This was a painful erasure of a trans man. A complete lack of understanding to circle back. For who Alan Hart actually was, what he actually did, and what he went through to get there. But thank the Lord above, trans people and other allies spoke out. And for that reason, Dr. Allen Hart has been given him. his rightful place in history as a trailblazing trans doctor. Yes. That historian did eventually come out and say like, my bad, yeah.

Yeah, well, it's tough because it's like good intentions and also incredible historic research there. Right. And I'm with you to a point and I actually had something in here about that. in my head I envisioned this as like maybe Jonathan got it wrong in the book and then later realized well no he kind of doubled down for quite a you know he did get there eventually kind of like Dr. Gilbert it took a minute we got there listen Jonathan it's like when I used to say tuberculosis I was taught that's actually not how you say it and now I don't say it that way anymore he figured this out a long time ago that's good I'm just saying yeah if we make a error or mistake, you just, you correct it.

And you feel shame forever and ever. Right. And then you wake up at 3 a.m. Uh-huh. Because you're really on top of things and life is good. And you want to be like your hero, Mark Wahlberg. And you two could have potentially stopped 9-11. Should we move on to the slop?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. Oh, so that was it. That's the end? That's it. That's the story of Alan Hart. I really admire him.

I, you know, again, I wish we knew more about his inner world, but I understand why we don't. Yeah. It's, again, never heard this story. Very interesting. Those newspaper articles were illuminating. That was good stuff. Shout out to newspapers.com, by the way. Yeah, I mean, it was really fascinating.

And I, it's funny in working on this, I struggled with. initially I was going to read, you know, one of the articles where he got outed. And I decided not to, just because I feel like you can describe it and you get the gist of it. Yeah. I don't know. It's fascinating because on the one hand, I feel like sometimes with history it's easy to think, like, it all went this one way. And everyone talked about this person this way. but to read in that Albany Democrat, that little newspaper.

Yeah. You know, not perfect articles, obviously, but articles that were just way ahead of their time. And it's because they knew him as a person. Yeah. Because they knew him as a person, they were much more able to treat him with compassion. Yes, and that's very important.

Yeah. Great job, Kristen. Thanks. Me and the Norm Troopers and the other history hose commend you. Thank you. Excellent job. What are we doing for the slop this week? Oh, hello.

I just did a whole episode. Are you, you have nothing prepared for the slop? Oh, my gosh. Excuse me. I had some thoughts on what we could do. Everyone, we watched that horrible, no, it wasn't horrible. It was fascinating. the documentary, a pastor's wife?

The pastor's wife. Yes. You want to talk about that? Also, Dolly Parton died. I can't stop thinking about it. Maybe we talk about that. Maybe we sing nine to five as a punishment for the pig butter investors. Working nine to five.

Hey, don't give that away for free. Oh, sorry. All right, let's get into the slop. All right. Should we wrap up? We've been recording for two hours. Holy Toledo. People like the long ones.

They do. That's what she. said. Yeah. Great episode, Kristen. What are we talking about next week?

Who knows? Who knows? Our schedule is very, like, we're not so rigid anymore, so we really don't know what's going to come out

next week. We're just so cool and flexible. Yeah, we are. Kristen's been doing this hot yoga. She's not so rigid anymore. We're doing all sorts of stuff. Yeah, I don't have depression.

I just wake up super early for no reason, because I'm on top of it. That's right. Well, Kristen, you know what they say about history hose. We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the New York Times,

the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, newspapers.com, Oregon Encyclopedia.com, Connecticuthistory.org, and more. Check the show notes for a full list of our sources. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review. Well, when you say it like that.

Wherever you listen to podcasts, And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Oh, you can also join the YouTube members-only channel. We'll send you a jacket. We won't. And get the bonus episodes.

Jacket? Join the, you know, members-only jacket. Oh, I guess. Keep up, Norm. Join the Reddit community, R-slash Old-Timey Podcast. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram at Old Timey Podcast. You can also follow us individually on Instagram.

I'm at Kristen Pitts-Karuso, and he's at Gaming His Story. And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio. Bye! Yeah! Bye! Bye! See ya! See ya!