Dr. James Miranda Barry, a medical graduate of Edinburgh, was a British military officer and surgeon who was appointed inspector of hospitals in 1857. There had been rumors during his life that he was involved in at least one long-term “homosexual” relationship (6). Dr. Barry was actually Dr. Miranda Stewart. Her sex was not discovered until she was laid out for her funeral in 1865, when abdominal findings were suggestive of a previous pregnancy (2, 6). Upon her death, a friend commented, “She chose to be a military doctor. Not to fight for the right of a woman to become one, but simply to be one.” (6) She is said to have performed the first Cesarean section in the British Empire shortly after 1816. Because she traveled with the British army,
