Transgender woman becomes monk (audio)

Matthew Bell (PRI The World, 1/2/17; CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Lobzang Jivaka (formerly Laura M. Dillon then Lawrence M. Dillon, fourth from left), Rizong Monastery, Ladakh, Buddhist India, with fellow lamas, 1960 (Courtesy of Jacob Lau/pri.org).

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Gender and Spiritual Transitions (Dr. L. Dillon)

Laura Maude Dillon was born in London on May 1, 1915. At the age of 28, Ms. Dillon registered under the name of Mr. "Lawrence Michael Dillon," legally becoming a man.

Over several years in the 1940s, s/he also underwent a groundbreaking physical transition from female to male through a series of surgical operations.

But all of that was just part of this Englishman’s remarkable story of personal sexual transformation.

Dr. Dillon tells the story in a memoir called Out of the Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions (Fordham U Press).

The book was published in Nov. 2016, more than a half-century after Dr.  Dillon’s unexpected death in 1962, when s/he was a Buddhist novice (trainee) lama.

Editors Jacob Lau, Cameron Partridge (pri.org)

As a child Laura always liked boy stuff, like a military coat with anchor buttons. But when Laura got a little older, people said it was high time to give up the tomboy thing and start acting like a young lady. More

• Buddhism in UK goes way back (Buddhism-London.org)
• PHOTOS: courage and tragedy of LGBTQ life in Peru
• The Tibetan lamas that give Buddhism a bad name (and Dillon is not among them)