Alan L. Hart
A physician, novelist and early figure in trans history, he helped expand the use of X-rays to detect tuberculosis.
Alan L. Hart was born in Halls Summit, Kansas, in 1890. He grew up in Oregon and graduated at the top of his class from the University of Oregon Medical School in 1917.
That year he sought help from the psychiatrist J. Allen Gilbert. Following their consultations, Hart underwent a hysterectomy in the winter of 1917–18, one of the earliest documented operations associated with a trans man’s transition in the United States. He adopted the name Alan L. Hart and lived as a man for the rest of his life.
Public exposure of his earlier life repeatedly disrupted his medical career and forced him to move. After training in radiology, he developed expertise in using X-rays to detect tuberculosis early. His work in Idaho and later Connecticut helped extend screening to people whose infections might otherwise have gone undetected.
Hart also wrote four novels, including “Doctor Mallory” (1935), drawing on his experience of medicine to explore professional ethics and social prejudice. His non-fiction book “These Mysterious Rays” (1943) explained X-rays and their medical uses to a general readership. In 1925 he married Edna Ruddick; they remained together until his death on 1 July 1962.