A Blog For Trans People
By Trans People

The main point of DMC is to bring trans people together.

Blog posts take you through the journey of being trans in the UK, with explanations and information about how to transition socially, legally, and medically.

There are also two extra categories titled Mental Health and Other Topics.

The Resources page is a list of resources for you to go through - links from the blog posts in chronological order.

The Charities page is a list of links to charities for trans people, which you can donate to straight through the links to their websites.

DMC has a page all about Trans Day of Remembrance, to honour those we have lost to different types of violence.

Write For DMC allows you to contact us if you want to write for us - including for any of the blog post categories of your choice.

You can also comment on blog posts, but the comments are moderated for the safety of our users.

There’s a Quick Exit button in the header which will take you to Google if you’re in danger of someone being able to see that you’re on an LGBT website, for your safety.

So, look around. Hopefully you find what you need.

The Story Behind DMC

DillonMarshallCowell.co.uk is named after two important trans people from the UK.

Roberta Elizabeth Marshall Cowell was the first known British trans woman to go through one of many stages of bottom surgery, known as an Orchidectomy.

Laurence Michael Dillon was the trans man that performed it.

It was the 1950s, and a surgery like this was illegal. Under the ‘Mayhem’ laws, it was forbidden for ‘men who would otherwise qualify to serve in the military’ to be ‘disfigured.’ Cowell had previously enlisted in the Army in 1940, and had also been a prisoner of war.

Laurence Michael Dillon was the first known British trans man to have his own bottom surgery, known as Phalloplasty. Sir Harold Gillies performed Dillon’s Phalloplasty, and Cowell’s Vaginoplasty, which was carried out some time after her Orchidectomy.

Cowell had found Dillon through his book, Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology, which Dillon had written after he had trained to become a doctor.

Some of Cowell’s personal views were sometimes offensive, such as the way in which she tried to distance herself from other trans women by claiming that she was intersex from birth, and that trans women were ‘fake.’ This is not something that we agree with, trans women are, of course, real women. But Cowell and Dillon are still important figures for UK trans history.

Without them, and Sir Harold Gillies, it might have taken much longer to get access to the lower surgeries that we have today, as well as the ability to transition legally.

We have always deserved to exist, and they paved the way forward for us, and people like us, to start living as our authentic selves in every way possible.

And yet, we still have such a long way to go.

That is why this blog exists. So that people who are transitioning today have some sort of guide to get them through the parts that are the most challenging.

Which happens to be a lot of it, actually.