Out of the Ordinary: A Life through Gender and Spiritual Transitions

Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka's memoir, "Out of the Ordinary," is now available in Ireland and the UK, chronicling his gender and religious journeys. It includes his hormonal and surgical transition, travels as a ships surgeon, and religious conversion to various spiritual systems. Dillon/Jivaka's novice ordination as the first white European man in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition was significant. The book offers a unique perspective on the transgender movement and its history.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 18 November 2021
Publisher: The Lilliput Press Ltd

Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka (1915–62) was an Anglo-Irish doctor and Buddhist monastic novice who transitioned from female to male between 1939 and 1949 and wrote the groundbreaking book "Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology" in 1946. His memoir, "Out of the Ordinary," captures his various journeys, including to Oxford, into medicine, and across the world by ship. He recounts his hormonal and surgical transitions, his travels as a ships surgeon in the British Merchant Navy, and his engagement with colonial and postcolonial subjects in Asia. The book is not only a unique record of early gender affirmation but also a compelling account of religious conversion in the mid-twentieth century. Dillon/Jivaka chronicles his gradual shift from Anglican Christianity to the esoteric spiritual systems of George Gurdjieff and Peter Ouspensky, to Theravada and finally Mahayana Buddhism.

Weight: 412g
Dimension: 229 x 155 x 33 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781843518211