Editing James Barry (surgeon) (section)

==Gender and personal life==
<!--NOTE: This article refers to Barry as "Barry" wherever possible, avoiding specifically male or female third person pronouns.-->
In a letter chiding John Bulkley, Barry's older brother, for abandoning legal studies for the military, 19-year-old Barry wrote: "Was I not a girl I would be a Soldier!"{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|p=50}}

Rachel Holmes notes in her biography of Barry that Mary Anne Bulkley, in all her complaints to her brother about her child's precarious future, never once raises the question of marriage – even though a good match was then quite vital for a woman's financial security. Holmes suggests this could mean Mrs Bulkley was aware of "some defect in her daughter that made marriage an impossibility".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Holmes |first=Rachel |title=The Secret Life of Dr James Barry: Victorian England's Most Eminent Surgeon |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing|Bloomsbury]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-4088-9156-8 |location=London |pages=259 |language=en}}</ref>

Barry's interest in medicine was probably encouraged by the liberal-minded friends of the late James Barry RA, and just before travelling to Edinburgh to enroll as a medical student in 1809, Barry assumed a male identity.{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|p=51, 59}} Barry's short stature, slight build, unbroken voice, delicate features and smooth skin led others to suspect that Barry was not a man but a [[Preadolescence#Prepubescence, puberty, and age range|pre-pubescent]] boy.{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|pp=75, 76}} This identity was maintained through surgical training and recruitment into the [[British Army]] which, at officer rank level, did not then require a medical examination.{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|p=101}}

During Barry's first posting abroad to Cape Town in South Africa, Barry became a close friend of the Governor, Lord Charles Somerset, and his family. It has been suggested that Lord Charles discovered Barry's secret and that the relationship was more than friendship.{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|p=154}} Their closeness led to rumours and ultimately an accusation briefly appearing on a bridge post in Cape Town on 1 June 1824 saying that the writer had "detected Lord Charles buggering Dr Barry",{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|p=182}} which led to a court trial {{whose?|date=February 2025}} and investigation, as [[homosexuality]] was at that time illegal.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}} Despite these allegations, if Somerset was aware of Barry's sex, he did not reveal it.

Despite efforts to appear masculine, witness reports comment on Barry's effeminacy{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|p=125}} and on a somewhat contradictory reputation – Barry had a reputation for being tactless, impatient, argumentative and opinionated,{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|loc= pp. 251, 252 citing Bradford, Edward, 'The Reputed Female Army Surgeon', The Medical Times and Gazette vol. II for 1865, p. 293.}} but was also considered to have had a good [[Doctor-patient relationship#Bedside manner|bedside manner]] and famous professional skill.<ref name=ondb/> Barry's temper and bravado led to a famous pistol duel with Captain [[Abraham Josias Cloëté|Josias Cloete]] of the 21st Light Dragoons. Barry's aim was better, the bullet striking Cloete's [[shako]] military cap and removing its peak, which dissipated its force.{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|pp=155–159}}

During the [[Crimean War]] (1854–1856), Barry got into an argument with [[Florence Nightingale]].<ref name=ondb /> After Barry's death, Nightingale wrote that: <blockquote>I never had such a blackguard rating in all my life – I who have had more than any woman – from this Barry sitting on (her){{efn|Use of rounded parentheses in original.}} horse, while I was crossing the Hospital Square, with only my cap on, in the sun. (He) kept me standing in the midst of quite a crowd of soldiers, commissariat servants, camp followers etc etc, every one of whom behaved like a gentleman, during the scolding I received, while (she) behaved like a brute. After (she) was dead, I was told (he) was a woman. ... I should  say (she) was the most hardened creature I ever met.<ref name="FloNight" /><ref>Photocopy of two pages of undated letter, Wellcome Library, London, [https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fd47y8j7 'Letters by Nightingale, 1864-1865'], Ms. 9001/145. Use of rounded parentheses in original.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Heilmann |first=Ann |title=Neo-/Victorian Biographilia and James Miranda Barry: A Study in Transgender and Transgenre |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |year=2018 |isbn=978-3-319-71386-1 |location=London |pages=65, 281–282 |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>
Barry would never allow anyone into the room while undressing, and repeated a standing instruction that "in the event of his death, strict precautions should be adopted to prevent any examination of his person"{{sfn|du Preez|Dronfield|2016|loc= pp. 251, 252 citing Bradford, Edward, 'The Reputed Female Army Surgeon', The Medical Times and Gazette vol. II for 1865, p. 293.}} and that the body should be "buried in [the] bed sheets without further inspection".{{sfn|Loudon|2002|p=}}