Hartford on the Brain

Start at the American School for the Deaf on 139 North Main Street. You can learn more about the American School for the Deaf here in this video from the West Hartford Historical Center.

Turn right (south) on North Main Street and continue to Fern Street.  Turn right on Fern Street until you come to Walden Street.  218 Walden was the home of Alan Hart.

Dr. Alan Hart

Alan Hart was a professor in psychology at the University of Hartford, he gave countless community lectures, and he published an article in the Hartford Courant advocating against racism as the city grew more diverse. During his time in Hartford, he played a very important role in the medical response to tuberculosis, and he worked for the state tuberculosis commission. He is the first known person to undergo gender affirming surgery in 1917 in the United States, and most likely, his was the first known gender affirming surgery, period. These two experiences are deeply intertwined, both in Hart’s own lived experience and the histories of gender affirming care and infectious diseases. Alan Hart made concerted efforts throughout his life to distance himself from the life he lived before his gender affirming surgery. Thus, we can ask, what are the ethics of digging so deeply into Hart’s life, pre-transition, when he so clearly wanted to separate himself from it? That said, Alan was born in Kansas, and he moved frequently. He found himself between New York and Stanford University for his undergrad, in Oregon for medical school, and in Hartford in 1947. Much of Alan’s movement across the states was more than a search for job opportunities. Hart intentionally distanced himself from New York and other places where his gender left him victimized at the hands of colleagues looking to reduce his credibility, and at the hands of a society which was equally unwelcome. For Alan, leaving the state of New York was more akin to an act of necessary escape, which frames Hartford as a place of safety in that era of the mid 20th century. Hart was also affected by the period’s concerns of gender and sense of place in biology. Alan’s identity as a man played an important role in his acceptance into the field of medicine. It often came down to a piece of paper signed by Alan Hart’s professor-turned-psychiatrist, J. Allen Gilbert.

Gilbert published a case study of Hart in 1920 titled “Homo-sexuality and its Treatment”. He emphasizes Hart’s childhood as “proof” of the inborn nature of his gender/sexuality deviancy; this is reflective of the switch occurring during this era of an acts-based model of sexuality to an identity-based model. Hart did not come to Gilbert out of concern for his gender/sexuality; he had no problem with it; “[he] knew nothing of psychopathy and did not realize that [his] own condition was abnormal”. He sought Gilbert’s help for a phobia of a particular noise – which Gilbert of course attributed to his “homosexuality”. Gilbert does not entirely pathologize Hart. For what it’s worth, he did allow the hysterectomy to go forward (instead of attempting to “cure” the gender deviance) and commended Alan’s bravery and respectability.

After the initial controversy about his identity at the San Francisco hospital, it was a document signed by Dr. Gilbert that made the media accept his manhood; it is notable that it was not his own identification that cemented the legitimacy of his gender, but an official statement from the medical field.

In the 1920s, Hart conducted groundbreaking research on tuberculosis, utilizing X-ray technology for early detection. In 1948, Hart was appointed director of hospitalization and rehabilitation for the Connecticut State Tuberculosis Commission. As in Idaho, Hart took charge of a massive statewide X-ray screening program for TB, emphasizing the importance of early detection and treatment. He held this position for the rest of his life, and is credited with helping contain the spread of tuberculosis in Connecticut.  Hart was an advocate for public health in many ways beyond his impressive research.  He advocated for reforms in healthcare, including socialized medicine.  Hart’s role as a pioneer in radiology revolutionized medical diagnostics, and in the case of the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, Alan’s work has had waves of importance for the LGBTQ+ community throughout the AIDS crisis. Of the 1.3 Million people who died of tuberculosis in the past year, just under two hundred thousand were people who also had HIV, putting them at an increased vulnerability to TB. Alan Hart’s contributions saved countless lives. In Hartford, in the LGBTQ+ community, and throughout the world.

“The ugly things that have grown up in medicine are the result of the ugliness and falsity of society as a whole, of our American preoccupation with success and making money, of our concentration of effort on the production of things rather than their use for a fuller human life. These things are not the fault of the individual physician; and neither can they be remedied by him. So long as the American people are permeated with the spirit of ‘I’m going to get mine, no matter how,’ just so long will that attitude filter into all the professions; doctors are people first and are affected by the current ideals just as other people are.” –Alan Hart

Learn more here:

Trailblazing Transgender Doctor Saved Countless Lives, Scientific American, June, 10 2021

And here:

Alan L. Hart: Pioneer in Medicine and Transgender History