Mary Diana Dods

Walter Sholto Douglas (1790–1830), born under the name Mary Diana Dods, was a Scottish writer of books, stories and other works. Despite being assigned a female identity, Douglas lived as a man in his private, public, and work life. Most of his works appeared under the pseudonym David Lyndsay. His name may have been partly inspired by his grandfather's name, Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton. He was a close friend and confidant of Mary Shelley, and the husband of Isabella Robinson. In 1980, scholar Betty T. Bennett began research that would result in sensationally outing Douglas, connecting his deadname with his writing pseudonym, making the false assertion of Walter being a mentally ill abusive cis woman seizing opportunities otherwise unavailable to him by presenting as a man.

From Wikipedia , CC BY-SA 4.0