A Gender Variance Who's Who

Louise was the illegitimate daughter of Marianne Michel, a domestic servant in Vroncourt-la-Côte, Haute-Marne. Marianne was seduced and then abandoned by Laurent Demahis, the scion of the estate, who quickly left after Louise was born. Unusually, the Demahis grandparents embraced Louise Demahis (as she was known), permitting her the run of the estate, giving her a good education and freedom to pursue scientific enquiries. When the grandparents died in 1850, Laurent’s widow claimed the estate forcing Louise and Marianne, who had received a small bequest, to leave, and forbade Louise from presenting herself any more as Mademoiselle Demahis. Louise studied in Chaumont, the prefecture of Haute-Marne, where she qualified as an assistant teacher. 

In 1851, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I, and President of France, did a coup against himself and became Emperor as Napoleon III. It was now required that teachers and other civil servants swear an oath of allegiance. As a sincere Republican, Louise would not do this, and she was not able to teach in the regular schools, but she opened free schools where she taught. In 1856 she and fellow-teacher Julie Longchamps moved to Paris, where they shared accommodation, and where Michel did find work as a teacher. She wrote poems, became a member of the Union of Poets, corresponded with the writer Victor Hugo. 

She was frugal with female dress. It was said that if she had two dresses, she would give the better to one with a greater need. She also kept male clothing, which she would wear to attend evening lectures and meetings. 

In 1870, goaded by Otto von Bismark of Prussia, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia, quickly lost, abdicated and went into exile. The established politicians, not agreeing who should be the next king, established the Third Republic as a compromise. After a further defeat by the German army in March 1871, the government retreated to Tours. 

Soldiers of the National Guard, which had defended the now abandoned Paris, seized control of the city and established the Paris Commune. Its policies included the separation of church and state, self-policing, the remission of rent, the abolition of child labour, and the right of employees to take over an enterprise deserted by its owner. All Catholic churches and schools were closed. Michel became part of the National Guard. When the Paris Commune was declared she was elected head of the Montmartre Women's Vigilance Committee, and as such was responsible for the day-to-day welfare of two hundred children. She was part of a project to reform the city’s education system, ran a soup kitchen and attended to the wounded. She also scolded Karl Marx for his failure to join the Commune. In addition to this, Michel – in the male uniform of the National Guard - fought on the barricades with the 61st Battalion of Montmartre in the battles of Issy, Montmartre and Clamar. To the Franch press, she became La Vierge Rouge (The Red Virgin).

In late May, the “semaine sanglante”, the national French Army suppressed the Commune – it had lasted 73 days. The army killed an estimated 15,000, and arrested 43,000. Michel surrendered after her mother Marianne was arrested.

15,000 were tried in court, 13,500 of whom were found guilty, 95 were sentenced to death, 251 to forced labour, and 1,169 to deportation – mainly to Nouvelle-Calédonie (New Caledonia). Michel was tried in December, charged with offences including trying to overthrow the government, encouraging citizens to arm themselves, being a pétroleuse and herself using weapons and wearing a military uniform. The judges assumed that Michel, as they assumed for all the female Communards, was a “shameless slattern”, and that Michel was sexually involved with Theophile Ferré, of the Commune executive council. Her denials only led to later accusations that she had “tastes against nature”, that she was lesbian.

After twenty months in prison, during which Ferré was executed, Michel was loaded onto the ship Virginie on 8 August 1873, to be deported to New Caledonia where she arrived four months later. Also on the ship was the anarchist Nathalie Lemel who instructed Michel in the theory of anarchism. The two worked together in New Caledonia, and were calumnied as lesbian. 

Marie Ferré, Theophile’s sister cared for Michel’s mother while Michel was in prison, and then in exile.

Michel in New Caledonia befriended the indigenous Kanaks, and learned their culture and language. She supported the 1878 Kanak revolt, and acted as a teacher for the children of the deported. 

In 1880, amnesty was granted to all surviving Communards, and those deported returned to France. Michel became a public speaker, and writer. 

Marie Ferré died two years after Michel’s return, and Michel organised her funeral

In 1883 Michel was one of the leaders of a demonstration of unemployed workers. She was sentenced to six years of solitary confinement for inciting the looting, but released after three. 

In 1888, while speaking in Le Havre, Michel was shot at twice: one bullet was lost in her hat, the other wounded her behind the ear. After medical attention, she refused to press charges. 

In 1890, after an attempt to commit her to a mental asylum she moved to London, where she ran the International Anarchist School for the children of political refugees.

From 1890 onwards, Charlotte Vauvelle became Michel's almost constant companion, accompanying her on her international travels. In 1895 Michel met Emma Goldman at an anarchist conference in London.

Michel was on a speaking tour in Marseille in January 1905 when she died of pneumonia.

In 1937 the Collège Louise-Michel was opened in the 10th arrondissement. On 1 May 1946 the Paris Metro Vallier station in Levallois-Perret was renamed Louise Michel station. In 2004 the Square Louise-Michel in Montmartre was renamed after her. Michel was one of 10 French women honoured during the 2024 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Paris, where a gold statue of her was raised along the Seine river.

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The first biography of Louise Michel was by Karl von Levetzow, an associate of Magnus Hirschfeld, and as such concerned to show that famous persons could be gay.  His article was published in Jahrbuch fiir sexuelle Zwischenstufen, in the same year that she died.  Levetzow emphasized her non-conformity with the 19^th-century ideas of gender and found lesbianism even in her  facial features. 

"A more virile character than hers cannot be found even among the most masculine of men” (p324). 

 He also quotes Theophil Zolling, who interviewed Michel in 1880 and called her “ugly” and 

“the wide-slit mouth, whose thick, pale, cracked lips by no means invite a kiss, and hide the small, icy eyes lurking behind bushy brows. A moustache, which would arouse the envy of a grammar school pupil, is shaded under the strong and not ignobly cut nose” (p327-8)  

This reading is not supported by the photographs that we have. 

This reinforced an idea that had already been proposed by her political enemies intended as a calumny., although this apparently was not Levetzow’s intention.

A year later a different biography appeared written by fellow anarchist Ernest Girault.  To protect her from insinuations of “tastes against nature” he emphasised her love for Theophile Ferré.  Her energy, courage, and "disgust with life" all stemmed, in his opinion, from Ferré's rejection of her affections.

A similar opinion was found the article on Michel in the 1910 Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Hirschfeld, in his Die Transvestiten, 1910 in his chapter on Women as Soldiers, discusses her only in the context of the Commune, where he states that women soldiers can be just as ‘inhuman’ as their male comrades, and quotes Levetzow.

In 1923 Emma Goldman visited Hirschfeld’s Institut fuer Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin and saw Michel’s photograph on a wall amidst other well-known lesbians. She objected to this arguing that Michel was a woman who had rejected the 19^th century roles for women, but that this did not make her a lesbian.  This reply was published in Jahrbuch fiir sexuelle Zwischenstufen.

Hirschfeld’s reply: 

“that even what appears to be the best circumstantial evidence can be based on error [...]. The various views of Levetzow and Mrs. Goldmann about Louise Michel, whose admirers and admirers are both to the same extent, is new evidence of this old experience. And yet there is also a bridge over the seemingly unbridgeable gap, namely where Ms. Goldmann speaks of Louise Michel in the following statements as a 'new type of femininity‘, a 'complicated nature‘. Individual psychology is not limited to a classification, no matter how sophisticated. Every scheme is shadowy.  The differentiation of human individualities is inexhaustible, unlimited.” (Hirschfeld 1923: 71 f).

Havelock Ellis in his Sexual Inversion, 1927 added a sentence on Michel to his third edition: “Great religious and moral leaders, like Madame Blavatsky and Louise Michel, have been either homosexual or bisexual or, at least, of pronounced masculine temperament” and a footnote referring his readers to Levetzow.

The major biography of Michel is by Edith Thomas, after she broke with the French Communist party.  She again continued the heterosexualisation by speculating a possible sexual relation with Victor Hugo also.  She portrayed Michel as an 

"unhappy woman who had lost the man she loved and admired” (p143-4)

Andrew Hussey has a paragraph on Louise Michel in his Paris: The Secret History, in which he makes a claim not found anywhere else, and without giving a source: 

“Michel was called the ‘Red Virgin’ because she refused to marry, but this did not stop her enjoying a long list of lovers, whom she took in the name of total freedom”.

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Pétroleuse – a term of abuse aimed at female participants in the Commune, suggesting that they used petroleum to burn down buildings during the semaine sanglante (in later years lit bottles of petroleum were called Molotov cocktails). The EN.Wikipedia and FR.Wikipedia articles are strongly in disagreement. The latter says that recent research shows that actually there were no proven incidents of arson committed by women, and that no woman was afterwards convicted as an arsonist. The former lists some who were so convicted.

Caledonia is of course the Roman name for what we call Scotland. “New Caledonia” was named by British explorer James Cook during a quick visit in 1774. It became a French colony, but they kept the British name, merely revising it to Nouvelle-Calédonie. Not to be confused with Nova Scotia. To the indigenous Kanaks, it is Kanaky.

Republican parties across Europe are generally left-wing, anti-clerical, anti-monarchy, anti-aristocrats and anti-oligarchs. In the US of course it is the reverse. And the new French Party, Les Républicains, founded by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2015, is more like the US party as it was pre-Trump.

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So, was Louise Michel in any way trans? Remember that several French trans men such as Violette Morris and Madeleine Pelletier lived and dressed as male but never took a male name. Remember also the common practice of claiming that politicians etc are gender or sexually deviant. This has recently happened to Brigitte Macron and Michelle Obama. 

I see Louise Michel as gender fluid. She was not determined enough to be transgender – her passions lay within anarchism. But she was not uptight about being a lady or a woman either. When convenient she dressed as male – and it was no big deal at all. It is unfortunate that the debate about her private life centres on whether she had “tastes against nature” for which there is no definite evidence either way. It would be better to ask whether anarchists should be gender conformists? Are not gender roles part of the oppression that anarchy is fighting against? Louise is a model of non-conforming.

• Theophil Zolling. Reise um die Pariser Welt. Verlag von W Spemann, 1882: 52.
• Karl von Levetzow, "Louise Michel," Jahrbuchfiir sexuelle Zwischenstufen 7, pt. 1 (1905): 307-70.
• Ernest Girault, La Bonne Louise. Bibliothèque des Auteurs modères, 1906.
• Magnus Hirschfeld. Die Transvestiten; ein Untersuchung uber den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb: mit umfangreichem casuistischen und historischen Materia Berlin: Pulvermacher, 1910: 532-3. English translation by Michael A Lombardi-Nash. Transvestites: The Erotic urge to Crossdress. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1991: 404-5.
• Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, 3^rd vol. 2, Sexual Inversion. Random House, 1927): 197.
• Emma Goldman, "Offener Brief an den Herausgeber der Jahrbücher uber Louise Michel," Jahrbuchfur sexuelle Zwischenstufen, 23 (1923): 70-92.
• Magnus Hirschfeld. „Vorbemerkung des Herausgebers“. Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen 1923; 23: 70–72.
• Alistair Horne. The Fall of Paris: The Seige and the Commune 1870-71. Macmillan, 1965, 1989: 28, 57, 237-8, 270-1, 278, 298-9, 319, 357, 379, 408, 413, 423, 425 ,
• Edith Thomas, translated by Penelope Williams. Louise Michel. Black Rose Books, 1980 – French original 1971.
• Marie Marmo Mullaney. “Sexual Politics in the Career and Legend of Louise Michel”. Signs, 15, 2, 1990:300-22.
• Bonnie Haaland. Emma Goldman: Sexuality and the Impurity of the State. Black Rose Books, 1993: 149, 155, 156, 166-170.
• Nic Maclellan (ed). Louise Michel. Ocean Press, 2004.
• Andrew Hussey. Paris: The Secret History. Bloomsbury, 2006: .
• Sidonie Verhaeghe. « Should we still call Louise Michel the Red Virgin? ». Cahiers d’histoire: Revue d’histoire critique, 148, 2021: 19-32.

EN.Wikipedia                FR.Wikipedia

Hayton grew up in County Durham and was at Newcastle University when the Thatcher government passed Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 which resulted in a de facto ban on any mention of gay or trans topics in schools. Hayton did a BSc, 1989 and PhD, 1992 in atomic physics,  and became a physics teacher at secondary schools, mainly (2002 - now) in Coventry in the West Midlands. 

As a man Hayton married and had three children, and was also an active trade unionist. 

By 2011 Hayton was feeling a very strong desire to transition and had sessions with a psychotherapist who compelled an exploration of every alternative to transition. Following this, Hayton started transition as Debbie 20 December 2012, the very same day that another trans teacher Lucy Meadows was denounced in the Daily Mail, and eventually driven to suicide by the unrelenting press scrum outside her home and school. Debbie’s transition, by contrast, went well with support from fellow teachers and the union.

Debbie had completion surgery in 2016 at the age of 47. Mrs Hayton has stayed as her wife. 

Debbie set herself up almost immediately as an arbiter of all things trans. Since 2016 she has been an opponent of self-identification. She has written on trans topics for most of the Conservative-supporting press: The Daily Mail, The Times, The Economist, The Telegraph, and has a regular column in The Spectator, UnHerd and Russia Today (RT),

In May 2019, TES (previously Times Educational Supplement) published an article on its front-page by Hayton on trans issues in schools where she endorsed the Transgender Trend guide which regards trans in children as ‘simple social contagion’ via rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), is against medical assistance to trans kids and advises teachers to tell classmates that one cannot change sex.

In December 2019 Hayton wore a T-shirt at an event organised by Fair Play For Women (one of the largest and best-funded campaign groups working to oppose reforms to the Gender Recognition Act) which (mimicking a slogan by Stonewall) stated that "Trans women are men. Get over it."

Hayton has spoken up for the LGB Alliance, a splinter group from Stonewall UK founded in 2019 in opposition to Stonewall’s postions re trans persons. The Alliance in return describes Hayton as “one of our bravest trans allies”.

Hayton has expressed opposition to the Yogyakarta Principles; the Resolution 2048 of the Council of Europe; Self-identification; the concept of Gender Identity; the provision of Puberty Blockers to children; trans women using women’s toilets; Eddie Redmayne apologising for taking a trans role.

• Nick Duffy. “Education magazine TES loses star columnist over transphobia row” Pink News,May 11, 2019.
• Emma Powys Maurice. “Transgender woman accused of hate speech after wearing t-shirt proclaiming ‘trans women are men’ “. Pink News, December 23, 2019. Online.
•  “Debbie Hayton, Not in Our Name.”. Steph’s Place, 26^thMarch 2021. Online.
• Debbie Hayton. “ 'It's a betrayal of children to ban experts from asking tough questions before they can change gender': Transwoman DEBBIE HAYTON gives her view on a new Government bill which she fears will have damaging, unintended consequences”, Daily Mail, 3 December 2021. Online.

EN.Wikipedia      debbiehayton.com       Twitter       LinkedIn

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We have considered several on these pages who regard who regard that what worked for them should be imposed on others (Virginia Prince), and what did not work for them should be banned (Alan Finch, Walt Heyer).  Of course no approach works for all.  We are very different and have different needs.

There is a divide among trans persons between those who regard therapy as essential and those for whom such a requirement is at best an irritant. 

There is an important typology re transsexuals who require therapy and those who do not.   That of Anne Vitale.  Like all typologies, there are some trans persons who do not fit in it at all, but it explains more than other approaches.  Vitale's third type G3 is those who arrive in middle-age still acting heteronormatively as per their initial gender.  These persons suffer chronic gender dysphoria and do need a therapist to either help them stay in their initial gender or to start transition.  Vitale proposes the term Gender Deprivation Anxiety Disorder (GEDAD).   G3 person have often married and had children.    Within this typology, Hayter would certainly seem to be a G3.

Hayter presumes to know what is best for transkids.   Her perspective is that of a school teacher.  However she was never a transkid herself and cannot really understand them.  

Hayter seems to be a contrarian re almost everything advocated by and achieved by the trans movement, even though the trans movement is riven on many issues.   To be so contrarian she has allied with those who would "morally mandate us out of existence" (to use Raymond's words).  Hayton is not the first trans woman to seek validation from anti-trans organisations.  

James Dawson, from Bingley, Yorkshire, went to the University of Bangor (previously the University College of North Wales), moved to Brighton, Sussex, and became a school teacher of personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education. He lived as a gay man.

He wrote young adult novels with gay characters. He also wrote the well-received Being a Boy, 2013, a guide for boys going through puberty. In 2014 Dawson wrote in the Guardian:

“I was unaware gay people even existed and, when puberty hit, found myself more than a little lost. I so dearly wish there had been just one book with a character who was a bit like me – just a normal teenage guy who happened to be gay. I would have especially loved one whose sexuality did not define him.”

The same year, he became the first male winner the Queen of Teen award where the shortlist are all nominated by teenage readers, who then vote for the winner.

Dawson published This Book is Gay for lesbian, bisexual, gay, queer, transgender or just curious persons, but mainly for teens and young adults. By this time Dawson had begun a gender transition. In 2015 she announced that she was transgender and that her name was Juno. Most of her books were re-issued with her new name (but not Being a Boy).

She was signed to write a column in Glamour magazine to document the experience of transition.
In an interview with Attitude magazine, May 2017, Juno says

"I think there are a lot of gay men out there who are gay men as a consolation prize because they couldn’t be women. That was certainly true of me."

She describes her identity as a gay man as a 'personal misdiagnosis', and believes that it is a more common phenomenon than one may think.


For her Glamour column, Juno interviewed the plastic surgeon Christopher Inglefield who does work for trans persons.  She was considering facial feminization surgery. She was then invited to be part of the ITV 3-part series documentary, Transformation Street. She is featured in episode 2. It fell to her to help educate the television crew on limits, such as the inappropriateness of childhood photographs. Initially the program was to be called Sex Change Clinic, and Juno had to make a fuss to explain that such terminology is outmoded.

Juno’s most recent book is The Gender Games: The Problem With Men and Women, From Someone Who Has Been Both, which restates for another generation that gender is a system of oppression for cis and trans both, mixed with autobiography.

*Not the US Actress, nor the other writers called James Dawson.

• James Dawson. Hollow Pike: Where Witchcraft Never Sleeps. Indigo, 2012.
• James Dawson. Cruel Summer. Indigo, 2013.
• James Dawson. Being a Boy. Hot Key Books, 2013.
• James Dawson. Say Her Name. Hot Key Books, 2014.
• James Dawson. “James Dawson: The importance of LGBT visibility in children's books”. The Guardian, 13 May 2014.
• Rebecca Hawkes. “James Dawson named 2014 Queen of Teen”. The Telegraph, 11 Jul 2014. www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookprizes/10962092/James-Dawson-named-2014-Queen-of-Teen.html.
• James Dawson. This Book is Gay. Sourcebooks, 2015.
• James Dawson. Under My Skin. Hot Key Books, 2015.
• James Dawson. All of the Above. Hot key Books, 2015.
• Joe Williams. “International best selling author comes out as transgender”. Pink News, 24^th October 2015. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/10/24/international-best-selling-author-comes-out-as-transgender.
• Nick Duffy. “‘This Book is Gay’ author to document her transition in Glamour”. Pink News, 5^th January 2016. www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/01/05/this-book-is-gay-author-to-document-her-transition-in-glamour.
• Juno Dawson. Mind Your Head. Hot Key Books, 2016.
• Juno Dawson. Spot the Difference. Hot Key Books, 2016.
• Juno Dawson. Margot & Me. Hot Key Books, 2017.
• Juno Dawson. What is Gender? How Does it Define Us? and Other Big Question for kidss. Wayland, 2017.
• Juno Dawson. The Gender Games. The Problem With Men and Women, From Someone Who Has Been Both. Two Roads, 2017.
• Juno Dawson. Grave Matter. Barrington Stoke, 2017.
• Juno Dawson. “Juno Dawson: Join our new transgender columnist on her amazing journey”. Glamour, 5 January 2016. www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/juno-dawson-columnist-on-transitioning-into-a-woman-part-1.
• “ ‘A Lot Of Gay Men Are Gay Men As A Consolation Prize Because They Couldn't Be Women’, Says Trans Author Juno Dawson”. Attitude, 2017-05-23. https://attitude.co.uk/article/14678/a-lot-of-gay-men-are-gay-men-as-a-consolation-prize-because-they-couldnt-be-women-says-trans-author-juno-dawson.
• Juno Dawson. “Transformation Street – how I sold my soul to reality TV”. Metro, 11 Jan 2018. http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/11/transformation-street-how-i-sold-my-soul-to-reality-tv-7222153/
• Joanne Kavanagh. “ALL ABOUT JUNO Who is Juno Dawson? Transgender author appearing on ITV’s Transformation Street: We take a look at her life and career so far.” The Sun, 18^th January 2018. www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/5368110/juno-dawson-transgender-author-transformation-street.
• Sally Benton (dir). Transformation Street, Ep 2. With Christopher Inglefield and Jono Dawson. Narrated by Lesley Sharp, research by Amanda Riley. UK ITV 50 mins 2018. https://vimeo.com/254635912.

Amazon Author Page     EN.Wikipedia     Glamour

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This book is gay contains the following diagram which I think is kinda neat:

David Warfield was raised in California. After school he joined the US Navy, where he did a lot of drugs and alcohol. He was a baseball coach and a white-water rafting instructer. David had three wives and a daughter.

At 35 he became a teacher in Antelope, outside Sacramento, California, and won awards for providing inspiration to at-risk teens in what became the award-winning Media Communications Academy. He was awarded an $80,000 grant for his program, won the school's award for the teacher who most inspires students and received a standing ovation from the district's staff at its annual meeting in 1998.

Warfield started transition to Dana Rivers early in 1999 with the intention of returning to school in September as Dana. This was supported by the school, and other teachers read a letter from Dana to their classes, and Dana was interviewed by the school newspaper. However all of four (out of 1500) parents complained that their religious and moral standards had been violated when Dana explained herself to students. They were supported by the Pacific Justice Institute (a right-wing activist legal organization that would be designated a hate group in 2014 by the Southern Poverty Law Center). The PJI threatened the board with lawsuits if they did not try to fire Dana. At a school board meeting a parent said that her 16-year-old daughter was traumatized from hearing about transexualism. However the daughter stood up and told the board that her mother was wrong.

Dana was fired by the school board. Her students protested her suspension with frequent phone calls to the local radio station and marched to the state capitol. Three school-board trustees were threatened with election-recall petitions in protest. Dana was honored with a $10,000 grant from the Colin Higgins Foundation for courage in the face of discrimination. She sued the school board and settled for $150,000 – they also agreed to drop all charges and expunge Dana’s record of all reference to the dismissal. They agreed to use only her new name in all record keeping, and to support her future employment as a teacher by giving to prospective employers an accurate history of her teaching career. Thus she had permission to return to teaching at a different California school.


Dana completed surgery in June 2000 with Dr Eugene Schrang. For three years she was a trans activist appearing on various media including Oprah. People magazine named her one of the 25 most intriguing people of 1999, and Jane magazine named her one of the Gutsiest Women of the Year. She met with Congressman Barney Frank who later dropped trans persons from the campaign for employment non-discrimination right (ENDA) for supposed tactical reasons. There was talk of a book and a film, but they never happened.

Dana then moved to San Francisco and found employment teaching social studies and history at a county jail Charter School.

In November 2016, an Oakland female couple, 56 and 57, and their 19-year-old son, died after being stabbed and shot. Their garage was set on fire. Rivers was arrested outside, covered in blood. She was charged with murder, arson and possession of metal knuckles.

• Evelyn Nieves. "After Sex Change, Teacher Is Barred From School". New York Times, Sept 27, 1999. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E4DC1E3FF934A1575AC0A96F958260&pagewanted=all.
• Margot Hornblower. "He? She? Whatever!" Time, Oct 3, 1999. www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,31822,00.html.
• Clare Howell interviews Dana Rivers. Queer Resources Directory, 7 Dec 1999. http://www.qrd.org/qrd/trans/1999/interview.with.dana.rivers-12.07.99.
• "Bigotry Becomes Teacher's Pet Peeve". Colin Higgins Foundation. 2000. www.colinhiggins.org/courageawards/profile4.cfm.
• Carol Keys. Hostile Climate 2000: Report on Anti-Gay Activity. People for the American Way, 2000: 45, 91-2.
• Sheila L. Cavanagh. "Teacher Transsexuality: The Illusion of Sexual Difference and the Idea of Adolescent Trauma in the Dana Rivers Case". Sexualities, August 2003, 6,3-4: 361-383.
• Indrani Sen. Human Rights of Minority And Women's: Transgender Human Rights. Isha Books, 2005 :91.
• Heather Cassell. "Trans teacher changing lives in SF jail". Bay Area Reporter, 01/03/2008. www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=2582.
• Vanessa Sheridan. The Complete Guide to Transgender in the Workplace. Praeger, 2009: 30, 144.
• Heesoon Jun. Social Justice, Multicultural Counseling, and Practice: Beyond a Conventional Approach. Sage Publications, 2009: 153.
• Stuart Biegel. The Right to Be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America’s Public Schools. University of Minnesota Press, 2010: 53-5.
• “Former Sacramento teacher, once disciplined over gender change, arrested in triple homicide”. The Scaramento Bee, November 16, 2016. www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article115107563.html.
• Veronica Rocha. “Former teacher who sued over sex-change firing faces charges in Oakland triple homicide”. Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2016. www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-dana-rivers-oakland-triple-homicide-20161116-story.html.

Matt & Andrej Koymasky.

Felix Shiffman (1925 - 2005) Felix Shiffman was born in New York City, served in the US Army, earned a dental degree at New York University and a medical degree from Hadassah University in Tel Aviv. He practiced cosmetic surgery for over forty years from 1954 in New York City, and also owned an art gallery. He advertised his services to transsexual patients, particularly in New York Magazine, and was known for his rhinoplasties.


In 1974 Luis Suria, then aged 45, was in transition to female.  She was an unlicensed school teacher, who had not worked steadily since 1961, but held sporadic employment as a commercial artist.  She visited Drs Shiffman and Rish, mainly the former, in June/July 1974 and again in December 1974 and underwent injections of free silicone to acquire female breasts. By March 1975 Suria’s breasts were sore and she returned for treatment from Dr Shiffman, who referred her to Dr Dhaliwal who performed a bilateral subcutaneous mastectomy.  Suria, shocked by the severity of the resulting wounds, checked out of the hospital against medical advice, and later developed a wound site infection which required another operation.

Meanwhile, in 1980 Dr Shiffman was advertising: “Specializing in Cosmetic Surgery and Facial Contouring for Transsexuals”. New York Magazine reported that his receptionist was giving quotes for silicone shots at $120 to $240 a unit, but when the magazine spoke to Shiffman, he denied doing silicone shots.

Luis Suria, having abandoned transition, became a born-again Christian, and, with psychiatric help, returned to being “a regular man”.  He sued for malpractice and the case Luis Suria v. Felix Shiffman et al came to court in 1983. The plaintiff argued that Shiffman committed malpractice when he injected silicone into Suria's breasts in July and December 1974, that Dhaliwal committed malpractice in the performance of the mastectomy, and that Dhaliwal had improperly failed to obtain informed consent for the procedure. Suria maintained that consent was given for "incision and drainage” but not for a mastectomy. In contention Shiffman claimed that he did not treat the patient until December 1976, and that “symptoms were caused by injections of mineral oil administered by a transsexual friend”.

In November 1983, the jury found that in July and December 1974 Shiffman did commit malpractice which was a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries, that Dhaliwal did not commit malpractice but did fail to obtain plaintiff's informed consent, which failure was a cause of the plaintiff's injuries, that the plaintiff was guilty of negligence that was a cause of his injuries, that Shiffman was 60% at fault, Dhaliwal 15% and the plaintiff 25%, and that the plaintiff's total damages were $2,000,000. The trial court dismissed the claim against Shiffman on the ground that plaintiff's contributory negligence barred recovery and, reducing the amount of the verdict by 25%, the proportionate share of plaintiff's fault, entered judgment in the principal amount of $1,500,000 against Dhaliwal alone.

Both Dhaliwal and Suria appealed, objecting to the direction of a verdict in favor of Shiffman. Dhaliwal argued that he was a "successive tort-feasor" (a person who commits a second tort against the same previously injured party) and should not be held responsible for the entire damage award. The verdict against Shiffman was reinstated.

Suria talked of writing a book to help “those who are confused about their sexual orientation” (sic).   His final award was $600,000.

In later years Dr Shiffman specialized in liposculpture, and as late as 1999, Shiffman was still doing breast augmentations.

In March 2000 Shiffman pleaded no contest to “practicing fraudulently; filing a false report; practicing with negligence and incompetence on more than one occasion and failing to maintain accurate records”, and surrended his medical license.

In 2001 Shiffman retired to Ormand Beach, Florida. In September 2003 he was involved in a car accident where a man pushing a motorcycle was killed. He died at age 79 shortly afterwards.

• Sharon Churcher. "The Anguish of the Transsexuals". New York Magazine, 13, 25, June 16, 1980: 49.
• “Suria v. Shiffman”. Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, First Department, March 19, 1985. Leagle. Find a Case
• “Former transsexual wins malpractice suit”. The Auburn Citizen, February 20, 1986. PDF
• Jack Lechner. Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You. Crown Publishers, 2000: 95.
• Felix Shiffman. Surrender of License. PDF
• “Man On Road Hit, Killed By Car”. Orlando Sentinel, September 21, 2003. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2003-09-21/news/0309210026_1_ormond-nova-beach-police.

Obituary

----------------

I couldn't find a statement that Suria actually got the $600,000 (almost $1,450,000 today).

Apparently Luis Suria v. Felix Shiffman et al has become case law with regard to successive tort-feasors. 

_________________________________________ 

Peter Fries (? – 1981) Peter Freis was a plastic surgeon on Park Avenue, New York in the 1970s. He advertised in New York Magazine, and did facial work and breast implants for mtf transsexuals.

He is said to have practiced 'closed capsulotomy' to break the capsular contracture, a reaction to breast and other implants. This was just brute force, squeezing the breasts till the scar tissue split.

His last nurse was Robyn Arnold, the girlfriend who was charged with, but not convicted of, the murder of Diane Delia. Fries died, by happenstance, a few days after Delia was killed.

• Linda Wolfe. “The Transsexual, the Bartender and the Jewish American Princess”.  New York, 17 Jan 1983: 30, 33. Online Uses the ‘Freiss’ spelling.

--------

While Wolfe mentioned “Freiss” in the magazine version of the Diane Delia story, he is not mentioned under either spelling in the reprint in her book The Professor and the Prostitute, and Other True Tales of Murder and Madness, 1987.

In the early 1970s, Bebe Scarpi(nato) had graduated from Queens College, New York (which she denied choosing for its name) where she'd founded a Gay Community organization.

She became active in the Gay Activist Alliance, where she met Sylvia Rivera. Sylvia felt that GAA was not radical enough, but never actually left the organization. It was Bebe who ensured that Sylvia's dues were paid up.

Scarpi was also in the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, was director of the Queens Liberation Front (QLF), was on the originating board of the National Gay Task Force and was active in planning the fourth Christopher Street Liberation Day (which later became the New York Pride March).

However there were problems with many gay activists:

"You don't have to embrace stereotypes in order to be gay so it was looked at as an anachronistic method of trying to be gay and in the truly liberated society there would be no cross gender identity. You could be a feminine man, but you wouldn't opt to dress and act like a woman." (Cohen p108).

In November 1971, the androgynously-dressed Bebe was called to testify before the New York City Council's General Welfare committee. The Gay Activist reported:

" 'Bebe' Scarpi, a transvestite in male attire, gave testimony on the minority group, he pointed out that transvestites used the men's room because they 'd been warned they would be subject to arrest if they entered the ladies room. And even transvestites had to heed the call of nature. Bebe, a student at Queens College, gave what amounted to a short course on the lifestyle and problems of transvestites with such charm, ready wit and intelligence, that even the Councilmen appeared beguiled. … Chairman Sharison seemed unable to comprehend that some transvestites were heterosexual. He wanted to know whether Bebe believed transvestites would be protected by Intro 475. 'Only as a homosexual, not as a transvestite', Bebe explained, and perhaps the councilman would care to enact legislation protecting the transvestite." (Quoted in Cohen p 150)

At a third hearing in December, policemen were posted outside the ladies rooms to prevent 'transvestites' from using them. Bebe, definitely not androgynous that day, asked the policeman what he was doing, and then went in and did her business. On the way out she commented to the policeman that he had not checked her. The New York Mattachine Times complained that transvestites were jeopardizing the bill with their restroom behavior.

In 1973 the committee was still blocked in its attempt to pass a bill to ban discrimination against homosexuals in employment, housing and public accommodation. To get it passed, an amendment was proposed that nothing in the definition of sexual orientation “shall be construed to bear upon the standards of attire or dress code". Bebe, as QLF director, was put in the uncomfortable position of submitting to this wording or seeing the bill fail.

For the Christopher Street Liberation Day in June 1973, Bebe went to the 82 Club and got the showgirls, in full regalia to march behind an 82 Club banner.


In 1974 Bebe attended a feminist conference where Jill Johnston, mother of two and author of Lesbian Nation, had proposed that mothers neglect to care for male babies. Bebe, from the question line, accused Johnston of being a neo-fascist and dictating to women as well as to men. At this point Bebe was recognized from earlier encounters.

Scarpie was the Editor of Drag Magazine, and an associate for 20 years of Lee Brewster's.

In addition she started a career as a high school teacher. When she was not teaching she worked as a stripper.

"Stripping is such a liberating experience; I would strongly recommend everyone to try it".

It was commented that she looked like a middle-class lady. Bebe is the first known trans woman to become a school principal.

"I've never identified myself as transgender. I prefer drag queen. I've always been a 'she' and always will be." (quoted by Lee)

• Don Doodwin et al. "A Time and a Place: Opinion". New York Mattachine Times, December 1971: 1.
  
• Phil Katz. "Intro 475: Round 2". Gay Activist, 1,8, 1972: 4, 18.
  
• Bebe Scarpi. "A Tiffany of Weekends". TV-TS Tapestry, 40 1983.
  
• Martin B Duberman. Stonewall. Dutton, 1993. Plume, 1994: 235, 251, 296n11, 298n29, 308n44.
  
• Jim Clifford, Martin Duberman, Luvenia Pinson, Bebe Scarpi, Martha Shelley & Allen Young. "Reminiscenses of pre-Stonewall Greenwich Village". In Martin Duberman (ed). A Queer World. NYU Press, 1997: 331-340.
  
• Bebe Scarpinato & Rusty Moore. "Mourning the Loss of Sylvia Rivera, NYC-based Activist". IFGE, via Gain, February 21, 2002. www.ifge.org/news/2002/feb/SylviaRivera.html.
  
• Hyein Lee. "Culture shock makes us cringe, then change". http://media.www.nyunews.com/media/storage/paper869/news/2007/11/12/Features/Culture.Shock.Makes.Us.Cringe.Then.Change-3094112.shtml Online at: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/transgender-news/tkau8KZ9HYo.
  
• Cristan Williams. "1974: TERFs and Trans Folk". Ehipassiko, 2012/08/31. www.cristanwilliams.com/b/2012/08/31/1974-radfems-and-trans-folk.
  
• Stephen L. Cohen. The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail. Routledge, 2007: 56, 95-6, 108, 109, 115-8, 125, 128, 135, 142, 149-150, 152, 154, 155-6, 160, 180, 196.
  
• Lillian Faderman. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle. Simon & Shuster, 2015: 262-3.
  

Joyce Allen from Warrington, Lancashire was a masculine tomboy who frequently scrapped with both boys and girls. She resisted having to wear girls' clothes, and took pleasure in dressing in her father's trousers. She pilfered dad's cigarettes, and when he bought a car, she, although under age, borrowed it and drove around the streets.

She had learned the violin, but at her first public performance, of Luigi Arditi's Il Bacio, a string snapped, and it was many years before Allen picked up the violin again.

She left school at fourteen, and worked at a variety of jobs, but also became well known at the local labour exchange where she befriended one of the clerks. The most satisfying job was at a local cinema.

In 1933, Joyce had met a man with whom she enjoyed going to horse races and greyhound tracks. They married, but quickly realized that 'a normal marital relationship' was impossible. Bored and incompetent as a housewife, Joyce took up gambling and lost everything, even the furniture.

Afterwards, now usually wearing slacks and with a man's haircut Allen worked in the exhibition side of the entertainment industry. She continued to suffer from stares and comments while trying to pass as a girl/woman.

"The sadistic delight of strangers in making mocking remarks about my appearance perhaps called forth a sadistic response from me. I actually had visiting cards printed, bearing a false name and address, and when people were offensive to me in public, I would hand them a card with the remark: 'If there are any further details you would like to know, perhaps you would write to me.'"

With the start of war in September 1939, Allen immediately enlisted. She was assigned as a driver to First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), and after six months was made a sergeant. In December 1941 Allen was having difficulties in avoiding a woman's sexual advances, when her mother fell ill and she was given a compassionate release.

After some weeks of caring for her mother, Allen applied for work and found a job at the Ministry of Supply where she was working with men driving heavy lorries and tippers, wearing slacks beneath a boiler suit. One evening, returning home, tired on the bus after work, Allen was subjected to an extended tirade from a man who had known her since childhood. She chased him and they fought until both were exhausted.

That done Allen knew it was time to leave Warrington. A spate of letters to film companies, advertising firms etc. produced several offers (it being wartime there were many vacancies as staff were in the forces). As a masculine woman in slacks, Allen became a secretary at the Denham Film Studios just outside north-west London, which at that time was more used than the nearby Pinewood. She was part of the team under Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger which made The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and then The Volunteer, a short starring Ralph Richardson.

At this point, in late 1943, Allen received a directive from the Ministry of Labour and National Service with instructions to report as a woman porter at a London station. This provided the nudge needed and Allen went to the Ministry of Labour headquarters in person, where he was put in touch with Valentine Harvey, the Chief Press Officer who accepted Allen as a man, quashed the directive and guided him through the bureaucracy. Allen's doctor who had previously treated him only for influenza, did a thorough examination and sent samples for pathological analysis. Allen wrote to his parents explaining that they had a son and not a daughter, and received a strongly supportive letter from his father.

In 1944 Allen took a position with Halas and Batchelor, the film cartoon company.

In September that year Allen wrote to the Registrar General, and with the doctor's report and a declaration from his parents, Allen was invited to Somerset House at the end of October that year where his birth certificate was rectified. He was asked for his male name, and, unprepared, chose ‘Robert’ from a glance at somebody else's documents.

In December Robert received a legal opinion that his first marriage was void ab initio, and he was free to marry his love from the Warrington Labour Exchange who was now working at Denham. They married quietly two days before Christmas, and spent the holiday with Robert's parents.

Allen returned to Denham to be the second assistant director on the film Carnival, directed by Stanley Haynes based on the novel by Compton Mackenzie. He was then an assistant to David Lean on Great Expectations, based on the novel by Charles Dickens.

In 1946, the British film industry suffered one of its periodic crises with the end of wartime government subsidies, and Allen was out of a job. In March his father died. Allen suffered a few years of short-term employments and unemployment.

Valentine Harvey helped yet again, and in 1948, Allen was awarded a grant to train as a medical auxiliary, and in 1951 qualified as a diagnostic radiographer.

He developed a friendship with another radiographer who was a fervent Catholic, and promised to look into the religion after qualifying. Which he did, and at Christmas 1951 was baptised into the Catholic Church.

After a number of temporary radiography posts, Allen became a science teacher at a Christian Brothers run College in Liverpool.

Karl Thieme was born and raised in the Erzgebirge, on the border between Saxony and Czechoslovakia. He studied music and composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Leipzig with Hermann Grabner. He became a music teacher in Leipzig. His first major success was Variations on a Theme by Hindemith for large orchestra, 1934.

During the Second World War he was conscripted into the German army and became a prisoner of war in Italy.

From 1946-8 Thieme worked at Leipziger Rundfunk, but then decided to relocate himself outside the Soviet zone of occupation.

In 1950 he found work teaching music at a Nuremberg secondary school, and later taught at the Nuremberg Conservatory and then the Friedrich-Alexander Universität. He composed for the Nuremberg International Organ Week. An important work was Canticum Hope for soprano solo and mixed choir, 1973.

Thieme retired in 1974, and as Kerstin completed transitioned two years later. Kerstin kept composing. In 1989 she was awarded the composition prize at the  Fanny Mendelssohn competition. Her Requiem was premiered in 1998.

Kerstin died at age 92 in Stuttgart.

• www.kompositionen-thieme.de
  
• Antje Olivier & Sevgi Braun: Komponistinnen aus 800 Jahren. [800 years of women composers] Sequentia, Kamen 1996: 412.
  

DE.WIKIPEDIA    List of works

Marais was born and raised in Cape Town, in a religious family. As both parents worked, the child lived, until the age of ten, with other family members, and was sexually abused by an uncle.

"I knew that I was a girl because I looked like all the other girls, but why did that make me sad? … The most permanent thought and feeling in me almost all of my life was this feeling of just going though the motions. Medication was the only thing that could bring me out of this feeling of wanting to die and possibly commit suicide."

When in hospital having the appendix removed, a friend suggested that to Marais that she was a lesbian. She knew that she had had crushes on girls but thought that "this was wrong as it's not Christian". At this time, 'lesbian' was the only concept that she had encountered that approximated her feelings.

Marais qualified as a teacher, but did not feel suited to the profession,  and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 1978. The uncle who had abused her came to visit and Mrs Marais applied for a court order to keep him away. The lawyer who was assisting met Marais, and straight-away asked: "Have you ever considered having a sex change?". This set her thinking.

Marais obtained a teacher's post in a small school of 50 children in Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape.

"I met a girl there, and it was like an instant attraction for both of us. The sex-change thing didn't yet sit well with me because it was impossible, So we went with the lesbian thing."

In 1981 Marais moved back to Cape Town and found work at a newspaper. When the girlfriend arrived she was pregnant, which led to their breaking up.

In the mid-1980s Charl Marais discovered the Cape Town group, Phoenix, which was a Virginia Prince type group of mainly married cross-dressers. Charl was welcomed to their meetings and parties, and made a fuss of as he was their only female-to-male member, and also their only coloured member (this was still the apartheid era). One of the members was transsexual and told Charl about gender surgeries, and that operations were being done in Durban by Dr Derk Crichton.

In 1992 Charl had a hysterectomy and an ovarectomy, and was able to change the name on his ID card (but not the gender code embedded in the ID number).

One girlfriend left because he didn't have phalloplasty, even though he couldn't afford it. Another committed suicide.

From 2002 Charl worked as a bookkeeper.

After the Alteration of Sex Description and Sex Status Act 2003, he applied again to change his ID number but each person he saw demanded different documentation. In 2009 he tried again armed with letters from a psychiatrist, psychologist and two GPs, and the Department of Home Affairs lost his application form. He tried again in June 2010, and this time was successful.

He became involved with Gender DynamiX, South Africa's major transgender organization, and for some years was their bookkeeper and newsletter editor. In 2010 he was a co-editor and contributor to Trans: Transgender Life Stories from South Africa.

He died at age 55 after a period of illness.

• Charl Marais. "Charl's Story: Back in the 70s there was no support". In Ruth Morgan,, Charl Marais, Joy Rosemary Wellbeloved, and Robert Hamblin. Trans: Transgender Life Stories from South Africa. Johannesburg: Jacana, 2010: 26-33.
  
• Charl Marais.  “To Disclose or Not to Disclose: The Million Dollar Question”.  Gender DynamiX, 2013.  www.genderdynamix.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/To_disclose_or_not_to_disclose_MARAIS.pdf.
  
• Charl Marais. "ID Story: Charl". Gender DynamiX, 2010. www.genderdynamix.org.za/documents/id-story-charl/#more-1088.
  

LinkedIn

Vazquez was born during the Cuban Revolution to a single mother, and raised by his grandparents in Camagüey.

He was sexually active with men early, and especially when he was sent to a  boarding school at age 11, where he seduced both bullies and teachers.

"But do not call me gay.  I never had gay sex.  Never will.  I'm always the girl, he's always the man."

At 15 he was in the school drag pageant, where he stood out by being real. In 1974 Vazquez was called to register for the Cuban army, but turned up in semi-drag and was ruled ineligible because 'homosexual'.   He became a teacher but was obliged to resign despite being a good teacher. He discovered the gay scene and took such jobs as supervising convict labor.

In 1980, when Vasquez was 22, President Fidel Castro said that anybody who wanted to leave Cuba could do so, and sent mental patients and convicts with them.   Vazquez joined the 'Marielitos' (as they came to be known from the name of the harbor where they left). The Marielitos were sent to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, where Vazquez found a lover the first night. In all he had 31 lovers before being sent to a gay sponsor, Rolando, in Los Angeles.

By 1981 he had his first venereal disease, just as AIDS arrived. Rolando persuaded Vazquez to start using condoms, and helped him get a job at the Neiman Marcus department Store. However he did too many drugs and was fired, but then worked doing sewing for a boyfriend who was a designer at the Ice Capades. Together they went to see the trans performers at the Cha Cha club.

Vasquez decided that it was time to change and became Adela. After changes that come from taking hormones, Adella advertised herself as a 'She-Male' in Hollywood Connections, and was a sex worker for a few years. In 1992 Adela was invited by a community worker to enter in the Ms Gay Latina contest, which she won.

Since then Adela has been an activist against HIV. She started as a showgirl with the AtreDivas, a drag group that would donate their earnings to AIDS charities. She has become an artist and a performer and lives in San Francisco.

In 2004 the artist Jaime Cortez developed her life story into a graphic novel.

In the documentary film, Diagnosing Difference, Adela says: “I think ‘passing’ is a word to discriminate us immensely. Not everybody can pass. And passing is something that the doctors will tell you to do, you try to pass. Well, no matter how much I pass, I will never be a biological woman. How about empowering me as the transgender woman that I am?”

• Jaime Cortez & Patrick Hebert. Sexile = Sexilio. LA: Institute for Gay Men's Health, 2004. Online at: www.apla.org/news-and-multimedia/publications/documents/sexile_web.pdf.
  
• Kathryn Frank. Drawn In, Drawn Out: Graphic Novels as a site for alternate representation. Undergraduate Honors Thesis at Stanford University, May 26, 2009: 37, 59-61. Online at: http://csre.stanford.edu/theses/09_KFrank_Thesis.pdf.
• Theresa M. Tensuan.  "Crossing the Lines: Graphic (Life) Narratives and Co-Laborative Political Transformations".  Biography, 32,1,Winter 2009: 173-189.  
• George Ayala, Jaime Cortez & Patrick Hebert.  "Where There's Querer: Knowledge Production an dthe Praxis of HIV Prevention".   In Matysol Asencio (ed) Latina/o Sexualities: Probing Powers, Passions, Practices, and Policies. Rutgers Univeristy Press, 2009:150-172.
• Annalise Ophelian (dir). Diagnosing Difference. With Dylan Scholinski, Dean Spade, Susan Stryker, Adela Vazquez and others.  US 60 mins 2009. PDF. 
• "Adela Vazquez". National Queer Arts Festival, 2010. http://queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest10/Formerly.html. 
• Darlene Tando.  "Physical Transition Options for the Transgender Individual*".  Gender Blog, 4 May 2012.  http://darlenetandogenderblog.com/2012/05/04/physical-transition-options-for-the-transgender-individual.
• kimrr94.  "Immigration and 'Sexile'".  Transgender Identities & Communities, Feb 28 2014.  http://wgs552spring2014.wordpress.com/tag/sexile.

In 1910 Alice Baker was a school teacher in Harrah, Oklahoma. She left for Oklahoma City where a man paid attention to her. However he then reported to the police that she was a man. She was arrested for masquerading, but seized an opportunity and left town.

The next year, as James Arthur Baker, he was teaching in Segundo, Colorado, just west of Trinidad. Several of his schoolboys suspected that he was a woman disguised as a man. They took their concerns to the authorities who arrested Baker and lodged him in the women’s quarters at the local jail. At a court hearing ten days later, the prosecutor supplied evidence that Baker had gone by the names Madeline, Mabel and also Irene Pardee, and had corresponded both as male and as female. Furthermore Mrs Baker had deserted a husband and two children in Oklahoma. He also displayed items of female clothing taken from Baker’s trunk. However three physicians, who had examined Baker, testified that he was man, and the judge dismissed the case.

Baker arrived in Portland, Oregon in the spring of 1913. She arrived in men’s clothes but found refuge at the women’s Peniel Mission, where she explained that she had had to leave home in Idaho after a disagreement with her parents, and had traveled as a man with a fake moustache. Donations were made to her of feminine attire and a ‘transformation’ wig. There were even rumors that a local evangelical minister had proposed. However the wife of the Peniel Mission’s superintendent became suspicious, and a short stay in hospital resulted in the physician reporting to the superintendent and to the local authorities that she was a man. Baker quickly left town, on a ship sailing to California, with a man friend.

In late 1913 Baker was again arrested, this time in Kansas City, Kansas, charged with dressing as a woman. By this time she had a lawyer husband. The two had counterfeited gold certificates, and even travelled to Japan to exchange them for real gold.

Anja Recher was raised in Schwamendingen, Zürich. She twice visited South America. From 1996 she worked as a bicycle courier, and from 2000 in the administration.

She also worked with impaired and gifted children, and gained a diploma in remedial teaching in 2003.

In 2004 she was elected to the Zürich Kantonal legislature for the Alternate List Party.

In 2008 Recher informed the Kantonal legislature. that he was undergoing hormonal treatment to become a man, and that his name was now Alecs.

He has completed a bachelors law degree at the University of Zürich, and a masters at the University of Luzern,

He is a founder/co-president of Transgender Network Switzerland , and is the author of a study of homophobia, transphobia and discrimination in Switzerland.

• Rodrigo Carrizo Couto. “Cuando Anja se convierte en Alecs”. El Pais, 14 de septiembre de 2008. http://elpais.com/diario/2008/09/14/agenda/1221343203_850215.html
• “La transsexualité s'invite en politique“. SwissInfo, 08 novembre 2008. www.swissinfo.ch/fre/actualite/La_transsexualite_sinvite_en_politique.html?cid=6952358
• http://www.recheralecs.ch/
• “Alecs Recher”. Stadt Zürich Gemeinderat, 09/23/2011. www.gemeinderat-zuerich.ch/Mitglied_Details.aspx?ID=5f656d48-b9d8-4204-88ec-53969f95ffa7
• “Alecs Recher”. transILGA, 2007. http://trans.ilga.org/trans/welcome_to_the_ilga_trans_secretariat/trans_zone/personalities/alec_recher.
• Alecs Recher. Study on Homophobia, Transphobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: Legal Report: Switzerland. The Danish Institute for Human Rights , nd. www.coe.int/t/Commissioner/Source/LGBT/SwitzerlandLegal_E.pdf
• Sandro Cattacin interviews Alecs Recher. ImbarcoImmediato, 30 Gennaio 2012. www.imbarcoimmediato.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=364:transgender-intervista-ad-alecs-recher-e-sandro-cattacin&catid=34:dirittiagiustizia&Itemid=77.

 DE.WIKIPEDIA   TRANS.ILGA

Adélaîde Herculine Barbin was born in Saint-Jean-d’Angely in Charente-Maritime. Her family usually referred to her as Alexina.  Her father died when she was young, which resulted in her being raised in an almost exclusively female and strongly religious environment.

Alexina was chosen for a charity scholarship to study at the school of an Ursaline convent. In 1856 she was sent for teacher training. Afterwards she became an assistant teacher in a girls’ school, where she had an affair with a fellow teacher, Sara.

Abdominal pain and religious guilt led Alexina to a confession with the bishop, and with her permission to break confessional silence, he sent for a doctor to examine her. The doctor found that she had a small penis and testicles inside her vagina, had never menstruated or developed breasts, and shaved facial hair.

In 1860 a tribunal heard evidence from Dr Chestnet of La Rochelle. As a result the register of Barbin’s birth was changed: the sex to male, and the name to Abel. It was deemed that Barbin had always been male. The next Sunday, Abel Barbin, dressed as a man appeared at the church of Saint-Jean between his mother and one of the town’s most respectable ladies.

This did not mean that Abel could marry Sara. The scandal was great and they were kept apart. A family connection secured for Barbin a position of clerk to a Paris railway company. Dr Chestner wrote up the case for the Annales d’hygiène publique et de médecine légale.

Abel committed suicide at the age of 30 by inhaling from his gas stove in his room in the rue de l'École-de-Médecine in Paris. The police doctor, who had been called, examined the dead man’s genitals expecting to find that he was a syphilitic - a common cause of suicide at that time - but finding something quite different. Word spread quickly, and Dr E Goujon at the Faculity of Medicine acted quickly so that the body would not be lost to science. He performed an autopsy and took careful notes, including two detailed drawings of Barbin’s genital area.

In addition Barbin had left memoirs, in which the male persona is referred at as Camille. They were given to Auguste Ambroise Tardieu who published excerpts in his Question médico-légale de l'identité, 1872.

In 1893 the German psychiatrist and novelist Oskar Panizza, wrote a fictionalized version of Alexina/Camille as Ein skandalöser Fall: Geschichten, which is obviously taken from the account in Tardieu but set in the eighteenth century.

Five years later, Armand Ernest Dubarry, a French novelist who wrote several medical pot boilers, published L'hermaphrodite, again based on Alexina/Camille.

In 1908 Neugebauer summarized Camille’s story in his immense inventory of hermaphroditism. Either by his doing, or as a printer’s error, Barbin’s name was affixed to the image of somebody else.

After that interest in Barbin dissipated until, in the late 1970s, the memoirs were discovered in the archives of le département français de l'Hygiène Publique, and were published by the controversial academic Michel Foucault.

The story was filmed in 1985 as Mystere Alexina. To the plot from the book, the filmmakers added an intrigue of being secretive about the gender of the actor who played Alexina: Philippe Vuillemin, a comic book artist, was billed as Vuillemin only.

In 2010 Sarah Leaver, who has a similar intersex condition, performed a one-woman play based on Barbin’s memoires.

• Chesnet. “Question d’identité. Vice de conformation des organes génitaux. Hypospadias. Erreur sur le sexe” . Annales d’hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 2, 14, 1860: .206-9.
• Abel Barbin. Mes souvenirs. 1863-8. Published Paris: Editions du Boucher, 2002. www.leboucher.com/pdf/herculine/xherculi.pdf.
• E. Goujon. “Étude d’un cas d’hermaphrodisme bisexual imparfait chez l’homme”. Journal de l’anatomie et de la physiologie normales et pathologiques de l’homme et des animaux, 6, 1869: 599-616. Reprinted in Foucault 1978/80.
• Auguste Ambroise Tardieu. Question médico-légale de l'identité dans ses rapport avec les vices de conformation des organes sexuels, contenant les souvenirs et impressions d'un individu dont le sexe avait été méconnu,. Paris: J.B. Baillière et Fils,1872. Contains selection from Barbin’s Souvenirs.
• Oskar Panizza. Ein skandalöser Fall: Geschichten. 1893. Translated by Sophie Wilkins and published in Foucault 1980. Reprinted: München: Martus Verlag, 1997.
• Armand Ernest Dubarry. L'hermaphrodite. Paris: Chamuel, 1898.
• Franz Ludwig von Neugebauer. Hermaphroditismus beim Menschen. Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1908:748.
• Michel Foucault (ed) Herculine Barbin dite Alexina B. Paris: Gallimard, 1978. Translated by Richard McDougall as Herculine Barbin: being the recently discovered memoirs of a nineteenth-century French hermaphrodite. New York: Pantheon Books; Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980.
• René Féret (dir & scr). Mystere Alexina. Scr: Jean Gruault, based on the book by Herculine Barbin & Michel Foucault, with (Philippe) Vuillemin as Alexina Barbin. France 86 mins 1985.
• Alice Domurat Dreger. Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex. Cambridge, Ma, Harvard University Press. 2000: 16-20, 23, 28-9, 51-2, 76, 239n21.
• Sarah Leaver (writer & performer). Memoirs of a Hermaphrodite, 75 mins 2010. Performed in London, Brighton, Manchester, Liverpool www.decibelpas.com/index.php?id=85.
• “Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite”.  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculine_Barbin:_Being_the_Recently_Discovered_Memoirs_of_a_Nineteenth-century_French_Hermaphrodite.

EN.WIKIPEDIA     FR.WIKIPEDIA    TRANS.ILGA

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Dr Goujon left us two detailed drawing of Barbin’s genital area, but we have no record of her face.  The drawings may be viewed in Dreger’s book.

The EN.Wikipedia article, in line with its usual practice, retrojects final gender back to birth.  “It's wikipedia policy to use the gender that the person decided upon as the pronoun throughout, not alternate them”.  However it gives not the slightest evidence that Barbin chose to be male, or even accepted the gender reassignment.  Suicide was her method of refusing to be male.  Even stranger, having imposed male pronouns, it names the article with Camille’s birth girl name: “Herculine Barbin”.

Actually the birth name was Adélaîde Herculine Barbin, so if only one first name is given, it should be Adélaîde Barbin.  However it would be better to refer to Alexina, as this is what family and friends called her.  This is one case where the film got it more right than most of the books about this person.

Likewise Abel is a name imposed.  When Alexina uses a male name for herself, she uses Camille.  I have used Camille in the name of this article in that it is the last name that Barbin used for herself.

If Barbin had been born earlier, s/he would have been determined to be a hermaphrodite, and permitted to choose a gender.  This freedom had been gradually reduced since the eighteenth century and by 1860 the church, the state and medicine in alliance took it upon themselves to determine the ‘true sex’ of a person, and compel them into it, without any consideration of the person’s feelings.

Previously to 1860, the major determinant in sexing a person had been presence or lack of a penis or vagina.  Barbin had both and should have been a hermaphrodite.  However the new fashion was that gonads determined sex.  Barbin had testes but no ovaries.  This criterion was the trump until chromosomes were discovered in the twentieth century.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I am not a follower of Michel Foucault.  However I feel that his paragraph from page xiii is certainly worth pondering:

Alexina wrote her memoirs about that life once her new identity had been discovered and established. Her "true" and "definitive" identity. But it is clear she did not write them from the point of view of that sex which had at last been brought to light. It is not a man who is speaking, trying to recall his sensations and his life as they were at the time when he was not yet "himself." When Alexina composed her memoirs, she was not far from her suicide; for herself, she was still without a definite sex, but she was deprived of the delights she experienced in not having one, or in not entirely having the same sex as the girls among whom she lived and whom she loved and desired so much. And what she evokes in her past is the happy limbo of a non-identity, which was paradoxically protected by the life of those closed, narrow, and intimate societies where one has the strange happiness, which is at the same time obligatory and forbidden, of being acquainted with only one sex.