Wilma Creith (1933-1980) electrican, bus driver

Creith, an electrician, was married and they had two children, and lived in Belfast. However Creith increasingly could not continue as a man. After Creith did some electrical work for Werner Heubeck, the German managing director of Ulsterbus, Heubeck considered her situation, and offered that she should train as a bus driver. She first drove as a man.

She was assigned to the school run for pupils of Sullivan Upper and Sacred Heart of Mary Grammar in Holywood/Ard Mhic Nasca and St Columbanus in Bangor, both in County Down. 

Photo in the Sunday World

Cara-Friend had been set up in 1974 as a volunteer counselling service for GLBT persons in Ulster. In 1976, a separate transsexual support group was formed – Wilma was part of the team.

In 1977, when she socially transitioned Heubeck gave her support. He provided a specially made uniform and shoes for her, and the union and the other drivers followed his lead. In December that year the Belfast Sunday World, outed Wilma on its front page “ ‘Call me Wilma’ says bus man Bill”. Despite this only a few adults objected to her, although some of the children were rather rude.

In 1980 Heubeck gave Wilma five weeks sick pay to travel to England, to St James Hospital, Leeds for completion surgery, and to recover afterwards. The operation apparently went well – making her the first Northern Ireland trans woman to have the operation. Heubeck was the first to phone her after the operation.

But there was a minor complication, and a second operation was carried out. A few days later she died from what was determined to be a pulmonary embolism from high levels of estrogen.

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In November 2024 theatre director Paula McFetrige put on a play loosly based on Wilma Creith in an actual Ulster Bus from the 1970s parked in the grounds of Belfast Castle.

• Sean Boyne. “ ‘Call me Wilma‘ says bus man Bill”. Sunday World, December 1977.
• “Ulster sex change man dies“. Belfast Telegraph, 29 August 1980.p1.
• “Inquest on sex change victim“. Bradford Telgraph and Argus, 30 August 1980, p13.
• Andrew McNair. “The transgender bus driver in 1970s Belfast”. BBC, 18 November 2024. Online.
• Bronagh Lawson. “ARTS: All aboard for an inspirational slice of trans history”. com, November 22, 2024. Online.
• Paula McFetridge (dir). Suspected Device. Raphaël Amahl Khouri (scr) with Mariah Lauca as Wilam Creith. Performed at Belfact Castle 1 November-1 December 2024.

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Heubeck was renowned for many things, including redesigning all Belfast bus routes to go in and out of the city centre, and getting Ulsterbus to turn a profit despite the Troubles. But he's best remembered for actually carrying bombs from buses during the Troubles.

In total, 17 employees from both Ulsterbus and Citybus were killed during The Troubles, with 1,484 buses in total being maliciously destroyed from 1964 to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

St James Hospital, Leeds later became the location for the Leeds Gender Identity Service.

When I had surgery a few years later, I was told to stop taking estrogen before and during the operation. I thought that this was standard practice after the unfortunate death of Peggy Wijnen in 1967. I found no discussion of this aspect re Wilma.

Jenny (192? - ?) electrician, Burou’s first transsexual patient.

A nightclub electrician who worked in Nice had approached Coccinelle and Bambi when La Carrousel performed there in the mid-1950s. Bambi noted how feminine he was even then.

As Jenny, the electrician approached several gynecologists seeking a correction of her birth sex, but with no success until she approached and pestered Dr Burou in Casablanca in 1956. Burou developed a technique to create a vagina using a live graft taken from the penile skin, and was able to give Jenny what she needed. As it was the first time that he had done such an operation, it was pro bono.

In 1958, Jenny again approached Coccinelle on her return to Nice:

“Shortly before, I was still in Nice. In the lobby of the Negresco, a young woman approached me: "Do you remember me? " she asked me point blank. I saw so many faces that it was almost impossible to remember them all, but I do not like to offend people, so faithful to my habit, I replied: "Yes ... at least I think ... It seems ... “. In general, the person undertakes to revive my memory, and everyone is happy. But instead of the expected scenario, my stranger bursts out laughing: "That would surprise me very much! She says. That would be a miracle!” And then, just to explain, spoke to me of a young electrician who visited me in my dressing room during a previous tour in Nice with intent to sell me some disks: she was that boy ...I nearly fell over backwards! Now I could see very well the young man in question: so thin, so frail ...
How could he have become this beautiful woman? "I had an operation" she told me simply. Then Jenny - it was her name - showed me obligingly her anatomy transformed: her beautiful female sex, her breasts harmoniously developed ... I was dazzled, I hardly dared believe it! So everything about what I have always dreamed, everything could become reality.”

Coccinelle and her colleague Pamela applied to Dr Burou, and also became women. And were followed by Bambi, April Ashley, Amanda Lear and Capucine.

• Maxime Foerster. Histoire des transsexuels en France. Paris: Harmatten 2003. Beziers: H&O 2006: 21, 76, 78, 97-100, 170-1.
• “Mémoire: En souvenir des transsexuels”. www.dianeetlesexedesanges.ch/3colset008/_souvenirs-d-un-passe-insolite.htm
• Bambi. “Un jour que j’étais en tournée à Nice”. www.dianeetlesexedesanges.ch/3colset008/_page-anecdote1operations.htm