Ajita Wilson (1950 – 1987) prolific actress

Original March 2007.

Wilson was born and raised in Brooklyn.

After a start as a transvestite entertainer in New York in the last remaining burlesque spectacles of the time, Wilson also posed for some adult magazines,

Around 1970, bankrolled by a rich boyfriend, said to be from Denmark, Ajita Wilson went to Europe, and had completion surgery. It is rumoured that she was featured in hardcore loops at this period – however such are not documented.

Her first non-porno film was Cesare Caneveri’s La Principessa Nuda,1976. in a leading role as Miriam Zamoto, an African princess on a fund-raising mission who encounters Italy’s La dolce vita. The film is a light Comedy/satire poking fun at celebrities and the so-called jet set. Suddenly Ajita Wilson was a star.

With an uncritical approach to scripts, Ajita was constantly employed throughout the 1970s, in both mainstream genre movies, and also in softcore and even hardcore porno. She was often top-billed.

She often played characters simply named ''Ajita''.

In 1978 she made a crossover into Euro-trash such as women-in-prison flicks, and a number of films directed by Jesus Franco.

There were suggestions that she was trans, but they were not taken too seriously. Some knew, other did not. She was frequently featured in European nudie magazines simply as a woman.

1981 was the year of her best-known film, Jesus Franco’s Sadomania, aka Hellhole Women, where Ajita plays the cruel lesbian prison warden who takes delight in the inmates’ suffering – who is named, for some reason, Magda Urtado (said to be the maiden name of Ajita’s real-life mother). In a confusing scene, director Franco, in the role of a gay brothel owner, is sodomized by Ajita, in a second role as a mustachioed man. 

That year she was featured in magazines: the Afro-American magazine Jet featured Ajita as their “Beauty of the Week”: 

“Beautiful Ajita Wilson from Rome is a movie actress in Europe”. 

She was also featured on the cover of Players Magazine and High Society.

She co-starred opposite trans singer/actress Eva Robin’s in Eva Man (1980) and El Regresso de Eva Man (1982). 

Another Jess Franco film, Macumba Sexual, has Ajita in the role of Princess Obongo, a voodoo princess returning from the dead and haunting a woman by using sexual hallucinations.

In the 1980s she starred again in women-in-prison films such as Hell Behind Bars, Hell Penitentiary and Savage Island (with Linda Blair from The Exorcist, an incoherent production using footage of two other movies from the 1980s).

By the mid-1980s Ajita’s career was declining. She was mainly in obscure Greek softcore films. Part of the decline was that softcore porn was being pushed out by US hardcore porn at this time, and the advent of VHS videos.

In 1986 she was arrested by the carabinieri in a brothel in Florence and tried to escape running naked through the street. In 1987 she died from the complications from a road accident.

The rumour that she was trans was more said after her death.

After Wilson's death, an interviewer for "Sinister Tales" asked director Carlos Aured to comment on speculation as to whether she was a transsexual. Aured simply replied, 

"She was charming, beautiful and very professional. The rest is not important.".

Alternate accounts:

There is an alternate story that says that she is Magda Urtado from Rio, but that is the name of her character in Sadomania – it is also supposedly her mother’s maiden name.

Jesus Franco suggested in the 2003 documentary Sadomaniac, that the mysterious star hailed from Ethiopia.

According the October 1981 edition of the American magazine Players (vol. 8, no. 5), she was born in 1951 in Flint, Michigan, the offspring of a Brazilian mother and a US father. In Marco Giusti's book Dizionario Dei Film Italiani Stracult, Sergio Bergonzelli, who directed her in “La Doppia Bocca di Erika”, said that “Ajita had been a firefighter in an American city".

• “Ajita Wilson, mujer de la noche”. Interviu, 189, 27 diciembre 1979.
• “Beauty of the Week: Roman Beauty”. Jet, August 20, 1981:43. Online.
• “Ajita Wilson la veneren era”. High Society, Edizione Italiana, Settembre, 1981.
• “Film Star: Ajita Wilson Goes Nude”. Players Magazine, 8, 5, October 1981.
• Bob McCann. “Ajita Wilson” in Encyclopedia of African American Actresses in Film and Television. McFarland, 2009.
• Monica Roberts. “Black Trans History-Ajita Wilson”. TransGriot, august 21, 2012. Online. 
• “Before Laverne Cox there was Ajita Wilson”. Welkom, 8.sep, 2015.
• Johnny Stanwick. “Created by Cinema: The Enigma of Ajita Wilson”. The Grindhouse Effect, Online. 
• Matt Richardson. “Ajita Wilson: Blaxploitation, Sexploitation, and the Making of Black Womanhood” Transgender Studies Quarterly, 7, 2, May 2020. Also at edu.
• Sierre B Holt. “Ajita Wilson’s Jet Set Style”. The Stylestorian, July 26, 2020. Online.
• Rebekkah Mulholland. Historical Erasure is Violence: The Lives and Experiences of Black Transgender Women and Gender Nonconforming Women of Color in the 19th And 20th PhD thesis, The University of Memphis, May 2020: 28,38, 63, 69-71,73-4 . Online.

IMDB      EN.WIKIPEDIA       FINDAGRAVE      MySpace       Cult Sirens

La Principessa Nuda (aka The Nude Princess, 1976)
Gola Profonda Nera (aka Black Deep Throat, 1976)
Sylvia im Reich der Wollust (aka The Joy of Flying, 1977)
Candido Erotico (aka Copenhagen Nights/The Exhibitionists, 1977)
La Bravata (1977)
Nel Mirino di Black Afrodite (aka Black Aphrodite, 1978)
Le Notti Porno Nel Mondo nº 2 (1978)
L´Amour Chez Les Poids Lourds (aka Traveling Companions, 1978)
Proibito Erotico (1978)
La Pitoconejo (1979)
Pensione Amore Servizio Completo (1979)
Libidine (1979)
Femmine Infernali (aka Escape from Hell, 1979)
Eros Perversion (aka Twelfth Night, 1979)
Los Energéticos (1979)
Una Donna di Notte (1979)
Luca il Contrabbandiere (aka Contraband, 1980)
Orinoco-Prigioniere Del Sesso (aka Hotel Paradiso, 1980)
Evaman, La Máquina Del Amor (1980)
Erotiki Ekstassi (aka Love, Lust and Ecstasy, 1980)
Sadomania - Hölle der Lust (1981)
Erotiko Pathos (aka Blue Passion, 1981)
Apocalipsis Sexual (1982)
Catherine Chérie (1982)
Triferes... Gatoules (1982)
Bacanales Romanas (1982)
La Amante Ambiciosa (1982)
Macumba Sexual (1983)
Töchter Der Venus (1983, aka The Pussycat Syndrome)
Inferno Dietro Le Sbarre (aka Detenute Violente/Captive Women Hell: Hell Penitentiary/Hell Behind Bars, 1983)
La Doppia Bocca di Erika (aka Naked Wild Erections, 1983)

Anomali Erotes Sti Santorini (1983)
Corpi Nudi (aka Nude Strike, 1983)
Stin Athina Simera... Oles Ton Pernoun Fanera! (1984)
Ke To Proto Pinelo (1984)
Idones Sto Egeo (1984)
Savage Island (1985; re-uses scenes from 1979´s Femmine Infernali)
Bocca Bianca, Bocca Nera (aka Love Boat. 1987)
Joe D'Amato Totally Uncut (1999, stock footage)

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IMDB lists her as appearing almost 50 films. This compares with 6 for Aleshia Brevard, 26 for Eva Robin's, 28 for Holly Woodlawn, 79 for Bibi Anderson and 75 for Alexis Arquette. Most of Alexis' film were in her pre-op phase, so on the crude criteria of counting films Ajita is second only to Bibi as the major transsexual film star of that period.

Samantha Kane (1960 - ) executive.

Original version 6/10/2011, revised March 2017, September 2023.

Sam Hashimi was born and raised in Zofaranaya, a suburb to the south of Baghdad. When the family was out, he would dress in his sister’s clothes, until caught by his brother. His one masculine interest at school was football. However he was perceived as feminine by the other boys, and started having sex with them in the passive role.

At age 16, he moved to England, to Swindon where he took a National Diploma in engineering. He financed it by selling hot food at night from a van. He met a woman in a disco, and eventually married her in 1984 in a Anglican church in a village outside Swindon. They soon had two children. He launched two companies: one importing fruit and vegetables, and the other making computers.

He later met an Arabian sheikh and they created a property and investment company. This company thrived. Hashimi became known for negotiating on behalf of wealthy Arabs. He also ran a club and a restaurant in Mayfair. In 1990 he had the opportunity of investing in Manchester United Football Club, but was unable to raise the required ₤10 million in the specified 24 hours. Later the same year he launched an unsuccessful takeover bid for Sheffield United FC, at a time - unlike today - when foreign ownership of British football clubs was not done. The bid resulted in much publicity. It was discussed in the House of Commons, and the Saudi King expressed his disapproval. Coincidentally it came out that a Sheffield company was supplying materials for Iraq to build a ‘supergun’, and then Iraq invaded Kuwait. The deal was off; his major investor pulled out; Hashimi was bankrupt.

For the first time he told his wife that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. She was at first sympathetic and helped him to cross-dress, but quickly segued to divorce, and, once she found another rich man to keep her, ousted Sam from the family home, and obtained injunctions to keep him from seeing the children. In violation of those injunctions he was arrested and served a few months in HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

During a subsequent period of depression and living at the Ealing YMCA, he started going to gay and trans clubs and was told how great it was to be a woman. He applied through his doctor to be evaluated by the Gender Identity Clinic at the Charing Cross Hospital. However the wait would be over a year, and if he were to become a woman he needed money.

Through his old contacts he was able to get restarted as a property refurbisher. In the course of that work he met an Israeli divorcee, and they became both business partners and spouses. However that was short lived, and a second divorce ensued.

He then contacted Dr Russell Reid and was accepted as a private transsexual patient.

"First of all, I thought I would do my nose to make it look more feminine. I had eye correction surgery to get rid of my glasses. Then I did my teeth to give me a better smile and I had electrolysis all round my face to remove the masculine beard. I had my Adam's apple removed and my vocal chords tightened. I had breast implants, all before the sex change surgery to remodel my genitalia".

Six months after first seeing Dr Reid, in December 1997 Samantha Kane had genital surgery with Michael Royle. She spent over £100,000 in total on her transition.

She had not seen her family for 10 years. She contacted them and, because of the situation in Iraq, they arranged to meet in Amman, Jordan. They did not know about her change until they actually met at Amman airport, but they did accept her.

Samantha wrote an autobiography, A Two-Tiered Existence, when she was trying to launch a football magazine to take advantage of the 1998 World Cup. She was even considered as chief executive at Sheffield United FC because of the possibility that she could attract supporters in Asia and the Middle East who would watch on subscription television. She built a new career in interior design, and lived an expensive life in London and Spain.

Within four years he regretted the mistake, as he missed being one of the boys talking football, business and girls.

"In fact, I found being a woman rather shallow and limiting. So much depends on your appearance, at the expense of everything else. I wasn't interested in shopping. My female friends would spend hours shopping for clothes, trying on different outfits. But having been a man I knew exactly what would suit me and appeal to men. I could walk into a shop and be out again in five minutes with the right dress. Nor have I ever been interested in celebrity magazines or the things that interest other women, but when I tried to talk to men about blokey things they didn't take me seriously.”

In 2004, after the collapse of her engagement to a wealthy landowner when it became apparent that he did not regard her as a ‘real’ woman, Kane decided that it had been a mistake, and as Charles Kane reverted to male. He complained, at the time that the Gender Recognition Bill was going through Parliament, to the General Medical Council that Russell Reid had been too easy in accepting him. Charles was referred to the Charing Cross Hospital Gender Identity Clinic, and as a private patient spent a further £25,000 on breast removal and phalloplasty.

"After what I've been through, I now think that sex-change operations shouldn't be allowed. They should be banned. We live today in a consumerist society where we all believe we can have everything we want, but too much choice can be a dangerous thing."

However when Russell Reid was found guilty of misconduct by the General Medical Council, Kane was quoted in the Guardian: 

"I think generally he [Dr Reid] is a kind-hearted doctor and he didn't really mean to be malicious to the patient. Most of the patients came here to support him because of this quality in him. He is a caring, almost father-figure."

Charles prospered again in the property market, and by 2010 was living in a £2.6 million property in west London, and had recently announced his engagement to a 28-year-old woman, Victoria. His son, then 25, reconciled with his father. Charles  completed a novel, and was seeking funding for a

documentary on the “the Sex Change Delusion”.

“In many ways I see myself a victim of the medical profession. Even with the glamour of Samantha Kane and the £100,000 I spent on myself, I had people shouting abuse at me and builders throwing stones at me from rooftops.”

Charles was featured in 2004 in “Make me a man again” in the BBC documentary series One Life directed by Todd Austin.  A reviewer in the Guardian wrote: 

“Austin’s film managed to make Charles a likeable creature and by the end I was rooting for him. Austin allowed Charles the dignity of privacy and that, in TV-land, is a rare and precious commodity.”

In 2011 the US ABC’s Primetime Nightline featured teenaged trans kids, and as ‘balance’ Charles Kane who never was a trans kid, and who objected to children being given gender assertive therapy. 

In March 2017, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Kane announced a return to being a woman, and a change of name to Sam Kane,

"The reversal operation did not return me to the man I once was, just an approximation.  With the exception of Victoria, I was rejected by both men and women. The original surgery was effectively irreversible. You can’t turn back into a man because whatever defines the male has been completely removed, so how can you bring it back?

‘I discovered to my detriment that there is only so far medical science can go.  As Charles, I still sometimes wanted to wear a blouse or a pretty ring, and wear my hair long.  Having become Samantha, I should have stayed Samantha. When I told Victoria how I was feeling, it effectively ended the relationship.  She said she preferred men and did not want to live with a woman, but we are still friends."

In 2018 she published the novel that she had been working on.  Called Mohammed and Susan, the plot is: 

“Susan Green is an Iraqi British architect and the only witness to a fatal accident on a building site in West London. A suspicious police detective discovers a book written by Susan, revealing huge secrets about her life and narrating a story of love, taboos, desire and murder.”

By 2022 Samantha had a considerable property portfolio in London.  She spotted an article about the sale of Carbisdale Castle in Ayrshire.  This intrigued her: "So I took a last-minute flight to Inverness and made my first trip to that far north in the Highlands”.  The castle had been built during the first world war for Mary Caroline, Duchess of Sutherland.  In 1933 it was purchased by a Scots-Norwegian millionaire, and in 1945 it was donated to the Scottish Youth Hostels Association. By the 2010s it needed extensive renovations, and the SYHA attempted to sell it in 2014 because of the cost.  It was purchased by a corporation in 2016, but their plans fell through, and they sold it to Samantha Kane.  She is using her London property portfolio to finance further renovations, and is now known as Lady Carbisdale.

*Not the romance novelist, Samantha Kane, nor Charles Kane the protagonist in Citizen Kane, 1941, nor the character in Tomb Raider, nor the boxer, nor the President of One Laptop Per Child.

• Samantha Kane edited by Sarah Harding. Two-Tiered Existence. London: Writers and Artists. 130 pp. 1998. Review.
• Jack O’Sullivan. “Cold Call: Jack O'Sullivan rings Samantha Kane”. The Guardian, 24 Oct 1998. Online.
• Todd Austin (dir) One Life: Make me a Man Again. UK BBC1 19 Oct 2004.
• David Batty. “Sex-change patient complains to GMC “. The Guardian, 18 Feb 2004. Online.
• Helen Weathers. “A British tycoon and father of two has been a man and a woman ... and a man again ... and knows which sex he'd rather be”. Daily Mail, June 14, 2008. Online.
• Helen Weathers. “A VERY peculiar engagement: Charles had a sex change - then hated being Samantha so became a man again. Now he's getting married. So is his fiancée barmy, brave... or just in love?”. Daily Mail, 7th Dec 2010. Online
• "My (Extra) Ordinary Family: My Kid is Transgender".  Primetime Nightline. US ABC 6 August 31, 2011.  Review.
• Helen Weathers.  "The top London lawyer who's changed gender THREE times: Extraordinary tale of transgender career woman, 57, who's spent more than £100,000 switching sex - and why she believes life's easier for men than women".  The Daily Mail, 21 March 2017.   Online.
• Samantha Kane.  Mohammed and Susan.  Diversity Books, 2018. Blurb.
• Helen Weathers. “Samantha changed gender three times and is 'happier than ever' in her new Highland castle home”. The Daily Mail, 3 Oct 2022.  Online.
• Lara Wildenberg. “Dream comes true for castle’s new lady”.  The Times, October 05 2022.  Online. 
• Steven McKenzie. 'I booked a last-minute flight and bought a castle'.  BBC News, 26 Aug 2023.  Online. 

Amazon   Wealthy Peeps  

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I also had the surgery only six months after first meeting Russell Reid, but unlike
Hashimi/Kane I had by that point been on female hormones for some years, was living full-time as female and working as female.

Why is it that many of those who change back, then feel that they want to ban the operation for everyone?

Marlene Parker (1930 - ) hairdresser, actor

Parker was born as Siegfried Speck in Dresden in December 1930, in the last years of the Weimar Republic. Speck’s mother being a deaf mute, the baby was placed in an orphanage until adopted in 1937. The adoptive parents were very strict. At age 10 Speck had to join the Deutsches Jungvolk, and at age 14 the Hitler Youth. 

13-15 February 1945 was the Allied bombing and the resulting firestorm of Dresden which killed up to 35,000. Speck’s family lived outside the city and survived. 

Speck trained as a hairdresser, and found work in a fashionable salon in East Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse. In the days before the Berlin Wall, East Berliners could attend parties in West Berlin, and there Speck met Felix, his first boyfriend, also an Ossi, and later they escaped to West Germany. They settled in Hamburg, where Speck was a successful hairdresser.

A job on a cruise ship took Speck to Los Angeles. There was work hairdressing at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and acting in plays at L.A’s German Club, which led to an uncredited part in the 1959 remake of The Blue Angel. The same year, billed as Seigfried Speck, there was a part as a U-Boat crew member in episode 17 of the the first season of One Step Beyond. After that Speck became John Siegfried, and was in the 1962 biopic Hitler with Richard Basehart in the title role – Siegdfried played a gay SA officer killed in the 1934 Night of the Long Knives. Siegfried was in several television programs throughout the 1960s, often being cast as a German, and was again a ‘German Officer’ in the 1973 film, Trader Horn. One of Siegfried’s lovers was Rock Hudson.

However Siegfried was not happy living as male: the urge to be her true self was building and could no longer be denied. 

“I was really getting bigger in the industry. But deep inside I was very, very unhappy. I used to get these attacks, like a panic attack....I wouldn't be alive. I was close to suicide....When you get into this change, you lose a lot of friends.”. 

She completed transitioned in 1978 taking the name Marlene Parker. Afterward she did stand-up comedy and had a cable TV show. She became friends with the younger trans actress Candid Cayne.

• Sharon Knolle. ”Inside Trans Pioneer Marlene Parker’s Journey From Nazi Germany to Hollywood – and Beyond”. The Wrap, January 6, 2023. Online.
• Sharon Knolle. “Trans Pioneer Marlene Parker Portraits (Exclusive Photos)”. The Wrap, January 6, 2023. Online.

IMDB

Will Franken (1973 - ) comedian

​Will Franken was raised in Sedalia, Missouri, with a “hyper-masculine” father who had been with the US military in Vietnam. His sisters dressed him as a girl, which he enjoyed. He learned to become a comedian. When he got his first car he was thrilled that he could drive to another town to buy women’s clothing. Then father discovered a pair of women’s shoes which led to a confession and being called a ‘faggot'.

Will did a degree in English with a specialization in Restoration and 18th century literature, and afterwards taught high school in New York City while pursuing an acting career. He developed comedy routines inspired by Monty Python and Kids in the Hall.

He lived in San Francisco from 2002, and lived as Sarah for three months, but still gigging as Will. It was disconcerting that Sarah was addressed as 'sir'. Sarah got married to a woman:

“We each had three bridesmaids”.  

However Will was gaining recognition as a character comedian:

“I was more obsessed with my career at that point and felt being out as transgender would limit me”. 

While in San Francisco, Franken was awarded "Best Comedian" of 2005 by the SF Weekly and "Best Alternative to Psychedelic Drugs" by the SF Bay Guardian. He later made a television debut on BBC America's “The World Stands Up,” a showcase of UK, American and Australian comedians.

There was a Wikipedia Page for “Will franken” (small f) created in 2006. He was divorced in 2007.

In 2013 Will emigrated to England, at first living in North London, and becoming known on the comedy circuit.

At the age of 42, Franken moved to Bethnal Green, and, as Sarah, started to make new friends. Initially she had a rule that she was Will on gig days, and otherwise Sarah, but then worked up the courage to perform as Sarah. As Franken was known for switching from character to character while performing, it was hard to persuade audiences that Sarah was not just another character:

'Hello, I'm Sarah and I'm going to do some character comedy for you tonight. And this is not a character by the way... It's the first time I've ever come on not in character.' 

Overall Sarah’s gigs went well. The Guardian ran a story on her, which caused a ripple of publicity and enquiries from various media.  She – 6’5”(1.96m) - did get negative comments in the street, but in many cases was able to use the incidents as material for her show.

Franken’s mother found out from Facebook, and left a comment about God’s condemnation. Sarah deleted her from Facebook.

She never started on oestrogen.

Overall Franken’s act did not change:

“In fact, in many ways, being Sarah allowed me to get across some necessary conservative perspectives quite foreign to the artistic milieu. … As always, I defended free-market capitalism and argued against the proliferation of radical Islam—although at first with considerably less expletive-laden shouting than I would have engaged in as Will.” 

However after seven months Franken reverted. As Will/Sarah was to some extent a public figure, he wrote an essay, “Seven Reasons for Will's Return”. He summarized it in The Independent:

“My exasperation at public abuse, the disarming prospect of no longer attracting females, and a lingering resentment to what I perceived as an oversight of my comedy in favour of the identity politics du jour: transgenderism… I was frightened, angry, lonely, confused – and, perhaps worst of all, bored. Utterly bored with the topic of transgenderism”. 

Will received a number of negative comments that criticised him more for his reversion than for his political opinions, and – as he responded in an article for The Federalist:

“Unwittingly, I have become a threat to a prewritten collective narrative. My choice to live again as a man implies there may be others for whom the trans lifestyle is a choice. Perhaps the fear and anger emanating from the activists is twofold. On the personal level, there’s a fear among some in the trans community who are likewise uncertain about their own decision and are reticent to address the personal responsibility of choice that is part and parcel of that uncertainty. … Especially if loose cannons like myself keep making up their own minds about what do with their own lives. Choice is rebellion. Choice is rock-n-roll”

The Wikipedia page was removed in December 2018 for lack of notability.

·                 “Will Franken is Drugs Without Having to Hit the Bottom: Recovery Comedy Interview”. Recovery Comedy, May 22^nd, 2012. Online.

·                 Ralph Jones. “Comic Sarah Franken: why I became a woman after 40 years of fear”. Guardian, 15 July 2015. Online.

·                 Megan Boyanton. “Comedian Sarah Franken on being transgender, spiritual and ready to rock ‘n’ roll”. PinkNews, 24^th July 2015. Online.

·                 Kieran Gilbert. “Transgender comedian thrives on laughter to beat fear, abuse”. Daily Mail, 9 August 2015.  Online.

·                 Alice Jones. “Transgender comedian Sarah Franken on performing her first show at the Edinburgh Fringe”. Independent, 10 August 2015. Online.  

·                 Bruce Dessau. “Exclusive: Will Franken On Changing Back From Sarah To Will”.  Beyond the Joke, 23/12/2015.  Online.

·                 Will Franken. “Why I began living as a woman - then decided to transition back”. Independent, 28 Dec 2015. Online.

·                 Will Franken.  “What Life As A Transgender Woman Taught Me About Progressives”.  The Federalist, Match 7, 2016.  Online.

WillFranken.Com   RecoveryComedy     IMDB    The Federalist    EN.Wikipedia(deletion)   PopularBio    EverybodyWiki       

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If you must read the negative comments see the 28/12/2015 Independent article.

There are various videos of Franken performing at WillFranken.Com and on YouTube.  ​

Anita Verig Sandor (1934 - ) usherette, housewife

As Anita later told her tale to the News of the World:

Her parents in Hungary raised her as a girl, and sent her to school as such, even during the war. When she was 15 she found her birth certificate that said that she was a boy.  She was told to shut up and not ask questions.

After leaving school, she worked as a female in a factory. She found her first boyfriend and told him she was different from other girls. He said that he also had a proper girlfriend and now could have the best of both worlds.

When the Hungarian Uprising began in October 1956, Anita was afraid of being raped by the Russians, so she cut her hair, dressed in some of her father’s clothes and fled to the West. Sandor was shot in the knee, and was two months in hospital before getting to England. Sandor found work in a London hotel stillroom. He met and married a French women in 1959.  They had two sons, but separated after four years, and were divorced in 1967, with  the wife retaining custody of the children.

Anita returned to living as a woman. She was working as a cinema usherette when she met 17-year-old Peter, a building labourer.  They socialised and went on holidays with the other building workers. The major problem was his parents who objected to Anita being so much older.

She had applied for a sex-change operation as it was then known. Peter accepted this and they were able to get a council flat in Islington, north London.  In 1976 they decided to get married at an Anglican church in Hackney. She explained that she had lost her birth certificate in flight from Hungary. So they had to go to a solicitor and swear a declaration that she was Anita Verig Sandor born in 1940.

There were 50 guests at the wedding, and the vicar attended the reception.  All went well until somebody told the News of the World - three years later.

However even the article in that paper finished on a positive note with Peter declaring

“But whatever happens in the future our ambition is to continue to be as happy as we are now.  If anything ever happens to Anita, I know that I’d never marry again.”

• Ray Chapman. “Secret of the bride in white: she’s the father of two sons”. The News of the World, 25 March 1979. Online.

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As readers of the books by Peter Farrer will know, parents cross-raising a child was considered a cause of adult transgender in the 1920s and 1930s.  However it was a very unusual claim by the 1970s.

I was rather naughty of Anita to drop six years from her age.

It is not mentioned whether Anita was making child support payments.

I presume that she was going to the Charing Cross Gender Clinic.  There were very few alternatives in 1976.

Alexander Polycleitos Cawadias - part II

​

Continued from Part I.

A.P. Cawadias expanded his 1941 lecture into a book, Hermaphoditus: The Human Intersex, first published in 1943 despite the wartime rationing of paper. A second edition was published in 1946.

He re-iterated that everyone is at least mildly intersex, hermaphrodites being severely so. For those assigned male he recognised four intermediate types:

A) Dilettante – talkers, emotionalists using supposed female social forms 

B) Transvestist “a higher degree of male psychological intersexualism”.

C) Homosexual – again “a higher degree of male psychological intersexualism (1946 p40)” but there are other non-intersexual homosexuals such as those of ancient Greece, and those due to “excessive virility”. “Oscar Wilde was wrong to defend his practices by referring to ancient Hellas, because his homosexuality was of definitely intersexual nature, as shown by the general emotional make-up of the poet. It was thus a source of social mischief and had no link with the homosexuality of ancient Greece (p41)”.

D) Masochistic – “a very high degree of psychological intersexualization (p41)”.

For those assigned female, he concentrates on adrenal virilism (the major form that was treated at Charing Cross Hospital under Lennox Broster at that time). The intermediate forms that he recognises are:

A) Amazonian – “These are women excelling in sports and other male activities, and exhibiting qualities of leadership (p63)”.

B) “Psychological forms corresponding to those described for male feminism are frequent. Female homosexuality and female transvestism are outstanding. Striking examples of the latter form are George Sand and Christina of Sweden. Joan of Arc does not enter into this category. (p64)”

For those severely intersexual he of course recommends medical support, but with an important caveat.

“The Pragmatic Sex is that indicated by the will of the patient. It is the sex that will make him happier and confer better adaptation. … The pragmatic sex is to be accepted in cases of severe intersexualisation, in which the genetic sex is very doubtful and cannot be discovered. These individuals must have their place in the sun, and can have it only by virtue of their will to a particular sex. Otherwise they would be abandoned as a class apart of ‘undetermined sex.’ Many will object that the sex they will may not be their true, i.e., genetic sex, but in such cases the sex that brings most happiness and the best adaptation is surely the true sex.(p32)”

He accepts and admires the female intermediaries. However:

“Even if male homosexuals or male transvestists live unhappily and commit suicide when thwarted, overwhelming social considerations oblige the physician to ignore their will and thus their pragmatic sex. A male homosexual, for example, is a source of moral depravity in a group of other persons, particularly at schools. Besides being a generally depraving influence he is a source of contagion of intersexuality. He must therefore be thwarted in his activities, although more by treatment than by punishment. (p33)”

Michael Dillon, in his Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology, 1946, describes Cawadias’ book as “vigorous and original” but fails to take the point for he continues to talk of true and pseudo-  hermaphroditism.

Mary Cawadias had survived, stayed in Greece and was a correspondent for Time and Life magazines during the 1944-9 Civil War. She later married a British diplomat.

Christian Hamburger, Georg K Stürup & E Dahl-Iversen, of the team that operated on Christine Jorgensen, read a paper at a meeting of Danish medical societies 13 February 1953, and then published it in the Journal of the American Medical Association later that year. They specifically quote Cawadias re the physician must “ignore their will and thus their pragmatic sex”. Hamburger et al reply:

 “It is understood in medical ethics that if a disease cannot be cured an attempt should be made to improve the stress and inconvenience of the patient in order to make his life as tolerable as possible, having, naturally, due regard to the interests of society. We are unable to agree with Cawadias”.

In 1954 Cawadias wrote to the British Medical Journal: 

“What is the predominant sex in an intersexual ? As I pointed out in my Thomas Vicary lecture many years ago, ‘with our contemporary ideas the predominant sex is that manifested by the total personality and not that indicated by special features of nuclear genes, gonads, endocrines, or even by the balance of sexual characters. Total personality is shown by the behaviour and will of the individual. Thus, in principle, an intersexual individual has the right to demand of us to perfectionate his sex according to his choice.”  ... "The application of this principle of free choice for the other class of intersexes, the transvestites, is much more difficult. These are individuals whose genital organs and gonads are distinctly male or female but who feel they belong to the opposite sex and want to live, dress, and work like members of the opposite sex. … In my opinion, these transvestites are as much hermaphrodites as those designated with this term, and, in fact, we find definite endocrine, genital, and other physical stigmata pointing to a definite intersexuality. They are the most unfortunate beings, leading lives of misery often terminating in suicide. We have to help them-but how ?”

In 1955, Georgina Turtle, then in transition, was referred to Dr Cawadias “London’s leading sexologist”. He conducted a proper examination and declared Turtle to be a hermaphrodite, prescribed oestrogen and advised a change of sexual role. In 1960 he supplied an affidavit to aid her in obtaining a revised birth certificate.

In 1959 Cawadias wrote to The Lancet: 

“Are we to deny to transexualists (the most tragic of all intersexes) the benefit of a change of registration which would not do any harm to anyone and would prevent for these unfortunates a life of misery and even suicide, on the basis of their nuclear chromatin ? Our legislation regarding intersexual conditions is already very deficient, and the dogma of sexual chromatin will lead to even more erroneous legal decisions. For the clinician who will guide such legal decisions, the sexual chromatin is a part; and we cannot know the whole by considering only a part. Sex is a matter of total personality -including the most important, psychological personality --and not a matter of genes, gonads, genital organs, or endocrines.”

In 1962, at the age of 78, Cawadias returned to Athens where he continued to write and give lectures. He stayed after the 1967 coup d’état that led to rule by the Military Junta. He died at age 87.

Publications by Cawadias:

• “Physical Methods of Endocrinotherapy”. The British Medical Journal, Aug 1, 1936.
• “The History of Endocrinology”. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, XXXIV, 303, December 4, 1940.
• “Hermaphroditism: A Historical Approach”. British Medical Journal, 818, Dec 6, 1941. First page.
• Hermaphoditus: The Human Intersex. William Heinemann, 1943. Second edition 1946.
• “Change of Sex”. Letter to the British Medical Journal, April 10, 1954: 876.
• “Sex Reversal”. Letter to the Editor of The Lancet, 14 February 1959: 369.

By Others

• Michael Dillon. Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology. William Heineman, 1946: 58-9.
• Christian Hamburger, Georg K Stürup & E Dahl-Iversen.  “Transvestism: Hormonal, Psychiatric, and Surgical Treatment”. Journal of the American Medical Association, 151, 5, May 30, 1953: 395.
• Georgina Somerset. A Girl Called Georgina. The Book Guild, 1992: 34, 42.
• Katrina Karkazis. Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience. Duke University Press, 2001: 44–45.
• “Mary Henderson: Diplomatic consort with an unusual past”.  The independent, 15 April 2004. Online.

EN.Wikipedia                   Royal College of Physicians

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Cawadias was one year older than Harry Benjamin, and his book came out 22 years before The Transsexual Phenomenon. From our 21^st century viewpoint his legacy is mixed. His concept of the ‘predominant’ sex and the statement that the behaviour and will of the individual trump chromosomes, gonads and body shape is very modern. And yet it is a return to the 18^th century when intersex persons where allowed to choose a gender, which would then be accepted. Cawadias’ position here is very similar to Benjamin’s “Seven Kinds of Sex” published in Sexology in 1961, and then revised as the first chapter of The Transsexual Phenomenon. It is noteworthy that Cawadias is not mentioned in Benjamin’s book. Not even in passing.

The intermediate types designated Dilettante and Amazon are now quaint and dated. The social construction of gender has changed since 1943 and the behaviours mentioned are now encouraged for both genders without implications of being intersex.

Cawadias’s book was advanced for its time. It is a shame that he succumbed to the homophobic mores of the time and demanded that male homosexuals and transvestists be thwarted in their attempts to be themselves.  However the letters that he wrote to medical journals in the 1950s indicate that he had changed his mind.

The claim that transvestites (which in the 1940s included what we now call transsexuals) are a type of intersex is of course contentious. But we cannot expect Cawadias to anticipate the next 80 years of debate after he wrote.

Alexander Polycleitos Cawadias / Αλεξανδρος Πολυκλειτος Καββαδιας (1884 – 1971) endocrinologist - Part 1

Cawadias was the son of the noted Greek archeologist, Panagiotis Kavvadias/ Παναγιώτης Καββαδίας (1850 – 1928). Alexander was educated locally in Athens and then at Montpellier University and at the University of Paris where he earned a baccalaureate in 1901, and then studied in Bonn and Heidelberg. From 1906-10 he was a resident physician at a Paris teaching hospital, where he gained a MD. In 1912 he was elected Chef de Clinique in the Paris Faculty.

However the Balkan states having formed the Balkan League fought successfully to complete secession from the Ottoman Empire. This was the First Balkan War 1912-13. Immediately afterwards Bulgaria went to war against Greece and Serbia to settle boundaries. This was the Second Balkan War. Dr Cawadias returned to Greece to help his country, and in particular served during the cholera epidemic in Salonika. In 1914, he married the daughter of a banker, and, on the nomination of Queen Mother Olga, he was appointed Chief of the Medical Clinic in the Evangelismos Hospital in Athens, and he became physician to the new king, her son. During the Great War, Cawadias was the liaison officer to the British Sector, and in 1918 was appointed to the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Greece attempted to expand into Asia Minor, but was defeated in the Greco-Turkish War 1919-1922. After this chaos and the need to absorb 1.5 million refugees, there was a referendum on the monarchy, and Greece became a republic in 1924. A fervent royalist, Cawadias followed his King Geórgios II (Olga’s grandson) into exile in London two years later. He qualified as a British MD at Durham University. He found a home in the prestigious Wimpole Street, and became a British subject. He quickly established a consulting practice mainly amongst wealthy Greek expatriates. He did not follow his king back to Greece in 1935 after the right-wing coup that restored the monarchy.

Cawadias specialized in endocrinology and established a reputation in the field. He was president of the History of Medicine Society of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1937 to 1939.

The reigning paradigm re intersex persons, or hermaphrodites as they were then called, was that of Theodor Klebs (1834-1913) who in his Handbuch der Pathologischen Anatomie, 1876 codified the already accepted notion that primacy in sex determination should be the gonads: thus a person with a typical female body but also testes would be designated male and a person with a typical male body but with ovarian tissue would be designated female. Klebs distinguished true hermaphroditism (both ovarian and testicular tissue) from what he called pseudo-hermaphroditism.

Cawadias was one of the first to speak out against this paradigm. In December 1941, when the worst of the Blitz was over, he gave the Thomas Vicary lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons: Hermaphroditism: A Historical Approach.

“In all cases of ‘complete’ hermaphroditism described even to-day the testis or the ovary was rudimentary and not functioning. Bisexualism could not be accepted on such slender evidence. Was there a normal woman who did not possess in her ovarian medulla testicular rudiments, or a normal woman who did not secrete testosterone? According to Klebs's criterion all normal women should be considered true hermaphrodites. (1941 p818)” …. “The ovary and testis were not the basis of sex, but merely manifestations or results of the initial genetic sexoformic impulse, which in human beings was either male or female and never bisexual. A female was not the appendage of her ovaries, to use Virchow's phrase, but had ovaries because she was female. A male was not male because he had testes; he had testes because he was male. There was neither absolute male nor absolute female. Every male had more or less latent female features, and vice versa. Intensification of this normal intersexualism characterised the disease hermaphroditism, and all degrees were encountered. (p819)”

Cawadias’ daughter Mary had been a Red Cross nurse during the Italian Invasion of Greece in 1940, and after the Germans also invaded in 1941 she was arrested by the SS and condemned to death for assisting the Allies.

Continued in Part II

52 Wimpole St

___________________

Cawadias was first at 52 Wimpole Street, and then at 50. Number 50 was the residence 1838-46 of poet Elizabeth Barrett, lover of poet Robert Browning. Their courtship was immortalised in the play  The Barretts of Wimpole Street, 1930. It was filmed twice, 1934 and 1957, in both cases directed by Sidney Franklin. It was also remade by the BBC in 1982.

The Royal College of Physicians biography of Cawadias (which does not mention intersex even once) says “In 1914, on the nomination of Queen Olga, he had been appointed Chief of the Medical Clinic in the Evangelismos Hospital”. However her husband Geórgios I had been assassinated in 1913 so she was no longer Queen. Their son Konstantínos ruled 1913-17 but was forced out for being pro-German. His second son, Aléxandros ruled 1920-3 until death from a monkey bite. Following a referendum, Konstantínos returned but abdicated in 1922 after Greece lost a war with Turkey. His first son Geórgios II then reigned 1922-4 until a republic was proclaimed. Geórgios then spent most of his time in Britain, and with his English mistress. He divorced his wife in 1935. After the right-wing coup that year and a rigged referendum, Geórgios returned and ruled during the Metaxas dictatorship, giving his consent to the suspension of the parliament, etc.

The Wikipedia page on Theodor Klebs does not mention his work on hermaphrodites. !!

John Campbell/Murray Hall (1850 - 1901) business man, Tammany Hall politician

John Campbell and his younger sister Marie, possibly from Govan, on the Clyde, were orphaned  in 1861.  Marie had worn male clothing due to ‘bad usage’ as a child.   John died two years later when Marie was 13.  He advised her to take his name and his clothes as such would ‘probably enable her the better to make her way in the world’.

In 1869 in Kirknewton, east of Edinburgh, the person now called "John Campbell" married Mary Ann, pregnant and already the mother of two.   

Some months later, in May 1870, John deserted his family.   He found work in Renfrew, adjacent to Govan, east of Glasgow, at the forge of a local shipbuilding company, Henderson, Coulborn & Co.   He lodged with a family and became well-liked for his willingness to help in the home.   He began a relationship with a local woman, Kate, and took her on romantic trips to Edinburgh. 

There was a smallpox epidemic 1870-2 in the Glasgow area.   John attended his landlady when she fell ill.   When the doctor called, he insisted that John needed to be admitted to the infirmary.  John agreed only if he were to remain fully clothed.   The doctor pressed, his suspicions aroused, and John admitted that he was Marie Campbell.   In Kirknewton, parish authorities had sought Mary Ann’s husband.  She had admitted that her husband was a woman, but as her children were not John’s her character was questioned and her claim dismissed.   On hearing the news from Renfrew, it was decided that Mary Ann and a Will Waddel, a witness to the marriage, should accompany the Inspector of the Poor to Renfrew.   John, on seeing Will exclaimed: “Is that you Will Waddel; how’s the wife and bairns?”.   

John was charged with contravening the Registration Act.  Shortly afterwards, John disappeared.

He emigrated to New York, where he gave his name as Murray Hamilton Hall.  The name of his first wife in New York is not documented.   She complained about his flirtations and womanizing, and disappeared mysteriously after a few years.  

Hall soon married again, on Christmas Eve to Celia Lowe, in the Presbyterian Church in Lower 6^th  Ave, and they became US citizens together, 20 October 1875. They adopted a daughter, Imelda, but also known as Millie. Celia, also, complained of his womanizing. Murray ran an employment agency for domestic servants, and also became involved with the Tammany politicians, where he was a member of the General Committee, and was a personal friend of New York State Senator Barney Martin.

Murray was known as a man about town. Although slight and with a rather squeaky voice, he came across as very masculine, and drank and fought within the city political in-crowd. He always wore baggy, rather too large, clothes, and an overcoat even in summer.

Celia died in 1898.

In the US Census of June 1900, Hall listed himself as male, age 60 and that he had immigrated in 1846 from Scotland.  His daughter was listed as Millie, age 20 from Maine. 

Murray Hall suffered cancer of the left breast for many years but avoided medical attention – he said that his declining health resulted from having been knocked down by a bicycle on Fifth Avenue. He purchased a considerable library of medical and surgery books, which he used towards self-treatment and to avoid disclosure. Finally, on his deathbed, he allowed his doctor to examine him closely.

On 19 January the body was buried  at night in an unmarked $12 grave at MountOlivet Cemetery, by his adopted daughter, Imelda.  For the first time since he was 13, the body was dressed in woman’s clothes. 

The inquest was held on the 28^th. Two days of testimony were taken from his doctor and from Imelda.  Imelda continued to refer to her father as ‘he’, and when nudged by the coroner to say ‘she’, She replied: “No … he was always a man to me, and I shall never think of him as a woman”. The all-male jury took just seven minutes to find that Hall had died of natural causes, and was a lady.

Alternate stories of Hall’s life were soon in circulation: that he was John Anderson, born Mary, from Ireland; that he had been born Elizabeth Hall in the lower west side of Manhattan; that he had worked the California gold fields in the 1840s. 

John Campbell:

·         “ ’A Woman Married To A Woman’: Shock Revelations and Intrigue In Victorian Scotland”.  A History of Working-Class Marriage, September 30, 2014.  Online.  The accounts of John Campbell.”

Murray Hall:

·         “Woman Long Posed as Man”. New York Times. Jan 18, 1901. Online at: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5031.
·         “Known as a Man for Sixty Years, She died a Woman: Astounding Life History of Murray Hall, the Sixth Avenue Employment Agent”.  New York Evening World, Jan 18, 1901.  Online. 
·         “Murray Hall Fooled Many Shrewd Men”. New York Times. Jan 19 1901. http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/magic/news/hall.html.
·         “Story of ‘Murray Hall’ told by her adopted daughter: Woman who Masqueraded as a Man for More than Forty Years was Buried Yesterday – Other Similar Cases in History”.  The St Louis Republic, Jan 20 1901.  Online. 
·         “The Murray Hall Case: Possible Solution of New York’s Strange Mystery: The Story of an Old Nurse”.  Goldboro Weekly Argus, Feb 14, 1901.  Online.
·         Havelock Ellis. Sexual Inversion. In Studies In The Psychology Of Sex. Random House. 1936: 246-7.
·         Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. Avon, 1978: 353-361.
·         Karen Abbott, “The Mystery of Murray Hall,” July 21, 2011, Smithsonian.com, Online.
·         Lydia Nelson. “Reanimating Archiving/Archival Corporealities: Deploying ‘Big Ears’ on De Reigeur Mortis Intervention”.  QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 1, 2, Summer 2014: 132-159.

__________

The first wife in New York is not named.   There is no reason to assume that she was Kate from Renfrew, but no reason to rule that out either.

Imelda replied  “No … he was always a man to me, and I shall never think of him as a woman”, but only 9 days before had buried him in female clothes.  His sex-gender disparity had come as a shock to her, and she had not had time to think it through.

Imelda ("Story of ‘Murray Hall’ told by her adopted daughter") remembered that her adoptive parents were married on Christmas Eve in the Presbyterian Church in Lower 6^th  Ave, but was not sure which year.   As a variant, Lydia Nelson has a footnote, #55, that they “ were married on Dec. 24, 1872 at the Church of the Strangers on Mercer Street. As of 1901, 'the record [was] on file at the bureau of vital statistics,' according to the Salt Lake Herald, January 27, 1901: 12”.  If this is so, the marriage to the first wife in New York was a matter of months, not years. 

Thank you to Lydia Nelson for discovering the naturalization certificate and the census return of the Halls and including them in her article.   She also worked out where Murray’s unmarked grave is. 

Most writers about Murray Hall take their facts from Havelock Ellis,  Hall was not mentioned in the original 1897 edition of Havelock Ellis’ Sexual Inversion (obviously), but  he was added in the 1915 edition.  Ellis states of Hall: 

“Her real name was Mary Anderson, and she was born in Govan, in Scotland.   Early left an orphan, on the death of her only brother she put on his clothes and went to Edinburgh, working as a man.  Her secret was discovered during an illness, and she finally went to America.”  

He cites the Weekly Scotsman, February 9, 1901 (which unfortunately is not available online).   

This is supported by “The Murray Hall Case: Possible Solution of New York’s Strange Mystery: The Story of an Old Nurse”, cited above in which Mrs Canning, a nurse previously with the Edinburgh Hospital, tells of Mary Anderson whose brother John died and she took his identity.  He went to Govan and there married.   After infidelities and a separation, the wife disclosed that John was a woman, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.  John went to Duddison close to Edinburgh (no such place – did she mean Duddingston?).  Suspected of having smallpox, John was taken into the Edinburgh hospital, and his body discrepancy discovered.  He was arrested on the outstanding warrant.   Edinburgh Hospital had two sections: Hamilton Hall and Murray Hall.   Hence John’s name in New York: Murray Hamilton Hall.  I assume that Canning means the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, established 1729.   However I cannot find confirmation that it had two halls of that name – Google fails to find them, nor are they mentioned in Helen Dingwall’s A History of Scottish Medicine.

John Campbell and John Anderson seem to be two variants of the same tale:

ü  Born Mary or Maria  
ü  Elder brother John who dies
ü  Takes John’s name and clothes
ü  Ellis has John go to Edinburgh; Campbell went to Kirknewton, east of Edinburgh
ü  Wife abandoned, she tells that he is a woman and a warrant is issued
ü  Works in Renfrew or Govan which are only 2 miles apart
ü  John is taken ill in the smallpox epidemic, and his body discovered to be discrepant.

These parallels are almost convincing.   Do we have a claim from 1901 that John Campbell and Murray Hall are the same?  Again Lydia Nelson delivers (p139):  “According to Sir Henry Littlejohn, Edinburgh, Scotland’s Medical Officer of Health, Hall (alias John Campbell) was born an orphan in Govan, Scotland; she wore her dead brother’s clothes to gain employment. (‘Masqueraded in Glasgow,’ Washington Post, January 29, 1901: 1)”.  Littlejohn was Edinburgh’s Medical Officer of Health.   He was also one of the two men who inspired Conan Doyle when he created Sherlock Holmes.  

On the other hand when Murray Hall was registered in the 1900 census he claimed to be 60 (born 1840) and had arrived in the US in 1846 (aged 6).  

Caveat lector!