Xie Jian Shun 謝尖順 (1918 - ?) soldier

 Xie Jianshun 謝尖順 was born in Chaozhou, Guangdong. The family lived out in the countryside. At the age of seven, he was sick, and a doctor visit was not feasible. It was later reported that his penis was attached to a labium, and the mother simply tore them apart.

In 1934 at age 16, Xie joined the National Revolutionary Army (NRA, 國民革命軍), the military arm of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) which was commanded by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). Xie’s mother died the next year, and his father the year after that. By the age of 20, Xie’s breasts had developed in a female fashion, but he was able to keep that hidden. A brief affair with a young woman was going well. Her father accepted that they would marry. However, Xie could not talk about his body and ran from the relationship.

Xie was with the NRA during the struggle against the Japanese invasion, and then against the Communist Party’s People's Liberation Army (PLA, 中国人民解放军). After the PLA’s victory in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek and the NRA retreated to Taiwan, and imposed themselves on the indigenous population there as a one-party dictatorship using martial law and the so-called White Terror (白色恐怖). Xie, as part of the NRA, was part of the move to Taiwan.

In August 1953, just after the end of the Korean War, Xie was suffering recurrent abdominal pains, and went to hospital in Tainan. Dr. Lin Chengyi, a graduate of the Tokyo Zhaohe Hospital and the external medicine department of the Jingjing Medical School, diagnosed the case carefully and found that Xie had a mixture of male and female organs. The details were discussed in the Taiwanese newspapers. 

The first operation, observed by out-of-town doctors and reporters, was an exploratory laparotomy (the opening of the abdominal cavity) to detect the presence of ovarian tissues; labia dissection to examine the vaginal interior, determine the length of the vagina, and confirm the presence (or absence) of the hymen. As reported in the press, Dr Lin assumed that Xie was a biological woman trapped inside a male body, whose feminine-like features gradually revealed themselves under the fingertips of medical experts and in the eyes of the public. “If ovaries and vagina are found inside the womb, removing the penis can turn Xie into a woman; otherwise he becomes a man”. The press compared Xie Jianshun to Christine Jorgensen, and noted that Jorgensen strongly wanted to be a woman, while Xie wanted to remain a heterosexual man. He was quoted in the press: “If my biology does not allow me to remain a man but forces me to become a woman, what else can I do?” It was announced that a uterus and ovaries were confirmed. From this point onward the press started using the female glyph 她 for ta=he/she rather than 他, the male glyph.

Xie was not informed of the results until nine days later, because they were afraid that, given his stated desire to remain male, he might attempt suicide. However Xie did agree to cooperate in the subsequent operations, and signed a consent form. While the doctors were quite aware that actually Xie was intersex (yinyang ren 陰陽人), they talked of the coming operations as sex-change operations. As Chiang says: “the construction of Xie Jianshun’s (trans) sexual identity was driven less by his self- determination— his eventual signature on the surgical consent form notwithstanding— and more by the cultural authority of the surgeons involved and the broader impact of the mass circulation press”.

Xie’s case had come to the attention of the Kuomintang government which ordered that Xie be transferred to the capital, Taipei: “In order to ensure Xie’s safety, and in the hope that a second operation will be carried out smoothly, it has been decided that she will be relocated to Taipei. After being evaluated and operated upon by a group of notable doctors in a reputable hospital, [Xie’s sex change] will mark a great moment in history.”

Shun (to use her personal name), however, refused, writing to say that she preferred to stay in Tainan and with the same doctors. The punishment for this was that Dr Lin was denied the formal permission to proceed. Around this time Xie’s former commanding officer in the NRA came for a visit and made a financial donation. 

After a few months, in November 1953, Shun finally agreed to relocate to Taipei. In early December the United Daily News announced her arrival and a small crowd gathered at the railway station to greet her, but no avail. On 9 December, she was quoted again as saying that she would not relocate. However in mid January, she quietly arrived at No. 1 General Hospital in Taipei. The new surgeon Jiang Xizheng was in charge, and female hormones were prescribed. Both Xie and the new doctors were far less co-operative with the press which was now not informed of the details of the operations. In the second operation, in April 1954, also a laparotomy, two male gonads were removed. In August 1954, there was a penectomy, and a vaginal opening was created.. The media blackout continued until January 1955 when one newspaper ran the headline: “Xie Jianshun’s Male-to-Female Transformation Nearly Complete: The Rumour of Surgical Failure Proved to Be False”, but with no further details

Shun had been developing stronger female attributes: larger breasts and regular menstruation. However she was not happy. She wrote to the President, Chiang Kai-Shek complaining about how her case was handled, and about the hospital food. This led to a visit from two representatives from the Ministry of National Defense. The doctors explained that her recurrent cramps were actual menstrual periods, and that they needed to construct a functional vagina. The Defense officials quickly persuaded Xie to agree.

By now Xie had a third surgeon, Zhang Xianlin, who had regarded the third operation as a simple reconstruction. A vaginoplasty was done in August 1955. A newspaper in Taiwan, and another in Hong Kong, published what they purported to be half-nude photos of Xie, which were quickly dismissed by the hospital as frauds. The Ministry of National Defense awarded Xie one thousand New Taiwan dollars to help buy feminine clothing.

By now the Taiwanese army had started screening new recruits for intersex conditions, and the majority of such press stories came from this source.

In October 1955, several Taiwanese newspapers ran stories on Xie’s completion and success in becoming female. The United Daily News ran a sixteen-instalment series: “The Story of Miss Xie Jianshun”.

In 1959, Chiang Kai-shek’s wife Soong Mei-ling, and a number of celebrities visited Xie, who was working at a relief institute for women and children. By then Shun had dropped the middle part of her name and was going by Xia Shun, and claimed nine, not four surgeries.

• Howard Chiang. “Gender Transformations in Sinophone Taiwan”. Positions, 25,3, 2017.
• Howard Chiang. “Christine Goes to China: Xie Jianshun and the Discourse of Sex Change in Cold War Taiwan” Chp 8 in Angela Ki Che Leung & Izumi Nakayama (eds) Gender, Health, and History in Modern East Asia, HKU Press, 2017.
• Howard Chiang. “Transsexual Taiwan” Chp 5 in After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China.  Columbia University Press, 2018.
• Jason Lee. “The Rebel”, www.metastasispodcast.com. Online.

EN.Wikipedia

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Xie Jianshun was intersex, and therefore, despite the fuss in the Taiwanese papers, she was not a first in the sense that Jorgensen or Olmos were. Surgical correction of adult intersex persons
(hermaphrodites as they were then called) goes back to the 19^th century.

In the Chinese language (Hàn yǔ) called Mandarin in the West, ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘it’ are all ‘tā’, and the plural , (they) is ‘tā men’. A unisex pronunciation. However the glyphs are quite different. The male ‘tā’ (he) is 他; the female ‘tā’ (she) is 她. This is the change in the newspaper reports after the first operation.

Traditionally Chinese names have three parts: family name, generational name, personal name. Xie Jianshun can also be written Xie Jian Shun. Her personal name is Shun. Some accounts say that she changed her name by 1959 to Xie Shun. This is not really a change of name, merely a dropping of the middle part.

Eleazar ben Jair, sicarius, Masada, CE 74

Masada

After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in CE 70 (Roman Date: AUC DCCCXXIII; Hebrew Year 3831) , the sicarii/zealots maintained a last redoubt in Masada ( מצדה‎ metsada, "fortress") led by Eleazar ben Jair. It was besieged by Roman forces 73-4. Those within chose to die by their own hand rather than submit to the Romans.

However we read in Josephus, The Jewish War (William Whiston Translation, 1737), VII, 9, 1. Online.

“Yet was there an ancient woman, and another who was of kin to Eleazar, and superior to most women in prudence and learning, with five children: who had concealed themselves in caverns under ground; and had carried water thither for their drink; and were hidden there when the rest were intent upon the slaughter of one another.

Those others were nine hundred and sixty in number: the women, and children being withal included in that computation.”

John Allegro (The Chosen People: A Study of Jewish History from the Time of the Exile Until the Revolt of Bar Kocheba. Hodder and Stoughton, 1971: 240-1) comments:

“It might be considered ungracious to speculate on the identity, or even true sex of the ‘old woman’. described as ‘a relative of Eleazar’s’. and as being ‘superior in prudence and training (phronesi kai paideia) to most women’, who hid her female companion and accompanying five children underground during or after the mass slaughter of their fellow-Zealots above. Perhaps, too, we should not enquire too closely how that prudent person could so ‘lucidly report both the speech (of Eleazar) and how the deed was done’, if she were in hiding the whole time.

Nevertheless, one cannot help wondering if Josephus did not come by his remarkably complete knowledge of these last dramatic days and hours of Masada’s resistance through the first-hand report of Eleazar himself. Does Josephus know more about the ‘relative of Eleazar’ and her ‘prudence’ than he cares to divulge? Certainly, if Eleazar had felt no guilt in escaping the suicide pact disguised as an old woman, and was thus enabled to usher perhaps his wife and family from this tomb of Zealot hopes, he would have had some sympathy from Josephus, who had done much the same thing earlier on in the war.”

Certainly an interesting hypothesis. Almost all other writers neither repeat this hypothesis, nor refute it. It is of course a problem that the only evidence either way is the account by Josephus.

Eleazar would of course have worn a beard, and to pass as an old woman would need to have shaved. Shaving technology at this period was rather primitive - it was probably done simply with a sharp knife, and would leave cuts on his face. However the Romans might have respected an old woman enough not to have removed her veil.

John of Gischala during the Jewish uprising 69-70

John (יוחנן מגוש חלב‎ Yohanan mi-Gush Halav) after defying Vespasian’s forces in Galilee, took his followers to Jerusalem in CE 69 (Roman Date: AUC DCCCXXII; Hebrew Year 3830)

We read in Josephus, The Jewish War (William Whiston Translation, 1737), IV, 9, 10. Online.

“Now this Simon, who was without the wall, was a greater terror to the people than the Romans themselves: as were the zealots who were within it more heavy upon them than both of the other. And during this time did the mischievous contrivances and courage [of John] corrupt the body of the Galileans. For these Galileans had advanced this John, and made him very potent. Who made them suitable a requital, from the authority he had obtained by their means. For he permitted them to do all things that any of them desired to do. While their inclination to plunder was insatiable: as was their zeal in searching the houses of the rich. And for the murdering of the men, and abusing of the women, it was sport to them. They also devoured what spoils they had taken, together with their blood; and indulged themselves in feminine wantonness, without any disturbance, till they were satiated therewith.

While they decked their hair, and put on women’s garments, and were besmeared over with ointments: and that they might appear very comely, they had paints under their eyes; and imitated not only the ornaments, but also the lusts of women: and were guilty of such intolerable uncleanness, that they invented unlawful pleasures of that sort. And thus did they roll themselves up and down the city, as in a brothel house; and defiled it entirely with their impure actions. Nay while their faces looked like the faces of women, they killed with their right hands; and when their gait was effeminate, they presently attacked men, and became warriors: and drew their swords from under their finely dyed cloaks, and ran every body through whom they light upon.

However Simon waited for such as ran away from John: and was the more bloody of the two. And he who had escaped the tyrant within the wall, was destroyed by the other that lay before the gates. So that all attempts of flying and deserting to the Romans were cut off, as to those that had a mind so to do.”

John was finally captured by the Romans in CE 70. He was star attraction in Titus’ victory march in Rome, and presumably died in a Roman prison.

Neither EN.Wikipedia nor the Jewish Encyclopedia mention the transvesting.

Tamara Rees (1924-2000) Part I: Parachutist, soldier, pilot

Part I: Parachutist, soldier, pilot

Part II: performer, wife, property investor

Original version: February 2010

Robert Rees was raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Montgomery, Alabama and then Los Angeles.  Rees usually played with the girls and was bullied by the boys, and in high school was a loner, sometimes secretly dressing in his sister’s clothes.   By age 14 Rees was unable to discuss his problems with his parents.  They took him to a psychiatrist to no avail, and his father badly beat him in an attempt to induce conformity.

Rees then ran away with only $3 in his pocket.  He managed to reach his grandparents in Kansas, who took him in and put him in a local school where he was able to advance a grade.   Rees returned to his parents in Summer 1939, by which time they were living in Oakland, California.  To escape from home Rees volunteered for the Civilian Conservation Service, and then the Navy, in both of which he was harassed for not being conventionally masculine.  He was discharged from the Navy as “physically unfit” after a conflict over a loan not repaid.   

In December 1942 Rees enlisted in the US Paratroopers, and underwent their rigorous training - although he was still ridiculed for his demeanour.  While stationed in North Carolina Rees dated and married:

“This girl was cognizant of my desires and the problem in general and was anxious to leave her own home because of family problems. After some discussion with her, it was agreed that we would marry, solely for the benefit of society.”  

He was by now considered an instructor, and promoted to Sergeant.  In Spring 1944 Rees participated in the invasions of Sicily and then Anzio, for which he later received a Bronze Star and a Presidential Unit Citation.  In September 1944 he was part of the jump into the Netherlands to create a bridgehead invasion route into northern Germany and participated in the ensuing fighting, until injured in late January.  

After being repatriated and then discharged, Rees filed for divorce as previously agreed with his wife. In March 1946 Rees developed a mastoid condition, an outgrowth of his war injury.  During surgery one of the facial nerves was severed resulting in facial paralysis and loss of hearing.  This was almost corrected in a second operation a few months later.

In 1947 Rees became a parachute instructor, at first for the Government, and then privately. He also obtained a pilot’s license.  In March 1949, he opened the air show for the all Western States Air Meet, held in Red Bluff, California, and on his 527^th jump was injured when his parachute did not open properly.  A week later he was emceeing at a air show outside Sacramento, when his business partner misjudged a jump and died.  Rees then sold the business and never jumped again.  

Two photos of the Australian army in the 1940s

 These two photographs are found in 

• Yorick Small.  Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939-45: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War.  Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 

Pamela Helen Bonert (1950 - ) military captain, medical officer, counsellor

Bonert was the first openly trans woman in the German military.

After marriage and two daughters, Bonert, in 1999, then a captain in the Luftwaffe, completed surgical transition as Pamela Helen Bonert. The Bundeswehr personnel management transferred her to the medical division, since before 2001, women were permitted in the Bundeswehr only in the medical and musical sections.

Bonhert retired from the Bundeswehr in 2004, although by then procedural instructions for women and for trans persons and their acceptance in the Bundeswehr were being issued.

Bonert had written an autobiography, and it was to be published in 1998. It was to be titled Glücklich (=happy), however Bonert parted from the publisher and book was self published in 2001 with a different title.

Since 2008 Helen has been managing a branch office of the White Ring association which supports victims of crime.

Her entry was deleted from DE.Wikipedia in 2008.

• Pamela Helen Bonert. Der kalifornische Alptraum oder wie ich glücklich wurde: autobiographische Geschichte mit Leitfaden für Betroffene und transidentische Menschen. Pahebo, 2001.
• Laszlo Scheuch. „Ein Opfer hat immer lebenslänglich“. General Anzeiger, 19, Juni 2017. Online.

HomoWiki    Transgender-net.de

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

 Transgender-net.de included an excerpt from Bonert's book, but under the abandoned title of Glücklich.   Bonert wrote to them 15 November 2003, asking that they correct the title.  17 years later they have still not done so.

Der kalifornische Alptraum oder wie ich glücklich wurde is not listed in Amazon.de nor in  Abebooks.de.    I have added it to my article:   (auto)biographies that are almost unobtainable.

Thomas Hall (1603–?) soldier, seamstress, servant

Raised with the name Thomasine, Hall was born near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. At the age of twelve she was sent by her mother to live with an aunt in London.

Hall’s brother probably died in the 1625 expedition to take Cadiz, in alliance with the Dutch against Spain – the first disaster in the reign of the new king Charles Stuart. At the age of twenty-two Hall cut her hair, became Thomas, enlisted as a soldier and served in France where British forces occupied the Île de Ré to assist the Huguenots at the Siege of La Rochelle.

On return to England on 1627, Hall was in Plymouth, became a woman again, and earned a living making bone lace and doing other needlework. She became aware of a ship being made ready to sail to Chesapeake in the Virginia colony, part of the reinforcement of the colonists after the Powhatan reprisals of 1622. It was Thomas who sailed with it, as an indentured servant.

In January 1628*, in Virginia, a John and Jane Tyos of Jamestown and their servant, Thomas Hall, were convicted for receiving stolen goods. A note was made that Thomas had been able to sow a napkin into a bag – a skill rare among male servants.

Shortly after that John Tyos sold Hall to a John Atkins (as one could with an indentured servant) but as a maidservant. It also seems that Hall switched gender in what little private time was available. Atkins took Hall to the tobacco-growing area of Warrosquyoacke (now Isle of Wight County) Virginia.

There were rumours that Hall had had sex with men, and also with at least one woman. As the community became aware, Hall was subjected to a forced body inspection, first by his owner, Atkins, and a few women who declared him to be a man, and this having been declared, by men who concurred. The situation was referred to Warrosquyoacke’s de facto leader Captain Nathanial Bass. As Hall’s ‘male’ organ was non-functional, as he lacked the power to procreate, Bass deemed Hall to be female.

However the others were not happy with that decision, and in 1629 this situation came to the attention of the Council and General Court of Virginia who commanded Hall’s appearance. They accepted Hall’s self-definition that he was ‘a man and a woeman’. They ordered that it be published that Hall 'is a man and a woman', and they dictated his dress: 'hee shall goe Clothed in mans apparell, only his head to bee attired in a Cyse and Croscloth wth an Apron before him'.

*at that time New Years day was 25 March (Lady Day) and so that January was regarded as still 1627.

• Jonathan Ned Katz. Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary, Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. 1983, Carrol & Graf Publishers, Inc. 1994: 71-2
• Mary Beth Norton. “Searchers Againe Assembled” in Founding Fathers & Mothers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society. Vintage, 1997 :183-202.
• Elizabeth Reis. Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009: 10-14, 168n35.
• Holly Hartman. Gender Roles in Colonial America. Western Oregon University, 2015: 14-7. Online.
• Shana Carroll. “Transgender History in Colonial America”. Medium.Com, Oct 15, 2018. Online.

EN.Wikipedia OutHistory
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Hall is reported as being willing to show his male member but pointed out that it was non-functional. He also claimed to have a ‘hole’ which was also examined. Quite possibly he was female with a largish clitoris.  Those who examined him and proclaimed him to be male must have done so simply because he had something approximating a penis.


There is no record of what happened to Hall after the ruling by the Council and General Court of Virginia. Hopefully he completed his indenture, and then moved elsewhere where he was not subject to the ruling about his clothing.

As John Tyos had purchased a male servant, probably from the ship's captain, but then sold her on a maidservant, we wonder if this entailed a financial loss.   One hopes that female servants were just as valuable as male ones, but knowledge of history suggests otherwise.   This aspect is not discussed.

Thomas de Croismare (1779-1847) soldier, book-keeper, civil servant, musician

Thomas de Croismare was a lieutenant with Napoleon’s army at the Battle of Borodino 1812 outside Moscow (Bataille de la Moskova) the deadliest day of the Napoleonic Wars.

He was also present when Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo 1815. de Croismare was wounded in the shoulder and the mouth.

With the creation of Belgium in 1830, de Croismare became a book-keeper, and later an employee at the Ministry of Finance, where he rose to a post of considerable trust.

He was noted for his playing of the violoncello, and for the attentions that he paid to women, although he never did marry.

He died at the age of 68. This resulted in an astonishment in that, when his body was being washed prior to interment, it was discovered that it was of the female type.

• “Life-Time Disguise of Sex” various newspapers May 1847. Reprinted in William Arthur. The Antiquarian and General Review, Vol 3, 1847: 264 Online; reprinted in The Western Literary Messenger, 1847: 354 Online; reprinted in the Port Tobacco Times, 13 May 1847 Online;  

Daniel Burghammer (157?–?) soldier, blacksmith

In 1594 Daniel Burghammer joined the Austrian army, and also married. He served in Hungary and in the Netherlands. He was also a blacksmith.

In 1601, he was serving in the squadron of Captain Laymann zu Liebenau of the Madrucci Regiment, and was posted to Piadena, Italy. In late May he complained to his wife of pains in his belly, as if something was stirring within. An hour later he gave birth to a girl-child. His wife called the Captain. Thereupon he was examined and questioned. He confessed that he had always been half man and half woman, although raised as male. While in the Netherlands he had had sex with a Spaniard, and become pregnant, although he kept this secret.

Burghammer suckled the child, although he was able to do this with the right breast only. The child thrived. The priest christened the child with the name of Elizabeth, and put her out for adoption: several towns competed for the right to adopt her. The child was considered a miracle. The church granted Frau Burghammer a divorce in that Daniel’s ability to give birth was incompatible with the role of husband.

• Richard Wilmer Rowan. The story of secret service. Literary Guild of America, 1937: 698.
• George Tennyson Matthews. News and Rumor in Renaissance Europe The Fugger Newsletters.Capricorn Books, 1959: 247-8. Online.
• Anne Fausto-Sterling. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. Basic Books, 2000: 35.

Dana J Bevan (194?- ) bio-psychologist. Part I: life.

Part I: Life
Part II: Theory
Part III:  7 factors that are not causes

Thomas Bevan’s father was a wildlife manager, and his mother a school teacher. Thomas was an only child, and was soon trying on his mother’s clothing. He tried to tell his parents that he was not really a boy, but quickly learned that his gender identity was something that should be kept a deep secret, and concentrated on science and on sports. Partly because they did not live in town, Bevan did not make male friends, and his female friends withdrew as puberty developed. Loneliness led to depression.

The football coach got Bevan an award in the senior year. He picked Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, for its football team and its Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Bevan graduated AB in psychology in 1969, and spent the next four years at Princeton University.

Thomas, like so many others, married a woman thinking that it would ‘cure’ the urge to cross-dress. However the graduate student housing provided the privacy to do so when his wife was at work.

Bevan was able to talk freely with “a somewhat mysterious lecturer” (p73).  This was Julian Jaynes, who was working on the ideas that he would publish as The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, 1978. Bevan later described Jaynes as a mentor.

Bevan gained a PhD in physiological psychology at Princton 1973 with a thesis on Experimental Dissociation of Hypothalamic Finickiness and Motivatonal Deficits from Hyperphagia and from Hyperemotionality.

After graduation Bevan served as a Captain in the Army Medical Service Corps, and was involved in developing antidotes to chemical weapons and agents. After leaving the army, Bevan became a civilian contractor. One of the projects that he worked on was aircraft sensors.

The Bevans had two daughters.

Bevan's job involved near continuous travel, and the associated hotel stays provided opportunities for cross-dressing. Sometimes there would be a local transvestite group that provided dressing facilities at its meetings. Bevan accumulated enough female clothing – between purges -- that a second bag was being checked on air flights.

Bevan found Jan Morris’ Conundrum, and later some books by Vern Bullough in libraries, but being in the closet hid the book in the stacks rather than check it out. By the 1990s Bevan had rented a post-office box, and bought books and Tapestry magazine from IFGE.

“I particularly studied Virginia Prince How to Be a Woman though Male, information I use to this day”.

With the end of Cold War I, Bevan felt that he could come out a little. However most transvestite groups met on weekends only, and he was not prepared to tell Mrs Bevan. So he went instead to a BSDM group that met on a weeknight. Using the listings in Tapestry Bevan did find cross-dressing groups in different cities to attend.

The Bevans separated.

Bevan also started taking testosterone by patches, hoping that it would ‘cure’ the cross-dressing.

Thomas found another wife using the new invention tele-conferencing. This wife knew from the beginning that Thomas was a cross-dresser. Bevan found a job in Atlanta where she lived, and moved in with her:

“she panicked when she saw all the ‘junk’ that I had, which consisted mostly of professional technical files, electronic junk and all my carpentry and metal working tools”.

From 2000-2005, Bevan was an Associate Lab Director at Georgia Tech Research Institute, and did work for Department of Defense customers.

Using the name 'Dana', Bevan found a therapist who was experienced in Transgender issues, although Bevan continued to pretend that it was marriage counseling.

From 2005-2011, Bevan was a Research VP at KFORCE Government Services in Atlanta, working on artificial intelligence algorithms for Homeland Security.

In 2007 Dana gave a paper at the IFGE conference held in Philadelphia. Dana started transition in 2011. She gave presentations at the Southern Comfort Conference in 2011 and 2012, and to WPATH in 2012.

In 2013, as Dana Bevan, she published The Transsexual Scientist: The Causation and Experience of Transgenderism and Transsexualism, a mixture of autobiography and the science of TSTG as she named her condition. The next year, reverting to her male name, Thomas Bevan, she published a 280 page exposition, The Psychobiology of Transsexualism and Transgenderism: A New View Based on Scientific Evidence.

She gave a workshop at the 2015 Fantasia Fair.

In the title of The Transsexual Scientist, Bevan refers to herself as ‘transsexual’, tells of taking hormones, electrolysis but says nothing of surgery. In the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, 2017, Dana says:

“I still present as male at family gatherings, primarily because of in-laws and friends of my children. The trend seems to be that younger people are more accepting, so we’ll see what happens with my grandchildren’s generation.”

Dana ends her autobiography, The Transsexual Scientist with

“Knowing what I know today, I should have chosen transsexuality earlier in my life and fought for being my authentic self, no matter what the cost. The delay has cost me time, friends and productivity. I had several good opportunities to choose correctly but I passed them up, choosing to fight another day.” (p. 155)

Dana’s theoretical position will be discussed in Part II.

• Thomas E. Bevan, Experimental Dissociation of Hypothalamic Finickiness and Motivatonal Deficits from Hyperphagia and from Hyperemotionality. PHD, Princeton,1973.
• Thomas E Bevan. “Physiological correlates of information processing load-ongoing research and potential applications of physiological psychology”. The Role of Behavioral Science in Physical Security Proceedings of the Second Annual Symposium, March 23-24, 1977. US DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE: National Bureau of Standards.
• Thomas E Bevan. “Biosensor for Assessment of Defender Performance Capability”. The Role of Behavioral Science in Physical Security Proceedings of the Third Annual Symposium, May 2-4, 1978. US DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE: National Bureau of Standards.
• Dana J Bevan. The Transsexual Scientist: The Causation and Experience of Transgenderism and Transsexualism. Bevan Industries Inc, 2013.
• “An Interview with Dana Bevan ’69”. Dartmouth Gay, Lesbian,, Bisexual & Transgender Alumni/ae Association, May 2, 2013. https://dgala.org/2013/06/28/an-interview-with-dana-bevan-69/
• Thomas E. Bevan. The Psychobiology of Transsexualism and Transgenderism: A New View Based on Scientific Evidence. Praeger, 2014.
• Dana Bevan. “Transgender Science Recap”. Sisterhouse, Mar 2, 2015. www.sisterhouse.net/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/12/Transgender-Science-Recap.pdf.
• William Ray. “The Science of Gender”. The Wireless, 6^th August 2015. http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-science-of-gender
• Thomas E. Bevan, Being Transgender: What You Should Know. Praeger, 2016.
• Dana Bevan. Thea Peach State Conference. Thea, 2/22/2016. www.thea-plus.com/blog/thea-peach-state-conference-by-dana-bevan
• Allison Tate. “5 Transgender Myths...Busted: In the wake of Trump repealing transgender protections, scientist Dana Bevan is here to bust your misconceptions”. Advocate, February 24 2017. See below.
• Lisa Furlong. “Dana (Thomas) Bevan ’69: A transgender bio-psychologist on embracing her true self”. Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, May-June 2017. https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/dana-thomas-bevan-69

TGForum   WebPage   Bloomberg   LinkedIn
___________________________

TGForum says that “Thomas E Bevan” is a pen name; Dartmouth Alumni Magazine says that it is her professional name. It is the name on her PhD.

In Bevan’s 2013 and 2014 books she uses the term TSTG as a collective noun, for individual trans persons, for the phenomenon and as an adjective. E,g: “Many TSTG suffer from depression”; “TSTG behave as they do”; “Although TSTG is no longer regarded as a disorder”. Fortunately the usage has not caught on. She does not use the acronym in Being Transgender, 2016, but does still use it on her LinkedIn page and elsewhere.

“For the purposes of research I treat transgenderism and transsexuality (TSTG) as one phenomenon. Many transgendered people become transsexuals. Most important, there is no scientific evidence to distinguish between the two, other than the frequency of TG presentation.” (2013 interview with Dartmouth GLBT Alumni)   This statement will of course alienate many transsexuals.   While the DNA and epigenetic triggers may be indistinguishable between transvestites and transsexuals, they do not constitute the totality of causality, and a scientific approach that does not examine the wider picture is not the best of science.   See more in part II.

The text of The Transsexual Scientist disguises the names of the universities that Thomas attended, but then openly names them on and only on the back cover. Likewise the text hides the name of the mentor at Princeton, but gives his name in a dedication at the front of the book.

On p30 of The Transsexual Scientist Bevan says “I gradually put aside my love of music and art lest these be seen as ‘feminine’”. This was in the mid 1960s when the Beatles and the Stones were changing music. The feminist criticism of ‘60s music is that it was far too masculine.

Bevan is yet another writer who repeats the misinformation that ‘transvestism’ was coined by Magnus Hirschfeld (p38). However she does not like the term: “Today, transvestite is regarded as a pejorative word and is used primarily in degradation of transsexuals and transgender people” (Psychobiology: 42).  This may be so in the Tri-Ess culture, but despite Prince's efforts, Tri-Ess never did own the word.

Is Bevan a Princian?   In addition to her statement: “I particularly studied Virginia Prince How to Be a Woman though Male, information I use to this day”, let us look at the appendices to The Psychobiology of Transsexualism and Transgenderism.    The only autobiographies listed are her own, Jan Morris,  Jennifer Boylan's She's Not There, and for some strange reason, the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.  The only self-help books are two by Prince, Crossdressing with dignity by Peggy Rudd and Identity Management by Dallas Denny.  The only support groups are Beaumont Society, Seahorse Society, Renaissance, Tiffany Club,  Transgender Educational Association, Tri-Ess and Susan's Place.    So she certainly looks like a Princian.

Victor Barker (1895 -1960) part I: origins

Part I: origins: daughter, wife, mother
Part II: husband, actor, manager
Part III: the trial
Part IV: reactions and afterwards

James Barker was a prosperous businessman in Oldham, Lancashire. His son Thomas (1857 – 1918) became an architect in Brighton, Sussex. In 1887 he wed the 18-year-old Lillias Hill (1868 – 1923), the fourth daughter of a country parson, and a distant relative of Olave Baden-Powell.

James Barker died in 1889, and Thomas, coming into his inheritance, abandoned his career and with his wife moved to the parish of St Clement, Jersey. Their daughter Lillias Irma Valerie Barker was born in 1895.

The family moved back to England in 1899, and settled in Bramley, Surrey, where a son, Thomas Leslie was born later that year. Later they moved to nearby Milford.

As it developed, it was Valerie who grew up with a love of dogs, horses, sports and pranks. Mr Barker, disappointed with his son, taught his daughter fencing, cricket and boxing. After attending two schools for young ladies, as a finishing, she was sent to a convent school at Graty, Silly near Brussels. Both at the convent school, and back home, Valerie would dress male whenever she could. At age 19, Valerie had her formal coming out ball.

During the First World War she was a nurse, an ambulance driver and then a horse trainer. Particularly the last position entitled her to dress in khaki breeches, tunic, cap and riding boots. At the end of the war she was working with horses at an estate in Kent, where she met the recuperating Harold Arkell-Smith, an Australian who had been successively promoted from private to lieutenant and awarded three medals. They were married in April 1918. - however the marriage lasted only six weeks, although they never did divorce.

In August using her married name, Mrs L I Valerie Smith enrolled in the newly established Women’s Royal Air Force. The WRAF was considered to have the smartest uniform of all the women’s services and it made no concessions at all to femininity. The women in the WRAF liked to refer to each other with male nicknames. Valerie Smith worked as a driver and was paid 38/- a week.

Thomas Barker died in October, age 63. His widow went to live in London with their son. The WRAF was disbanded after the Armistice. Valerie found work in a tea-shop in Warminster.

There she met another Australian, Ernest Pearce Crouch. He also was separated from his wife. Crouch was offered a job in the Paris office of The Times, and Valerie having agreed to join him, he applied for his wife, Valerie Pearce Crouch to be added to his passport. They lived in Paris just over a year. Valerie continued her preference for masculine attire, and they had a baby son. However The Times had falling sales, and Ernest was made redundant. They rented a house in Hook, in the London borough of Kingston, not far from where Valerie’s brother was living. However Ernest was unable to find work, and a daughter was born in June 1921. Neither child was ever registered.

The Pearce Crouches became tenant farmers at an estate outside Littlehampton, West Sussex, intending to also run it as a guest house. Valerie, as usual wore men’s clothing to do farm work, including a collar and tie, and was even spotted in a dinner suit. Ernest took to drink, and sometimes violence.

Valerie was developing a friendship with Elfrida Haward who worked in her father's chemist shop in Littlehampton.

Lillias Barker had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for six years, and died in September 1923, age 55. She left her daughter an annuity of £9 a month for life.

After an assault that put her in hospital for a few days, Valerie threatened legal action if Ernest did not leave. She agreed that he could take their daughter.


She sold off what she could of the farm’s assets. After purchasing some new men’s clothes, she bicycled to the next railway station, not Littlehampton, where she would be recognised. She then took the train to Brighton, and a taxi to the Grand Hotel, where a reservation for Sir Victor Barker DSO was waiting.

________________________________

The Grand hotel in Brighton in 1923 was one of the finest in England.   It was one of the first, outside London, to have lifts, electric lights and external fire escapes.

Chelsea Manning - a true hero

Why the wait of four months before release?    Does this give time for the new regime to reverse it?

Nochmen Tenenbaum (1911–?) army sergeant

Nochmen Tenenbaum served with distinction in the Polish Army in the early 1930s. He earned medals after saving several persons from drowning, and was promoted to sergeant.

A year later in 1936, after physical and psychological changes, and leaving the army, Tenenbaum, still in male clothing, arrived at a maternity home in Warsaw and requested a room, stating that he was about to give birth. A 4 kg child was born. The father was an artist.

• “Nine-Pound Child Born to Ex-Soldier A Year after “he” Changed “his” Sex”. Daily Mail, 7 August 1936. Reprinted in George Ives (ed Paul Sieveking). Man Bites Man: The Scrapbook of an Edwardian Eccentric. Penguin Books, 1981: 41.
  
• “Soldier Shocks Doctors, As He Becomes Mother”. Daily Mirror, 10 August 1936. Online.

------
The anti-sodomy laws in Poland had not been enforced since independence in 1918. They were officially repealed in 1932.

The Daily Mirror story contains the comment: “Although there are many authentic cases of sex changes on record, this is believed to be the first time in the history of medical science that the metamorphosis was so complete that reproduction was possible”.   This in 1936!

Most likely, Tenenbaum was female-born, had transitioned (without hormones, which was the only option at the time) in order to serve in the army, but had been sexually compromised and become pregnant. We know nothing of him after 1936.

Clara Miller (1899 - ?) fur merchant, office worker

Ralph was born in London, the 11^th of 13 children to Jewish parents, The father was a fur merchant of varying success, and also a Yiddish language novelist and playwright, although without any success.

At age five, Ralph contracted diphtheria, and for nine weeks was on the verge of death. From then on an older sister encouraged him to wear girls’ clothes and took him for walks so dressed. Even dressed as a boy he was regarded as effeminate, and would be beaten up by the boys at school.

The father refused a bar mitzvah for Ralph because of his effeminacy. At 15 he was taken from school and went to work for a friend of the father. One night, working late, he was raped by two co-workers, a boy and a girl. He told his father, who called the police and both assailants were sentenced to five years in prison. The girl died there.

Ralph, as Clara, went out at night, and found a sweetheart who kissed and held hands. However Clara finally had to tell the truth and the relationship ended. At 16 Clara asked the family doctor that her male organs be removed. The doctor called in the parents, and the father gave Ralph a good beating.

At 17 he was sent to New York to help a brother run the business. The brother let Ralph be Clara and even took her to parties. In 1918 Ralph enlisted in the US Army to make a man of himself. However he could not take it and deserted.

In 1921 he returned to London, as his father was dying. With his mother he took over the business, but the stress made him ill-tempered and he flew into rages. Despite this the business prospered. Clara met another who also aspired to become a woman. In 1923 Ralph met May, a young woman, 17. Under pressure from his mother, Ralph and May became engaged and then married. He could perform sexually, only underneath and when wearing something feminine. They managed to have a son and a daughter in the first three years, and then discontinued sexual activity.

They returned to New York, where Ralph became an office worker. He wore female clothing at home, and sometimes went out so dressed, against May’s objections, and later the children’s strong objections.

Ralph served in the US Army in the Second World War in North Africa, and admitted his earlier desertion. Early in 1945 he found work at the Veterans Administration as a clerk. He was also elected president of his local Veterans of Foreign Wars branch.

At the end of 1944, his daughter Barby and her husband set up a small business, and moved in with Ralph and May to save expenses. Barby nagged him constantly that he was not to be seen in female clothing. This got worse after the birth of a grandchild.

In spring 1947, after a late-night scene with Barby, Ralph dressed quickly and went out. He encountered a rookie policemen keen to make an arrest, and was charged with male prostitution. He was lucky to get a considerate judge, who required only a psychiatric report, after which he was released.

The fights with Barby got worse, and Ralph made a suicide attempt. Shortly afterwards, Barby, her husband and child moved to California. Ralph was able to be Clara more often.

She she became a patient of Harry Benjamin, and had surgery in 1957. Three years later she started living with a man, fifteen years younger, who was separated but could not obtain a divorce because he was Catholic.

Clara reports that they have excellent sex, and that the man has no idea about her earlier life. For a while she had associated with two other trans women, but broke away in case they gave away her secret. She reported being happier and better adjusted than before, and has no regrets about transition.

• Harry Benjamin. The Transsexual Phenomenon. Julian Press, 1966. Warner Books Edition 1977: 256-272, 289-298. PDF: 118-128, 136-8.

________________________________________________________________________________

In "The Transsexual Operation" by Tom Buckley, Esquire. April 1967,  we find:

Is this Clara?  Apparently this uncredited photograph is by Diane Arbus, 

David R Wesser (1933 – 2008) sex-change surgeon

Revised September 2017 re Wesser's first marriage.

David Wesser gained an MD degree from New York University-Bellevue College of Medicine and was trained in Reconstructive Surgery. He married in 1963. During the Vietnam War he served as a Major in the US Army Medical Corps and lived in Saigon with his wife and two children.  Afterwards he was a consultant for the US State Department in Vietnam caring for war-wounded children.

He taught and practiced surgery in the New York area, usually at the Yonkers Professional Hospital. He also had an office at east 86^th St and Park Avenue. His first transsexual patients were those who had had surgery elsewhere, and corrections were needed.

In 1972 Rupert Raj had his mastectomy from Dr Wesser and later said “a finer set of (man-made) male pecs I have yet to see”. In 1977 Rosalyne Blumenstein had an orchiectomy and a nose reduction.

Earlier, in 1976, there had been Romain, 30, previously a social worker with a city child-welfare department, and also an organizer of S&M parties. His friends knowing that he thought himself to really be a woman, had suggested Dr Benito Rish, who sent him to a panel of experts including a psychiatrist, all of whom approved her for surgery. Rish sent her for surgery with Dr Wesser. However as she later remembered it, she developed doubts while under sedation and on the gurney. As she was medicated, she was not considered rational. Seven months later, after failing to find a surgeon who would reverse the operation, Romain killed herself. Dr Wesser then started requiring a full-year of living as the target gender before surgery.

++Sandra Mesics wrote after Romain's suicide:

"But can you blame the physician? I was operated on by the same doctor who performed Romaine' s surgery and I can attest to his technical competence. I have known about six other transsexuals who had their surgery performed by this man, and there was not one botched job in the lot. I found him to be a very warm , compassionate man , who feels that he is genuinely performing a much needed service for people with gender problems. Sure, he's making money by the fistful, but he could do just as well performing nose jobs on wealthy society women."

By 1980 Wesser had done 200 sex-change operations.  One of his patients that year was Sharon Davis, 24, who was well pleased with the results.

Later that year, the Yonkers Professional Hospital was closed down after a surprise inspection by the state.

Also in 1980, David Wesser remarried. They had several children.

In 1981 he was charged before a panel of the New York Department of Health with

“negligence or gross incompetence, or both, in connection with the care of five gender-change patients. The basis for the charges was that he had diagnosed transsexualism and performed the gender-change operations without obtaining an adequate medical history, adequate physical or psychiatric consultations and without having obtained an adequate informed consent. Petitioner denied the charges and alleged that he had relied upon the psychiatric evaluations of a board-certified psychiatrist”.

His lawyer describes the panel:

“The Chairperson of the panel was a psychiatrist who believed homosexuality to be a deviant criminal activity. Another doctor on the panel was a close friend and professional colleague of the expert witness testifying for the prosecution. The lay person, non-medical professional member of the panel was a Roman Catholic Monsignor.”

Wesser’s license was suspended for one year in 1983, but the case had been pursued for seven years and Wesser was left psychologically broken, and in diminished health.

Dr Wesser started doing silicone injections, although by the end of the decade the procedure was being done by non-doctors such as Jimmy Treetop.

Wesser suffered a heart illness in 1993.

In December 1994 Dr Wesser admitted to the truth of allegations of malpractice endangering the life of a patient receiving liposuction and breast reconstruction. His license to practice medicine in New York State was revoked and he was fined $10,000.

He then lived in Palm Coast, Florida, and was a Counselor at the Stewart Marchman Center in Bunnell where he was an advocate for substance abuse treatments, especially for youths. He died at the age of 75.

• Edward Falces, David Wesser & Mark Gorney. “Cosmetic Surgery of the Non-Caucasian Nose”. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 45,4,April 1970: 317-3324.
  
• Isaac Kaplan & David Wesser. "A Rapid Method for Constructing a Functional Sensitive Penis".  British Journal of Plastic Surgery, 24, 1971: 342-4.  
• A Robert Beck & David R.Wesser. "Constrictive Digital Injuries in Infants, Caused by Human Hair". Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 49, 4, 1972: 420-422.
  
• "Post-Op Transsexual Commits Suicide - Operation was a Mistake!"  Drag, 7,25, 1977: 6-7.  Online. 
• ++ Sandra Mesics. "Thoughts on the Suicide of Romaine Atura".  F.l. News, No. 22.  Reprinted in The Journal of Male Feminism, vol. 77, No. 4 & 5:  47-9.   Online.  
• David R.Wesser. "A Single Stage Operative Technique for Castration, Vaginal Construction and Perineoplasty in Transsexuals". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 7, 4, 1978: 309-323.
  
• Sharon Churcher. "The Anguish of the Transsexuals". New York Magazine, 13, 25, June 16, 1980.
  
• “Matter David R. Wesser V. State New York”. Supreme Court of New York, May 24, 1983. http://ny.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19830524_0042984.NY.htm/qx.
  
• Sharon Davis. A Finer Specimen of Womanhood: A Transsexual Speaks Out. Vantage Press, 1986:
  
• Rupert Raj. “Metamorphosis: Man in the Making (A Personal and Political Perspective)”. In Bonnie Bullough, Vern L. Bullough, James Elias (eds) Gender Blending. Prometheus Books 1997: 480-4.
  
• Rosalyne Blumenstein. Branded T. 1stBooks, 2003: 83 -5.
  
• David R.Wesser. "Repair of a Cryptotic Ear with a Trefoil Flap". Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 50, 2, 2006: 192-193.
  
• Laura Rena Murray. “The High Price of Looking Like a Woman”. New York Times, Aug 19, 2011. www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/nyregion/some-transgender-women-pay-a-high-price-to-look-more-feminine.html.
  
• Deyan Ranko Brashich. “Transgender’s Dark Ugly Past and Present”. Litchfield County Times, June 10, 2015. www.countytimes.com/articles/2015/06/10/opinion/doc5578bf0d835ef867043039.txt.

Obituary    License termination

Toupie Lowther (1874 – 1944) Part I: sporting champion and war service

Part I: sporting champion and war service
Part II: The Well of Loneliness

May Lowther, her elder sister Aimée (1869-1935) and elder brother Claude (1870-1929) were scions of the Lowther dynasty, which features the Earls of Lonsdale (see also, more) and many Conservative Members of Parliament.

May's father, William Francis Lowther (1841-1908), was a naval office who rose to the rank of Commander. When his father, William Lowther, the 2^nd Earl of Lonsdale, died in 1872, he retired and lived on an inherited trust fund. He did not inherit the title as his parents, his mother being the opera singer Emilia Cresotti, had never married. The 2^nd Earl also had two illegitimate daughters with different mothers. May's mother was Louise Beatrice de Fonblangue from Toronto (? -1922).

May was educated at Le Pensionnat Les Ruches, a private boarding school at Avon, near Fontainbleau in France. Natalie Barney and her sister also attended the same school. Lowther became fluent in French and gained a baccalaureate in sciences.

Using the name Toupie, she took up fencing at age 15. She preferred the Italian rather than the French style, and declined to fence in a skirt on grounds of practicality. She fenced with both men and
women.

In 1898 at a widely publicised fencing competition and display held at The Military Gymnasium of the Army Camp in Aldershot, Toupie vanquished not only her lady opponents but also the army’s Sergeant instructor. At a display in Paris 1902, billed as “The Lady Champions of England and France,” she opposed (and worsted) the famous Mme Gabriele before a crowded salon. In 1903 she engaged and held her own against the Maître, or Prof. Yvon at the Civil Engineers Hall in Paris.

She was an accomplished singer and composer. She set poems by Oscar Wilde and Alfred Tennyson to music, and her music was performed at the Wigmore Hall in London. The Waifs and Strays Society held a fancy Grand Benefit on 3 June 1899 with royalty in attendance. The program included "Incidental music by Miss Toupie Lowther".

At this time, brother Claude was with the British Army in the Boer War. He became a Conservative MP in 1900.

Toupie was also a keen tennis player and participated in championship games, especially those held at Homburg 1896-1901, and at Wimbledon where she reached the singles semi-final in 1903. She did win the British Covered Championships in 1900  and then again in 1902 and 1903. She also won the German Championships, 1901, the Monte Carlo Championships, 1903, the Homburg Cup, 1904, the Cannes Championships, 1906 and the Championships of the South of France, 1906. She was large, renowned for her lobs and said to have a man's stroke and a man's strength.

She was one of the first women to own a motorbike and lift weights.

Toupie was a friend of Mabel Batten (Ladye) (1856-1916) and John Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) and is frequently mentioned in Mabel's diaries, 1910-5.

In 1917, at age 43, with Norah Desmond Hackett, Toupie sent a petition to General Petain at the Grand Quartier General to organise

“an ambulance section on exactly the same lines, subject to the same conditions as the allied men’s section … we should be allowed to do front line work under the same conditions as the men’s Units”.

This being approved the Hackett-Lowther Unit with 20 donated vehicles was incorporated into the French Army with permission to do front-line work. The drivers and the canteen women were ranked as private soldiers and paid 5 sous a day; Toupie Lowther and Norah Hackett as sous Lieutenants at 10 sous a day with one stripe on the sleeve. The drivers were all women, and some had already done similar work in Serbia, Romania, Greece and Russia.

They were heavily involved in the battles at Compiègne, in June 1918. They were then incorporated into the 1^st Army for the final advance into Germany. The Unit was twice mentioned in dispatches.

Several members of the unit, including Lowther, were awarded the Croix de Guerre. The Unit was disbanded 19 March 1919.

After Mabel's death, John Radclyffe Hall and Mabel's cousin Una Toubridge (1887-1963) became a couple. Again Toupie and her brother Claude were friends of John and Una, who were taken with Toupie's war record. In 1920, Una said that she thought that Toupie was a hermaphrodite. In 1922 in Brighton with Una Toubridge and Radclyffe Hall she bought an “Overland Tourer” and taught them to drive.  They referred to her as 'Brother'.

In the 1920s Toupie ran a lesbian salon, and writers such as Radclyffe Hall, Ida Wylie, May Sinclair and Vere Hutchinson (popular at the time) attended. Toupie loved to tell how, while motoring, she was stopped at the Franco-Italian border for masquerading as a man. On the return journey she wore a skirt and was arrested for masquerading as a woman.

In 1926, Toupie Lowther was elected a member of the French Academie d’Armes, the only woman to that date to be so.

________________________________________________________________________________

There is no mention that Toupie ever met either Joe Carstairs or Violette Morris.  With their shared interests in sports and motor vehicles and experience with ambulance uits in the war, they would have had a lot in common.

There are Wikipedia pages for both Toupie and Claude.   Claude's does not mention Toupie at all.   Toupie's - mainly about her as a tennis star, with a brief afterword about the ambulance unit, and no mention of The Well of Loneliness - returns the favour.

History of TAO: Part 1: to 1971. USAF, music, GLF

A History of the Transsexual Action Organization (TAO) and some associates

TAO and Angela Douglas

Angela Douglas (1943 - 2007) musician, activist

History of TAO: part 1: to 1971. USAF, music, GLF

History of TAO: bibliography

History of TAO: Part 2: 1972-80. TAO in Miami Beach

History of TAO: Part 3: aftermath

Kimberley Elliot (1953 - 1980) TAO, Neo-American Church

More on Angela Douglas

In July 2019 a Gender Critical Reddit thread  linked to the original 2007 posting.  Apparently some anti-trans women think that a letter, be it satirical or whatever, from 42 years ago, written by someone who died 12 years earlier, and who never worked well with other trans activists, is a relevant document in discussing trans activism today!!!!                         My Reply.

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

Douglas Carl Czinki became Angela Douglas. Therefore when I write 'Douglas' alone there is ambiguity whether that is his forename or her surname. Up to 1969 it is the former. Douglas is not the only trans woman to use her boy name as her new surname, but I will not name the others.

While Angela Douglas is the dominant and central character in this history, there are several others who contribute significantly to trans history.

In quoting Douglas I have corrected spelling and punctuation, and sometimes added [words] to make it more readable.

Part I: to 1971. USAF, music, GLF

1943
Douglas Carl Czinki born in Detroit, of Hungarian descent. Raised on USAF bases. Father was in AFOSI, Air Force Intelligence; mother employed by AEC, CIA and DEA.

1947
Colette Tisha Goudie, born in France of French-Cuban descent.

1949
Danny O'Connor born in San Antonio, Texas.

1953
Kimberly Barreiro born in Cuba.

1957
The Czinki family moves to South Florida neighborhood of Hialeah, which had a large Latino population. Douglas meets Norma Rodriguez.

1959-61
Douglas at high school in Japan.

1962
Against his family's opposition, Douglas marries Norma

1962-4
Douglas plays in Charades, a roadhouse band in Oklahoma City; he also says that he was in USAF in this period.

1965
As Doug Delain, Czinki plays guitar with band Euphoria with William D. Lincoln (bass, vocals), Hamilton Wesley Watt (vocals), Dave Potter (drums).

1966
Virginia Prince rents a house in Laurel Canyon around the same time as Frank Zappa and many other musicians. There is no recorded interaction of Prince with the musicians.

1967
Delain tries to form a band, Motorcycle Abilene, with Warren Zevon, and records songs with Love's Ken Forssi and Alban Pfisterer. Releases LPs: Trapped, C'est Dommage.

LP cover

LP A Gift From Euphoria - but without Doug Delain on guitar, although he is mentioned on the
sleeve.

Delain has a cameo in Roger Corman's LSD film The Trip in Laurel Canyon. "There are two scenes in The Trip filmed there. [Peter]Fonda, [Bruce] Dern drive up, bikers in front including Roland God Barnett of The Barons, I painted "LOVE" on the street, did some of the art on the film. [Dennis] Hopper is passing joints around. I am in that scene, so is young future billionaire Paul Allen, a wanna be bass player then, hung out now and then there, helped me set up Hendrix's gear for a promo film Hendrix made there in 68."

Czinki's wife, Norma Rodriguez, pregnant, leaves him for a woman.

Danny O'Connor marries and they have a child.

1968
Delain plays last music gig as a boat party for Steppenwolf in Hawai'i.

Jimmy Hendrix television special is filmed at Delain's home in Laurel Canyon.

Danny O'Connor wins nationwide contest "Super Teen: The Sounds of '68".

1969
Czinki becomes Angela Douglas, and is active in LA GLF. There is no indication that she even considered Virginia Prince's FPE. "I was not gay and knew nothing of them prior to l969. I became a writer for The LA Image and communists and gays sought me out to promote their actions. I did, and got involved with the Gay Liberation Front, took part in a few protests, then formed the Transsexual Action organization with Canary Conn." (email to Kay Brown)

Lavender Los Angeles p118

Colette Tisha Goudie starts living as female.

Singer Danny O'Connor releases two 45 rpm singles: "If I Am Not Free" and "Can You Imagine." (Click to listen).

1970
Douglas and trans singer attacked when supposed to perform at LA gay lib dance.

Frustrated by 'antitransvestic' attitudes of some gay men, and that GLF ignored the push for a clinic in Los Angeles, Douglas founds Transvestite/Transsexual Action Organization (TAO).

Douglas and one other demonstrate at a showing of the newly released Myra Breckinridge, denouncing it as exploitative and objecting that a non-transsexual, Raquel Welsh, played Myra.

TAO protests when Los Angeles welfare officials discontinue aid to 'men' who dress as women.

TAO persuades the Californian Peace and Freedom Party to include in its platform "The right to determine the uses of one's body, as in sex changes operations and others" and gets the Socialist Party to call for an end to arrests for 'cross-dressing'.

Douglas writes to Harry Benjamin: "As I progress as a transsexual, I find myself more attuned to Women's Liberation, in particular, the demands and ideas of gay women".

In a published letter to Playboy, Douglas explains that TAO supported "both gay liberation and women's liberation: we believe that all victims of prejudice and discrimination must work together to change this society".

Czinki senior murdered in Maryland.

Douglas on a visit to New York as part of investigating father's death, meets with Zelda Suplee of the Erickson Educational Foundation, and passes on a leaflet for a demonstration in Sheridan Square for 'transvestite and transexual liberation'. However only Suplee and one organizer turned up.

1971
TAO is renamed to Transsexual Action Organization. Transvestites no longer welcome.

Danny O'Connor, who has left wife and child and become Canary Conn, answers an ad in the Los Angeles Free Press for TAO and attends: "The TAO advertised itself as 'a transsexual action organization' but turned out to be a gathering place for a bunch of drag queens who were mostly interested in running pink flags up poles and picketing college campuses as well as having sex with anyone who walked by, male or female. It was a fiasco." (Conn: 202)

____________________________________________________________

There is an excellent book on the Los Angeles music scene in the 1960s: Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon, Headpress, 2013 by David McGowan. It points out that most of the noted musicians associated with Laurel Canyon had fathers in either the military or in intelligence: Frank Zappa, Papa John Philips, Stephen Stills, Gram Parsons. Jim Morrison's father, George Morrison, commanded the US warships in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 in the incident, false flag or not, that led to the escalation of the US-Vietnamese war.

Carl Douglas Czinki/Doug Delain fits right into this pattern, but is missing from McGowan's book.

There is an idea that Jim Morrison of the Doors survived his death and became Angela Douglas. Yeah right. Douglas commented on this in 2004: "Never even met The Doors, but they got signed with Electra by Arthur Lee. I am not James Douglas Morrison who apparently died in Paris in l97l (not l969.) The Doors, family think he faked his death. Incredibly, we were both born in 43, he in Florida, me in Michigan, I grew up mostly in Florida in the Air Force, he in the Navy, he left Tallahassee in 63-64 for LA he had attended FSU, I left Miami in 65 for LA and got Lee's new band hired at Bido Lito's (see on web), a club helped get open, sang with him a bit, cut two of my songs later with Love members. I was born Douglas Carl Czinki, he was born James Douglas Morrison, so there are some incredible similarities with our lives I can't explain, supernatural. I can sound very much like him when I sing, however, despite the sex change." (Amorous Propensities May 21, 2004 and October 21, 2004.)

Douglas says, GuitarSite 10/15/04: "I found out that Jim Fouratt (now an A and R man with Mercury NYC in a 1993 gay history book, Stonewall, falsely claims he removed firebombs I planted at NYU in 70 and is a big fucking hero. I was briefly in NYC in 70 and he assaulted me and a TV news team interviewing me, stalked me later in Miami and may have been involved in many tries to kill me". I checked Martin Duberman's Stonewall, 1993. There is no entry for Douglas, Czinki or Delain in the index. Fouratt is in the book, but I could not find anything resembling this claim.

Douglas married a woman, was later sexually attracted to other members of TAO, and in 1991 is reported as cat-calling pretty women on the street. In short was gynephilic, and could be said to be a heterosexual male who temporarily became a woman. Thus it is reasonable to ask why he did not simply join Virginia Prince's FPE, which was active in Los Angeles in 1969, before starting a new group? There would have course have been ego-conflicts.

Gift from Euphoria is on sale at Amazon. I cannot find the other albums for sale.

Douglas claims Canary Conn as a TAO co-founder because of her fame as a singer, while, according to her book, she attended only once and was horrified.   Compare her attitude to that of Lili Elvenes (Elbe) who was equally horrified when she met the other trans women at Hirschfeld's Institute.  

Barbara Dayton (1926 – 2002) Part I: merchant sailor, soldier, mechanic.

Bobby Dayton was the eldest of the three sons of Elmer and Berneice Dayton. After several moves they settled in Long Beach, in Los Angeles. The youngest son, Jimmy, died in a horse riding accident aged 13.

In 1944, aged 17, Bobby joined the US merchant marine. He would secretly cross-dress in obscure parts of the ship where he was never discovered. He was several times fined $100s for missing his ship when it sailed. One time he was lost in the Mindanao jungle in the Philippines, and fought with the local Muslims against the Japanese.

While he was at sea the Dayton family purchased a ranch close to Merced, California. When Bobby returned he helped improve the ranch including using dynamite to reroute a water course.

In 1946 Bobby enlisted in the US Army hoping to train as a pilot, but failed the radar class. At the age of 22 he had a platonic date with 15-year-old Dixie, and her parents insisted that they marry. They agreed to do so and had two children, Dennis and Rena. Dixie soon discovered Bobby's cross-dressing, but felt that she could not tell anyone.

After the army Bobby got by, alternating manual work, such as electrician or plasterer or fixing cars, and stints on merchant vessels. In December 1954 Bobby's brother Bill eloped with and married Dixie's sister, Sharon. A few months later Bobby and Dixie separated. Whenever Bobby had spare cash, he took flying lessons, and by June 1959 he had a private pilot's license. In February 1960 he took the test for a commercial flying license but failed on the theory and algebra.

For a while he was in a Hells Angels Motorcycle gang, but quit in disgust after a rape incident. Another time he survived for eight days in the Yukon wilderness without food. He was an experienced sky-diver but gave it up as boring. In April 1961 Bobby again failed the written part of the test to become a commercial pilot. He alternated working in the shipyards in Seattle, with prospecting in Alaska and the Yukon.

In March 1965, Bobby married again, to Cindy who already had three children. In May 1967 they declared bankruptcy, and in July Bobby was on a ship to Vietnam where he was on double pay because it was a war zone. When he returned Cindy had disappeared.

By now Bobby had heard that the Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore was doing sex change operations. Cindy and the children returned, and they went to Baltimore together. He found work in the shipyards there, but otherwise dressed female and applied to the John Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic. After four months they declined the application based on age, appearance and numerous tattoos. Also Bobby could not afford the fee.

Bobby and family returned to Seattle, and shortly afterwards Bobby and Cindy separated and then divorced. Dayton later estimated that he had had 150 jobs up to this point. Cindy remained a friend, and supported Bobby as she applied to the University of Washington Hospital. Dayton changed her name to Barbara, and lived as female for six months, staying with Cindy and her new boyfriend. The University clinic then accepted her.

Surgery was in December 1969, the first done at that clinic. Ten days later Barbara returned to surgery for a colostomy. Her parents arrived, and stayed with Cindy. Follow-up operations continued through 1970 and 1971. Barbara trained in data processing, but was unable to find any work, and was frequently depressed. She had still not told her children.

Continued in Part II. 

Richard Mühsam (1872 – 1938) surgeon - and probably the first surgical sex changes

Mühsam was a physician-surgeon who qualified at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin in 1893. He married in 1896, and they had two sons and a daughter.

Between 1912 and the mid 1920s Mühsam was involved in several pioneering surgeries that he wrote up for the Therapie der Gegenwart journal in 1926. None of the patients are given names.

In 1912 he did a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy on a painter aged 25, born female, who had always considered himself to be a "man in disguise".

In 1920, at the request of Magnus Hirschfeld, Mühsam castrated a 23-year-old who had been dismissed from military school for not being brave enough, although he did serve in the Great War as an officer, which tested his manhood. By 1920 he could no longer function. "He gave up his medical studies ... spent the day in bed and slept most of the day". He normally wore a corset and stockings when he went out. He masturbated 3-8 times a day imagining himself as female. He implored Mühsam, who considered him to be a severe sexual neurotic, that he be castrated. This was done on 21 June 1920, and two days later he had stopped masturbating and resumed his studies. Mühsam wrote (seven times in three pages) that the purpose of the castration was to enable the patient to work. However now felt an enhanced desire to become a woman, and started living fulltime as female. He requested to have an ovary implanted to generate female hormones, and this was done in March 1921 by another doctor. The patient also requested genital surgery. A month later, Mühsam, who was reluctant, cut a "vagina-like structure" and hid the penis within. Mühsam had created the first constructed vagina for a male-born person. However by August the patient returned. He had fallen in love with a woman, dressed and behaved in a manly fashion and now demanded a reversal. This Mühsam was able to do. Reportedly, the man qualified as a doctor, emigrated and became a pathologist.

Also in 1921, Mühsam removed the ovaries from his 1912 patient. Unfortunately the painter died in 1924 of tuberculosis. Mühsam did a similar service for another trans man, but he later committed suicide. Mühsam decided that "female" transvestites could not be treated surgically as the removal of the ovaries does not affect their sex drive.

In addition Mühsam performed four testicle implants on three gay men and one bisexual – the Steinach procedure. This was supposed to induce heterosexual tendencies. However Mühsam reported that it worked only for the bisexual, and he discontinued the practice.

Richard Mühsam died at age 66 as Europe prepared for war. His widow emigrated to the US, and died in Colorado in 1969 at age 94.

• Richard Mühsam,. Über den Fundort des Bacillus pyocyaneus und seine Farbproduction bei der Symbose mit anderen Mikroorganismen. Thesis (doctoral)--Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin, 1893.
  
• Richard Mühsam. Compendium der Operations- und Verbandstechnik von Eduard Sonnenburg und Richard Mühsam. 2 volumes. Berlin: Aug. Hirschwald, 1903.
  
• Richard Muhsam. "Chirurgische Eingriffe bei Anomalien des Sexuallebens," Therapie der Gegenwart 28, 1926: 451-55
  
• Richard Mühsam,. Was kann und wann muss der praktische Arzt operieren? Leipzig: G. Thieme, 1928.
  
• Hans Hirschfeld & Richard Mühsam. Chirurgie der Milz. Stuttgart: Enke, 1930.
  
• Sander L. Gilman, Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton University Press, 1999: 272-5.
  
• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Harvard University Press, 2002: 18.
  
• Volker Weiß.  "Transsexualität im Geschlechtsdispositiv", Part III of „Eine Weibliche Seele Im Männlichen Körper“ – Archäologie Einer Metapher Als Kritik Der Medizinischen Konstruktion Der Transsexualität.  PhD Thesis, Freien Universität Berlin, 2007.  PHD.
  
• Robert Beachy. Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. Knopf, 2014: 176-7.
  

Geni.com    Mühsam family
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Mühsam (like Harold Gillies 20 years later) did only one male-to-female operation.  It is a shame that a better candidate was not chosen.

The co-author of Mühsam’s last book was one Hans Hirschfeld.  A German doctor called Hirschfeld in 1930 raises the suggestion that he was a relative of Magnus Hirschfeld, but I could not confirm this in any of the books about Magnus.