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Clair(e) Elgin was this woman’s real name, however Joanne Meyerowitz calls her Caren Ecker; Annette Timm calls her Carla Erskine (the convention of pseudonyms with the same initials); and Connie
Christine Wheeler & Leah Cahan Schaefer called her at first Janet, but in their revision for Randi Ettner’s Confessions of a Gender Defender, they call her Claire; Benjamin, at her request, does not give her any name, and some refer to her in his book as the ‘tattoo woman’; Laub uses her real name, although he spells Clair without an ‘e’. When in Mexico, Claire used the name Marie Ciel Campbell. Like some other trans persons, Claire’s pre-transition and post-transition names are almost identical.
Clair Elgin, a seventh generation American Moslem, was born in Casper, Wyoming. By her own account she left home in 1923. Clair’s mother died in 1927, and the father in 1936.
The 1940 US census records Clair Elgin still living in Wyoming, with a wife Ruth (1899-1949) and a 15-year-old son. However on registering for the draft in October that year, Clair gave a San Francisco address. Clair apparently was a radar technician during the Second World War, and later she said that she was serving on a submarine when it was attacked by friendly fire. This so unnerved Clair that it led to a medical discharge. Either while in the navy, or subsequently working in a carnival, Clair became heavily tattooed on the body, but not on the face.
Clair’s (first) wife Ruth died in early 1949.
Clair first lived as a woman in Mexico City using the name Marie Ciel Campbell, until one night a drunk touched her in just the wrong place. She then moved to the San Francisco area. She reverted to Claire, now with an ‘e’ at the end. As part of her transition, she volunteered to give a talk to the Mattachine Society on “What is Transvestism?”
At the age of 48 in August 1953, Claire, then working as female nurse in Palo Alto, using a local anesthetic, succeeded in removing her own testicles – an operation that no doctor would consent to do. However she was unable to staunch the bleeding, and took a taxi to the hospital, where she was treated for shock and loss of blood. A few of the local papers carried the story, giving Claire’s first and last names. The journalist for the San Francisco Examiner commented that she declined to give a male forename.
Herb Caen in The San Francisco Examiner
Dr Karl Bowman, at San Francisco’s Langley Porter Clinic, took over the case and recommended further surgery to remove the penis - this was done 30 December 1953 at the University of California in San Francisco by Dr Frank Hinman, chief of urology services at San Francisco General Hospital – apparently this was the only such operation that Hinman ever did. A few newspapers heard rumors of the operation, but the hospital refused details, and gave out that her initials were L.C. One doctor was quoted as saying “A much truer case than Christine’s”. While recovering she gave offprints to the medical staff of Harry Benjamin’s "Transsexualism and transvestism as psychosomatic and somatopsychic syndromes". A diagnosis of ‘hermaphroditism’ had been used on the hospital entrance form.
Annette, Louise, Janet, Claire
Through Bowman, and from having had her name in the local newspapers, Clair met and/or was introduced to Louise Lawrence, Alfred Kinsey and Harry Benjamin. She had a four-hour interview with Kinsey “in hopes that any information … may in its small way eventually be of help to others of my kind”. She took photographs of other trans women whom she met through Louise Lawrence, and mailed them in batches to Harry Benjamin. Some of the other trans women meeting with Lawrence were Annette Dolan (who also did a self-castration), Janet Story, Dixie MacLane.
Over three years, she and Benjamin exchanged almost 100 letters. She told Benjamin that she had a genital anomaly (which Benjamin diagnosed as hypospadias), and had been raised as a girl for some years before a doctor explained to the parents that she was a boy. She had left home in 1923, and worked as a sailor for two years. She worked with a circus for a while, and then lived in Mexico City as female. Only after that did Clair marry Ruth - in Milwaukee, and they had a son. Clair divorced Ruth and moved to California, and served in the US Navy 1941-3 until discharged because of morphine addiction.
Claire pressed Benjamin to describe her as ‘pseudo-hermaphrodite’, as several trans women at the time such as Betty Cowell and Georgina Turtle were doing. Benjamin declined as that was not actually the case. Claire wanted this as a term to give to her son who had not accepted her transition. Claire argued
“I realize my own condition perfectly but to quite some few people who have to know of this change, the idea of hermaphroditeism [sic] is easier to explain and understand than is transvestism”.
The son was not heard of again afterwards.
Claire and Christine Jorgensen did meet once, around this time. Claire did not want to go public as Christine Jorgensen had, in that she had no intention of being a performer. Her preference was to continue as a nurse. However she lost her nursing job, and she suspected that rumors had been passed to her employer.
In 1954 Frederick G Worden, psychoanalyst, and James T Marsh, clinical psychologist, both at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center, interviewed and tested five “physically normal men” (that is trans women): three of whom had already had transgender surgery, Claire, Annette, and Janet, and two hoping for it, Dixie Maclane and Carla Sawyer. They administered psychological tests, but did not actually listen to the five trans women as persons. Worden and Marsh published their paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association in April 1955. Their subjects, they wrote, had “an extremely shallow, immature, and grossly distorted concept of what a woman is like socially, sexually, anatomically, and emotionally”. They depicted them as attention-seeking, and even held their co-operation with the study against them as a “need for recognition”. Worden and Marsh were irritated by the two subjects who wanted surgery, and criticized their refusal to acknowledge “the possibility that the wish for surgery might be symptomatic of a disorder within themselves”. They, of course, did not provide the desired recommendations for surgery. Harry Benjamin immediately wrote to the journal to object that Worden and Marsh had “badly misunderstood or misinterpreted” his work. Four of the five interviewees wrote to Benjamin expressing outrage.
Bowman wrote up his 1953 experience with Elgin as Case 4 in his 1956 paper:
“CASE 4-In one case penotomy was performed. A man of 43, twice married, was referred because of a request for penotomy; a few months previously he had anesthetized and castrated himself. Although tall and ungainly, he worked as a female practical nurse; he stated that he felt his penis to be inconvenient, with his female dress, and most distasteful. He had been impotent in both marriages and spoke of homosexual wishes. He threatened further self-mutilation if penotomy was refused. Because the patient had no testicles, was wholly impotent and did not ask for a plastic vagina it was decided reluctantly to accept the patient’s legal right to request amputation of the penis. It was feared that the patient might again try self-emasculation and harm himself more seriously. Two years after penotomy the patient seemed more comfortable and was making a fair adjustment.”
Sheldon was raised in Idaho, grew to 6’2’’ (1.88m) and served in the military as a Marine sergeant. Sheldon had been cross-dressing since early childhood, with an initial emphasis on shoes. He married but did not tell his bride, Gail, of his cross-dressing until two months afterwards. She did not understand, but allowed him to ‘dress-up’. He over-did it and Gail was afraid of friends finding out. So, Shelden quit doing so but fell into periods of deep depression – which led to Gail consulting the family doctor.
The doctor called Sheldon in for a talk, and referred him to a psychiatrist in another city. This doctor advised that his feminine side not be pushed aside. Sheldon worked with his wife on finding a balance. She suggested the name Annette. Annette needed a place to go to, and they confided in two couples who were close friends and Annette was accepted – although they still referred to her as Sheldon and treated her as a man, even when they went to a restaurant as a foursome. Annette and her wife also went to costume dances and to movie theatres.
On the psychiatrist’s advice Sheldon wrote to his mother, explaining his hobby and enclosing photographs. She wrote back "you do make a snappy looking gal", and remembered the child Sheldon in dresses.
This was only a few years after the 1955 “Boys of Boisie” homosexual scandal and witch hunt in the Idaho state capital, when adult men loving other adults were accused of paedophilia.
Sheldon was an engineer and business manager, and was appointed to a position in the Lewiston city council.
Annette sent an account of herself with photographs to Virginia Prince’s Transvestia newsletter.
Transvestia #5 1960 featured its first cover girl. Potential cover girls were asked to supply several photographs and a personal history, and were requested to pay for their page of photographs. The first such was Annette of Idaho. A year later, issue #10 contained supportive letters from Sheldon’s wife and mother.
Word spread about Sheldon being Annette. He even passed around photographs of Annette at the city offices. Annette never passed himself off as a woman; on meeting strangers he always mentioned that he was a man. Some refused to believe it. Once at a party, a young man, making a play for Annette, had it confirmed again that Annette was a man and grabbed her wig in fury. Not a wise move against an ex-Marines sergeant.
In 1962 Donald Wollheim/Darrell Raynor, planning a business trip to the US Northwest, used the Transvestia mail forwarding system to contact Annette, and was duly invited to visit. Raynor flew to the Lewiston airport where he was picked up by Sheldon. Raynor described the home where Annette/Sheldon lived with Gail, two children and his mother:
“Imagine then that on the outskirts of this town there suddenly rises one single hill, a hill that looms above the city and dominates it. Imagine that on top of this solitary hill, there is a grove of trees, the only such orchard to be seen for miles around. Within this grove of trees there is a ranch-type, sprawling house, surrounded by lawns, concealed from view by the encircling green arbors. This was Annette’s house, as perfect a home for a cross-dresser as can be imagined. Complete privacy, open air, beauty against the drabness and sereneness of the land.”
The next year, using his femme name of Doris, Raynor wrote an account of the visit for Transvestia. This first draft was reworked as Chapter 10 of Raynor’s 1968 book.
Sheldon, after much consideration, started his own business, including a car-wrecking yard. He also invented a mobile car crusher designed to pick up abandoned cars and compress them into a cube of scrap metal on the spot.
Most years Annette invited members of Virginia Prince’s FPE and others to her home with an overflow to a local motel if needed. She spoke to the local police officials explaining what transvestism is and promising to be “the model of discrete behavior, conducting herself as a lady should and drawing no public attention to herself” (Maureen).
In 1968 Katherine Cummings and most of the Seattle Chapter went. Virginia drove up from Los Angeles. Cummings observed that Virginia managed to alienate most of the wives by telling them that she was just as female as they were. (Cummings: 185).
The 1970 event was written about by Virginia (Transvestia 62) and by Maureen (Transvestia 63).
Only a few months later, Sheldon died of a sudden heart attack at age 39. There were several fond rememberings in Transvestia # 68.
1971 was also the year that a new Idaho criminal code repealed the anti-sodomy laws dating from 1864. However strong opposition from the Mormon and Catholic churches and Republican Party led to a reinstatement of the anti-sodomy laws just one year later.
“Miss Annette – Our COVER GIRL of the Month”. Transvestia, 1.5, 1960: Cover, 3-13. Online.
“My son is a Transvestite” and “My husband is a Transvestite”. Transvestia, 2,10, Aug 1961: 68-73. Online.
Darrell Raynor writing as Doris. “Visit to a Happy Man”. Transvestia 2, 20, 1963:32-4. Online.
Virginia Prince. “Travelling Saleslady”. Transvestia, 2,62, 1970 :65-6. Online.
Darrell G Raynor. A Year Among the Girls. Lancer Books, 1968: Chp 10, 76-83.
Katherine Cummings. Katherine’s Diary: The Story of a Transsexual. Beaujon Press, Revised edition, 1993: 104-5, 185.
Robert S Hill. As a man I exist; as a woman I live’: Heterosexual Transvestism and the Contours of Gender and Sexuality in Postwar America. ‘PhD Thesis, University of Michigan 2007: 1-6, 9, 44, 92-3, 147n28, 238, 354-62.
Sophie McMahon. “Finding Annette: Uncovering Trans History in Idaho, 1950-70”. Outhistory, 2023. Online.
-----------------------------------
McMahon makes no mention at all of the books by Cummings and Raynor nor the thesis by Hill that discuss Annette. She uses Raynor writing as Doris –but ignores Raynor’s book.
McMahon writes: “I try and picture Annette sitting cross legged at the kitchen table reading articles such as these that condemn homosexual life, and then taking off her long white dress and earrings and going out into the world as a man named Sheldon, knowing that she could likely face similar levels of anger and villainization if people knew about her secret life as a woman.” Surely this misses the point. Annette/Sheldon – remarkably – was by force of personality, social skills and self-confidence able to be semi-out as trans in the 1960s– even in the city council – in a state noted for its homophobia.
Darrell Raynor writing as D Rhodes in Turnabout #3 1964 contributed “Overs and Unders” in which he proposes two kinds of male heterosexual transvestites, of both of which he says: "The ‘Overs’ first fixate on shoes, the ‘Unders’ first fixate on under garments". In this scheme Annette would be an ‘Over’, and was probably in his mind as he wrote.
The major book on the homosexual panic in 1955 Boise is John Gerassi’s The Boys of Boise: Furor, Vice and Folly in an American City, 1966, in which he proposes that the investigation began as a means for the wealthy elite of Boise to assert and maintain economic control of the city and the state. He asserts that a gay millionaire known as "The Queen" was the target of the probe, although he was never charged. This person is still anonymous almost 70 years later – “the name itself carries the name of one of the big huge families in America, entrepreneur families dating back a century”. Other men with less money, clout and access to lawyers were charged instead, some being sent to prison – one was given a life sentence. Collateral damage!!
Of course Annette/Sheldon – like Virginia Prince – maintained that transvestites were not homosexual. However this perception was not common in the general public or in most police forces.
We know of Wyss only from the police file in Zurich. We do not know Wyss’ female name.
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Arnold Wyss was born and raised in Bern, Switzerland. At the age of eight he found a suitcase belonging to a deceased women, and was able to dress as female secretly. As a teenager he visited a coffee house with a female impersonater show, and then encounted the performer on the street in female dress. Wyss married a woman, Maria in 1902, hoping that marriage would cure his inclinations. They adopted a daughter. However after a while, when alone at home he cross-dressed. In 1910 Wyss read an account in a newspaper of a ‘man’ dressed as female who appeared in court, but had a permit, a Transvestitenschein. After a second such newspaper article, Wyss wrote to Dr Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin. The reply introduced him to the term ‘Transvestiten”, and as a law-abiding citizen, he decided to apply to the Zurich authorities for a permit. A later letter to Hirschfeld asked how to apply, but no answer was received. However he was able to obtain and read Hirschfeld’s 1910 book, Die Transvestiten.
After first moving to Zuring in December 1911 where Wyss worked as a porter in a factory, the family had moved to Geneva and then to Brig in southern Switzerland. In January 1914 they returned to Zurich and Wyss was employed as an office clerk. Maria worked from home as a dress-maker. Wyss mentioned to his work supervisor that he was an hermaphrodite and legally entitled to dress as female. Wyss was forbidden to do so at work, however some of the employees had seen him so dressed. Maria had not previously known of her husband’s dress preferences, until this time when he became more and more depressed and she sought to talk to him. After a while she accepted the situation in that dressed as female, Wyss was good-humoured, efficient and capable, but otherwise was suicidal.
Wyss sought help from a Dr Frank, and applied for a permit from the Zurich Police and Justice Department in 1914 to live as a woman. In addition an anonymous letter signed ‘Bertrand’ denounced Wyss’ cross-dressing as it could only be mischief. The police explained that there was no Swiss law specifying how men and women must dress, and referred Wyss to the psychiatrist Dr Müller. Müller was acquainted with Hirschfeld’s book, but apparently did not understand Hitschfeld’s distinction between transvestism and fetishism in that he described Wyss as an ‘extreme fetishist who not only has an item of clothing as the object of his worship, but the entire female wardrobe”. Müller also interviewed Maria and the daughter, and conducted a physical examination. He concluded: Wyss was a clothes fetishist belonging to the subgroup of transvestites; heterosexual; did not move in an unethical milieu; he was ethically superior, since he had never received financial compensation for his adopted child. Müller considered a permit to be necessary, since Wyss was very depressed and unpredictable consequences might ensue if the permit was refused.
On 30 June 1914, Wyss was granted the requested permit, signed by Heinrich Mousson, Director of Justice, Police and Military.
Herbert Benedikt Stieber. Einleitung Transvestismus Cross-Dressing Was bedeutet. Silo.Tips, August 11, 2016. Online.
Tuft, born and raised in Sonoma north of San Francico, had childhood yearnings to be a girl, but turned to body building after being bullied at school.
Tuft married in 2002, and they moved to Southern California, to start surfing and to continue muscle building. Tuft started professional wrestling in 2007 in the independent circuit, and a year later was signed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and was assigned to the Florida Championship Wrestling territory as Tyler Reks.
Over the next four years Reks – 6’2” (188 cm) and 280 lb (127 kg, 20 stone) rose to superstar rank on the WWE.
However in 2012 after the birth of a daughter and a brother’s suicide, Reks/Tuft retired from wrestling. Tuft set up Body Spartan, an online fitness company promoting the ketogenic diet. In 2019 Tuft had open heart surgery.
By 2020, the summer of Covid, Tuft had returned to exploring her female side, with full support from her wife. Using her expertise in fitness and nutrition to vary eating styles and sustainable approaches to exercise - a lot of trial and error - she managed to get the feminine body that she desired.
In 2021 as Gabbi Tuft, she came out as trans. The Tufts now live in Austin, Texas, and Gabbi Tuft is popular on Istragram and Tik-Tok.
Jo Yurcaba. “Former WWE superstar Gabbi Tuft comes out as transgender”. NBC News, Feb 5 2020. Online.
Gabbi Tuft. “Before my transition, I was a WWE star, weighed 280 pounds, and had 6% body fat. It took a lot of trial and error to get the feminine body I always wanted”. Business Insider, Sep 17, 2023. Online.
Alanah Khosla. “WWE's first transgender star Gabbi Tuft admits it 'took a lot of trial and error' to get the 'feminine body' she wanted”. The Daily Mail, 18 September 2023. Online.
++Original January 2015; revised February 2022, to incorporate information about Charlotte Charlaque, and August 2022 to incorporate more information from Wolfert's book.
Hugo Otto Arno Ebel was raised in Berlin, the eldest of eleven children, of a merchant and his wife. The child was noticed for being 'girlish' and for liking domestic work. After secondary school, Arno completed apprenticeships first as a merchant and then as a decorator, but lacked aptitude in both cases. At age 19 Ebel bought a wig and some female clothes. However the parents discovered them, and they ended up in the fire.
A year or so later Ebel had an affair with a man. This was taken to be homosexuality, and consequent arguments with father and brothers led to Ebel leaving home. After some travel in Germany, Austria and Italy, Ebel worked, as a woman, in a women's dress shop while studying painting in Munich. She then travelled abroad with an older man, an American by birth, who kept her for a few years. Afterwards Ebel travelled alone through Italy, Spain, France and North Africa, but returned to Germany around 1908, and had reverted to being male It is said that, as 'Arno Ehe', Ebel joined the circle of noted artist Käthe Kollwitz, and produced paintings that were noted.
Arno met Olga Boralewski (1873-1928). They married in 1911 and had a son – however Arno was not comfortable in this role and attempted suicide several times, and once was admitted to a mental asylum. He was able to cross-dress only in private. Arno Ebel was drafted into the Army in 1916, and at the 2nd Battle of Champagne (25 September - 6 November 1915), was ambushed and finally suffered a severe nervous breakdown, and thereupon was assigned to a reserve hospital before being discharged with a 30 per cent pension.
After the war Ebel was recognised as "severely disabled" and obtained a position as a draughtsman in a Berlin electricity firm. Ebel became involved with the workers' movement, painted and made a living as a commercial artist. In 1925 Ebel joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). However Olga Ebel became seriously ill and bedridden, and Toni was left to care for her. At home, Toni put on women's clothes, cooked the food, looked after the wife, cleaned the flat and did the laundry.
Olga died in January 1928. Ebel, despite another nervous breakdown, became Toni again. Trans woman Charlotte Charlaque introduced Toni to Magnus Hirschfeld, and Toni was assessed by Felix Abraham who had replaced Arthur Kronfeld as the transvestism specialist at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft:
"The case of A. E., painter, born 10 November 1881 in Berlin. The patient was referred to me (at first he came in male clothes) because from his youth he has been inclined to wear female clothes; moreover, he felt completely female and consequently wanted to take a female name. The patient was 47 years old at the first consultation. He was outwardly very agitated, but this calmed down and almost disappeared when, at my request, he came to the next consultation in female clothing. He then confessed to me that he felt so uncomfortable in male clothing that the result was a physical and nervous agitation which gave way to absolute calm when he put on female clothing. His aversion to men's clothing is so great that he had only one suit, which, moreover, was in very poor condition." (1931, last page of Transvestitisme chapter)
Abraham wrote an expert opinion so that Toni was able to obtain a Transvestitenschein in spring 1928 so that she could be a woman in public. Toni made a formal application for a legal name change - but it was not approved until 1929. The five surgeries by Drs Erwin Gohrbandt, Felix Abraham and Ludwig L. Lenz took only two years (compared to the seven years for Dörchen Richter) and were complete in 1931. Felix Abraham wrote up an account of the operations on Dora and Toni for the Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, where he referred to Toni as "Arno (Toni) E." .
From 1930-32 Toni lived in the basement and supplemented the domestic staff at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft as she was too poor to pay for treatment. She was paid 24 Reichsmarks a month, plus room and board.
She did sell some paintings and donated others to the Institut. Adelheid Schulz (1909-2008) then 19, who had just become housekeeper at the Institute, paid twelve Reichsmarks for a painting by Toni Ebel that reminded her of her mother - more than half her weekly wage. Hirschfeld and Ludwig Levy-Lenz also bought paintings from her.
Surgeon Ludwig Levy-Lenz wrote of the trans maids at the Institut:
"I will never forget the sight that met my eyes when I was once whisked away to the kitchen of the house after work: there the five 'girls' sat knitting and sewing peacefully next to each other and singing old folk songs together. Anyway, they were the best, most diligent and most conscientious household staff we have ever had. Never once did a stranger who visited us notice."
The French doctor, Pierre Najac, who did an internship at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft,wrote about Charlotte and Toni.
Toni lived awhile at Wolliner Straße 47 in Berlin-Mitte. But because Charlotte Charlaque was called a Jew by the neighbours when she came to visit, Ebel moved in with her in Berlin-Schöneberg. The Swedish journalist Ragnar Ahlstedt visited them at their flat at Nollendorfstraße 24, and wrote about them in his Män som blivit kvinnor, 1933. They lived cheaply: Charlotte said that she was an actress and Toni was able to sell some paintings and drawings. Ahlstedt incorrectly claimed that after the death of Lili Elbe"Frau Toni" and "Fräulein Lola" (Charlotte) were "the only operated transvestites in the whole of Europe" („die einzigen operierten Transvestiten in ganz Europa").
Toni and Charlotte had become lovers, although both spoke about men-friends when the topic came up. In August 1932 Toni - using the pseudonym 'Wally E.' - was interviewed by a journalist L. Rhan for Das 12-Uhr-Blatt which was printed under the headline: "Conversation with a woman who was once a man". There was also an anonymous article in Die Geburtenregelung titled "Surgical transformation of men into women succeeded" ( "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen"), which discussed Dora, Toni and Charlotte.
6 November 1932: Federal election: the NSDAP (Nazi Party) won 196 seats out of 584 and became the largest party.
30 January 1933: New Cabinet sworn in, with Adolf Hitler as Chancellor. Hermann Goering ordered the closure of the queer bars.
In Lothar Golte's 1933 Austrian film, Mysterium des Geschlechts, advertised as a "foray through the night life of sexual abnormals"two medical students, one male, one female, learn about "most interesting questions of sexology" and fall in love in the process. This is intercut with documentary sequences which show sex reassignment surgery and transplants of animal testicles and explanations about abortion and contraception. Toni, Charlotte and Dora Richter can be seen in the sex-change scenes which are presumably film archives from Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. The premiere was in Vienna 27 April 1933, but due to massive protests it was removed by police intervention after only a few days. In Germany, it was not even shown in public, as it was banned by the censors.
A couple of trans women were associating with Charlotte and Toni at their flat: Fritz, the nephew of a German-American writer, and Felicitas, who as Felix had worked as a police officer. In the March 1933 elections, following the Reischstag fire, Toni voted for the Communist Party (KPD), but the NSDAP (Nazi) got the most seats and that was the last multi-party election until 1945.
10 May: The library and archives of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the Opernplatz. Between 12,000 to 20,000 books and journals, and an even larger number of images and sex objects, were destroyed. This included paintings by Toni Ebel.
Toni had converted to Charlotte's Jewish faith. Toni was warned that they were under surveillance, and in 1934, with the help of the Berlin Jewish community, Toni and Charlotte fled to Czechoslovakia. They settled in Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary where Toni painted pictures for spa guests and Charlotte gave English and French lessons. Toni still received her war pension from the Reichsversicherungsanstalt and life in Czechoslovakia was comparatively cheap, they were able to live in relative peace for a while.
Late Summer 1934 they moved to Prague where they made contact with the "Emigrants Committee" of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), but the city was swarming with German emigrants and they returned to Karlovy Vary. In November 1936 they moved on to Brünn/Brno. Toni was using the professional name of Antonia Ebelová. There, they were in contact with Karl Giese, Hirschfeld’s lover and archivist at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, who had fled to Brno after being expelled from France for the wrong kind of sexual activity. He had been bequeathed considerable money from Hirschfeld's estate, but was depressed and after the Anschluss, the German occupation of Austria 16 March 1938, he took his own life.
The Wehrmacht occupied Czechoslovakia and established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the spring of 1939. Toni's German passport had expired and they were to report to the police every fortnight. Their accommodation was searched and they were advised to leave. However an employee of the German Consulate was taking English lessons from Charlotte, and he was able to arrange a new passport for Toni at the end of 1938. It was initially valid for one year only, but was later extended until 1943. Toni was designated therein as Protestant, which given the circumstances she let stand.
In March 1939 they returned to Prague which they saw as more "Czech" and less "German" than Brno. They found a flat at Velkoprevorské nämésti 7, and aided Jews with English and documents needed for emigration.
Portrait by Josef Brück, 1952.
In March 1942 Charlotte was arrested by the Czechoslovak Aliens Police and jailed for being a Jew. Toni managed to persuade the Swiss consul that Charlotte was a US citizen. Charlotte was interned and then deported to New York via Lisbon. They continued to correspond, but apparently never met again.
Toni was summoned by the Gestapo several times in 1943-4, but was not arrested. However after the war in Europe ended, VE Day, 7 May 1945, Toni like other Germans in Czechoslovakia had to leave the country, leaving her belongings behind. Toni was taken to the German border, walked from there to Cottbus and finally got permission to travel to Berlin on a coal train. On the way she had to beg. On 22 June 1945, she reached Berlin. By this time the Opfer des Faschismus (OdF - Victims of Fascism) was beginning to be organised, and Toni was one of the first victims to be recognised. Later she was able to claim compensation from the German Democratic Republic.
She rebuilt her life as an artist. From around the mid-1950s, she lived in a studio flat on Strausberger Platz (Friedrichshain), and it was here that she also received a visit at least once from Adelheid Schulz, who had been housekeeper at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.
Portrait by Rudolph Kramer
Charlotte and Toni corresponded after 1945, but they never met again.
She was recognized at the Akademie der Künste in East Berlin. In articles about her in the East German press on the occasion of her birthdays or her exhibitions, she was often described as a spirited woman who was "mischievous" and "tomboyish" - and spoke in a deep voice. Her femininity was never questioned.
She died at age 80.
Felix Abraham. "Genitalumwandlungen an zwei männlichen Transvestiten". Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, 18, 1931: 223-226. Translated as "Genital Reassignment on Two Male Transvestites". The International Journal of Transgenderism, 2,1, Jan-March 1998. Archive.
Félix Abraham, translated by Pierre Vachet. Les perversions sexuelles. Romainville (Seine): impr. Tessier, 1931: the last page of the Transvestitisme chapter.
Pierre Najac. "L'Institute de la Science Sexuelle à Berlin" in Janine Merlet. Venus et Mercure. Editions de la Vie Modern, 1931: 165-192.
L. Rhan. "Gesprach mit riner Frau, die einmal ein Mann war". Das 12-Uhr-Blatt, 2.8.1932.
Ragnar Ahlstedt. Män som blivit kvinnor. Två fall av könsväxling på operative väg. En study of transvestitism. Tranås: mountain, 1933.
Anon. "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen. Die Erfahrungen aus drei Berliner Fällen". Die Geburtenregelung,1, 4, 1933: 33.
F. E. "Das Portrait, Toni Ebel". Berliner Zeitung, 19.1.1952: 16.
Ludwig Levy-Lenz. Diskretes und Indiskretes: Erinnerungen eines Sexualarztes. Wissen & Fortschritt, 1953: 204.
Sander L. Gilman. Making
the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999: 276.
Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Giessen: Psychosozial-Verlag 2005: 203-4.
Julie Nero. Hannah Höch, Til Brugman, Lesbianism, and Weimar Sexual Subculture. PhD Thesis, Department of Art History and Art, Case Western Reserve University, 2013: 269. PDF.
Ralf Dose. Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement. 2014: 55.
Přehled Historických Událostí Vztahujících Se K Tématu. (Overview historical events related to the topic) [Czechoslovakian Artists]:101. PDF.
Raimund Wolfert. “ ‘Sage, Toni, denkt man so bei euch drüben?’ Auf den Spuren von Curt Scharlach alias Charlotte Charlaque (1892 -?) und Toni Ebel (1881-1961)”. Lesbengeschichte, 3/2015. Online. And also at issuu.com Online.
Raimund Wolfert. Charlotte Charlaque: Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin, „Königin der Brooklyn Heights Promenade“. Hentrich & Hentrich, 2021: 59-62.
Wolfert says "To all appearances, Olga was suffering from syphilis" (Allem Anschein nach litt Olga an der Syphilis). But says no more. There is no mention of Toni being syphilitic. Did Toni bring it from a previous relationship? Did Olga bring it from a previous marriage? Olga was 38 when she entered this marriage - it is very likely that she had a previous marriage. If Olga was in the latent and then tertiary stages, she may not have been infectious, but her son may have had congenital syphilis.
In any case there is no information about what happened to the son.
Neither the Gestapo nor the Statsi nor the East German press nor the West German Press seems to have questioned Toni's femininity.
The document on Czechoslovak artists is not sure whether Toni was Jewish or Protestant.
The French for the paragraph from Felix Abraham's book:
"Voici le cas de A. E., artiste peintre, né le 10 novembre 1881 à Berlin. Le malade vient chez moi (en costume masculin) pour avoir eu dès sa jeunesse un penchant à porter le costume féminin; d’ailleurs il se sent complètement femme et veut, en conséquence, prendre un nom de femme. Le malade a 47 ans à la première consultation. 11 présentait extérieurement une agitation très forte qui se calma et n’existait presque plus quand, sur ma demande, il vint àla consultation suivante en costume féminin. 11 m’avoua alors qu’en costume masculin il se sent si mal à son aise que le résultat en est une agitation corporelle et nerveuse qui fait place à un calme absolu quand il revêt un costume féminin. Son aversmn contre le vêtement masculin est si grande qu’il ne possède qu’un seul complet qui, d’ailleurs, est en très mauvais état."
The German for the quote from Ludwig Levy-Lenz:
" ich werde den Anblick nie vergessen, der sich mir bot, als ich einmal nach Feierabend in die Küche des Hauses verschlagen wurde: da saßen die fünf ,Mädchen‘ strickend und nähend friedlich nebeneinander und sangen gemeinsam alte Volkslieder. Jedenfalls war es das beste, fleißigste und gewissenhafteste Hauspersonal, das wir je gehabt haben. Niemals hat ein Fremder, der uns besuchte, etwas davon gemerkt."
Victor Dolling, who worked at Smithfield meat market as a porter, and Constance, both of Walworth, London, were married in 1950, and they had a child a year later. Shortly afterwards, Victor increasingly felt female, and twice, in 1952 and 1954, consulted psychiatrists at Guy’s Hospital. The endocrinologist Dr Peter Bishop prescribed female hormones. Dolling quit the job at Smithfield to live full time as female, found work as a clerk at British Railways, and left Mrs Dolling in 1957.
In May 1958 Constance Dolling applied for a divorce decree on the ground of cruelty. Her husband signed a court document as Victoria Dolling, and did not contest the suit. However the judge dismissed the suit saying
“But it is utterly impossible to say that his consent to be treated this way for what is a mental illness is cruelty on his part. He cannot help it any more than any other illness.”
He also pointed out that if Mrs Dolling waited until May 1960, she could apply for divorce on the ground of desertion. She appealed, but the appeal was dismissed.
Kenneth Robinson, Member of Parliament for St Pancras North (and Minister of Health 1964-8), asked the Attorney General, Reginald Manningham-Buller (noted for his 1959 unsuccessful prosecution of D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover), if his attention had been drawn to the legal difficulties arising in Dolling v. Dolling, and if the law of divorce could be amended to enable marriages to be dissolved when either spouse changes sex. The Attorney General gave a written reply:
"I am not aware of any legal difficulties. The Court of Appeal held on the particular facts of this case that the conduct of the respondent did not amount to cruelty. I do not think that there is any need to amend the law by seeking to specify what acts constitute cruelty for the purposes of the law of divorce or by making express provision for the type of case mentioned in the question."
Victoria Dolling’s subsequent life is unrecorded.
“Man Wanted to Become a Woman”. Manchester Evening News, 22 May 1958.
“When a husband wants to be a woman”. Daily Mirror,23 May 1958,
“Sex Changes and Divorce: Question by M.P.”. Birmingham Post, 26 November 1958.
Richard Collier. Masculinity, Law and the Family. Taylor & Francis, 2002:115.
Zoë Playdon. The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience. Scribner, 2022: 92-3.
Wind was born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, across the river from Mannheim, and was raised with the name Adolf.
With the start of the Great War in 1914, Adolf volunteered for the German Navy, was first assigned in the trenches in Flanders, but was then transferred to the SMS Friedrich der Große, a Kaiser-class battleship which survived the war intact. After the November 1918 Armistice the Friedrich der Grosse and most of the other German Kaiser-class ships were interned by the British Navy in Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, where the German Admiral had the fleet scuttled so that they could not be used by the British. The crews were interned on the islands before being returned to Germany.
By this time Adolf had become an accomplished wrestler. After more time in the Navy, Adolf returned to Ludwigshafen, and found an office job with one of the companies that merged in 1925 to found I G Farben, which became the largest company in Europe and the largest chemical and pharmaceutical company in the world. Adolf also became well-known as a wrestler in the Mannheim area.
In April 1923 Adolf married Elisabeth, and within two years they had two sons. In October 1928 Wind came down with a severe case of rheumatism that took months to get over. Afterwards Wind was a different person:
“I started to take an interest in women’s clothes and dresses. I began to feel awkward at times when I mixed with my fellow men-workers.”
Wind also took up knitting and did the family darning. Wind first wore female clothing at the Shrove-tide festival (Mardi Gras) as many men did. An attempt at suicide led to an explanation to Elisabeth.
After an initial shock, Elisabeth was supportive and urged a consultation with doctors. Adolf spoke to the welfare department at I G Farben and they arranged a visit to Berlin to see Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld confirmed that Wind was becoming a woman, explained that an operation was possible and Wind was sent home to discuss the issue with Elisabeth.
At last, in October 1931, Wind entered a clinic in Frankfurt for the first of seven operations and an experimental hormone treatment. It was felt that Wind belonged in neither the men’s nor the women’s wards, and room was found in the children’s ward. For the first time in her life Wind took an interest in children and was even assumed by a visitor to be the children’s nurse.
Afterwards, back home, there was a problem with the two sons in who this strange woman was. The boys settled the issue by calling Wind “Tante” (=auntie). Wind took the name Hertha, and was said to be the sister of Elisabeth. Hertha left I G Farben who gave her a pension. Her co-workers gave her a leaving present of a fur coat.
The Winds had previously run a small food shop below their flat as a sideline. Now Elisabeth mainly served in the shop while Hertha did the domestic work. However Wind’s legal position had not changed. In 1937 she was called up for reserve training with the Navy. On arrival she was assumed to be Frau Wind who had called to collect her husband’s papers. By luck the former captain of the Friedrich der Grosse was in the building, and Wind was able to explain to him, and he got the situation put right.
However Hertha’s paper’s were still those of a man. Her doctor urged her to stage a showdown. She went to the public baths in Frankfurt and attempted to enter the men’s section, showing her id that said that she was a man. The kerfuffle seemed to be going nowhere, but a few months later she did receive official permission to wear women’s cloths, and the next year new identity documents but as Fraulein, not Frau. And she became Frau a year after that.
In 1940, in the early stages of the new war, Elisabeth and Hertha applied to adopt a baby girl. After Hertha took a four-month Mothers’ Course and gained a diploma, they were permitted to do so.
One of their sons died on the Russian front. They lost their home and all their belongings during an Allied bombing raid.
Elisabeth and Hertha divorced after WWII. In 1955 they were in the news when Hertha had proposed to publish her autobiography, and Elisabeth applied to a court in Mannheim in objection as it would impact on her privacy.
-------
I presume that Elisabeth won her case. I could not find a statement to that effect but there is no book listed in World Cat for Hertha Wind.
Some sources refer to Hertha as 'Elisabeth Wind'. It is possible that she took her wife's name, but is more likely that it is a reporter error.
In the 1930s one remained Fraulein until marriage. In modern Germany, one becomes Frau on turning 18.
There was another trans woman in Ludwigshafen: Liddy Bacroff, who was less accepted in the Third Reich and died in the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1943.
Ronald Clark. “Sex change secret out after 25 years”. The Sunday People, January 23, 1955: p1.
Hertha Wind & Ronald Clark. “My Life as Man and Woman”. The Sunday People, January 30, 1955: p3.
Ronald Clark. “His two sons began to call him ‘Auntie’ ”.The Sunday People, February 6, 1955: p2.
Ronald Clark. “ ‘He’ wins a Diploma for Motherhood”. The Sunday People, February 130, 1955: p2.
Eine lange queere Geschichte in Rheinland -Pfalz. Blätter zum Land Nr. 86:7-9. PDF.
“Ludwigshafen: Gedenkfeier zum weltweiten „Transgender Day of Remembrance“ “. Die Rheinpfalz, 20. November 2019. Online.
Zoe Playdon. The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience. Scribner, 2021: 90.
Laundon specialized on rust fungi (then known as Urediniomycetes; now as Pucciniales). Rusts are considered among the most harmful pathogens to agriculture, horticulture and forestry. Rust fungi are major concerns and limiting factors for successful cultivation of agricultural and forest crops. White pine blister rust, wheat stem rust, soybean rust, and coffee rust are examples of notoriously damaging threats to crops. Laundon soon became well-known in the field for thorough, careful work on the class, first publishing new taxa in 1963.
In 1965 the Commonwealth Mycological Institute published Laundon’s book, The Generic Names of Uredinales. This was reviewed in the Transactions of the British Mycological Society:
“Nomenclature at best is a tedious business for many of us, but until a better system is invented the best we can do is to have a set of names whose basis is firmly established. Mr Laundon has done this service for the generic names of rusts nobly.”
Among Laundon’s most important contributions was a new system of spore terminology published in 1967 - this was controversial at the time but was generally accepted later.
In 1963 Laundon married Margaret Cox and they had three children. In 1965 they emigrated to New Zealand, where Laundon became mycologist at the Plant Health & Diagnostic Station at Levin, and continued to research the taxonomy and nomenclature of rusts. Laundon was an active member of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy and was on the Special Committee for Fungi and Lichens for a number of years.
myrtle rust infections in NZ
Laundon was the first to realise there were two species involved when the poplar rusts were first found in New Zealand in 1972, a claim not verified until samples of the spores were examined with an electron microscope.
By 1977 Laundon had transitioned as Gillian. She was supported in this by her wife and children. She was initially involved in Hedesthia, the then major New Zealand trans group, but it was mainly oriented to transvestites. Gillian, using her wife’s surname, in 1976 set up Transformation, which was more focused on transsexual issues. Gillian and Margaret produced several information leaflets and fielded questions from transsexuals, interested public and professionals alike, seeking to aid and educate as many people and groups as they could.
She placed an announcement in the New and Notes section of the Taxon journal:
“Mr G. F. Laundon of the Plant Health & Diagnostic Station, Levin, New Zealand has changed sex as from the 22nd Jan. 1977 and is now known as Miss Gillian Laundon. She continues her work in plant pathology, mycology and nomenclature.”
Actually she had become Gillian Fiona Laundon, which enabled her to take advantage of the practice of Onomastic Occlusion, that is to continue to publish professionally as “G F Laundon”.
However at work some staff strongly opposed her using female toilets. She was restricted to only one toilet and threatened with disciplinary action if she used another. However she was supported by other colleagues including her controlling officer who wrote to the State Services Commission (SSC) on her behalf in order to suggest that guidelines be set up so that “transexuals be treated consistently in the public service”. She was supported by Leone Neil, also a Hedesthia member and public servant. By 1978 Laundon had won her case and was free to use whatever facility she pleased.
However, the SSC did not implement any guidelines, and discrimination was still rife in the public service. In 1979 Laundon wrote in support of a trans woman in another department who was to be subjected to a vote by her colleagues over whether she should be able to use the female toilets.
Over her career Laundon collected at least 211 specimens and identified 539 that are in formal herbaria or culture collections. The species Phoma laundoniae is named in her honour.
Professional publications by G F Laundon:
“D.B.O. Savile, ,Collection and Care of Botanical Specimens Publication 1113 (1962) Canada Department of Agriculture, Research Branch,Ottawa xii + 124, 13 text-figures. Price: $2.00”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 46, 1, 1963.
“Uredopeltis (Uredinales)”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 46,3, 1963.
“Angusia (Uredinales)”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 47,3, 1964.
The Generic Names of Uredinales, Mycological Papers, No. 99. Commonwealth Mycological Institute, Kew, 1965.
“Terminology in the rust fungi”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 50, 2, 1967.
Review of “Malgolm Wilson, D.M. Henderson, British Rust Fungi (1966) Cambridge University Press”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 50, 2,1967.
“The taxonomy of the imperfect rusts”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 50, 3, 1967.
“Rust Names Attributed to Léveillé”. Taxon, 16, 3, 1967.
“A cold method for preparing dried reference cultures” Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 51, 3-4, 1968.
“The Status of Some of Persoon's Uredo Names”. Taxon, 17,2, 1968
“(319) Proposal to Delete the Generic Name Nigredo Persoon ex Roussel (1806) as a nomen rejiciendum of Uromyces (Link) Unger (1833) (Fungi)”. Taxon, 19, 6, 1970.
“The Lectotype for Uredo”. Taxon, 19,6, 1970.
“Records of fungal plant diseases in New Zealand”. New Zealand Journal of Botany, 8, 1, 1970.
“Additions to the rust fungi of New Zealand — 5”. New Zealand Journal of Botany, 8, 3, 1970.
“A new reinforcement for sealed fluid microslide mounts”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 56, 2, 1971.
“Records of Fungal Plant Diseases in New Zealand — 2”.New Zealand Journal of Botany, 9, 4, 1971.
“Delimitation of aecial from uredinial states”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 58, 2, 1972.
“Records and taxonomic notes on plant disease fungi in New Zealand”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 60, 2, 1973.
“Uromyces fallens and U. trifolii-repentis in New Zealand”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 61, 1, 1973.
“Proposals in Regard to the Emendment of Author Citations”. Taxon, 23, 5-6, 1974.
“Botryosphaeria obtusa, B. Stevensii, and Otthia spiraeae in New Zealand”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 61, 2, 1976.
“A new name for a New Zealand Phragmidium”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 67, 1, 1976.
“Peridermium (Fungi)”. Taxon, 25, 1, 1976.
“New host records of plant disease fungi in New Zealand”. New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 21, 4, 1978.
“New plant disease record in New Zealand Uromycladium simplexon Acacia pycnantha”. New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 21, 4, 1978.
“Phoma rumicicola nov., a cause of leaf spots on Rumex obtusifolius”. New Zealand Journal of Botany, 18, 4, 1980.
Other publications:
D M Henderson. Review of “G F Laundon. The Generic Names of Uredinales Mycological Papers, No. 99”. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 48, 4, 1965.
Gillian Cox, ‘Friends,’ S-E-L-F,12, November 1976:
Gillian Cox, ‘Information service for transexuals,’ The Public Service Journal, 64, 6 July 1977:
Gillian Cox, ‘TransFormation Report 1977,’ Trans-Scribe, 1, 17, February 1978:
Gllian Cox, , ‘Prejudice against transexuals,’ The Public Service Journal, 66, 11 December 1979:
Gillian Cox. ”The Bible Says” and “Telling Your Secret”. Gender Review, 10, February 1981. Online.
J R Laundon (brother). “Geoffrey Frank Laundon”. Taxon, 34,1,1985.
Geoffrey C Ainsworth edited by John Webster & David Moore. "Laundon (Geoffrey Frank (from 22 Jan 1977 Gillian Fiona)". Brief Biographies of British Mycologists. British Mycological Society, 1996. Online.
Will Owen Hansen, “Every Bloody Right To Be Here” Trans Resistance in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1967-1989.MA Thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2020: 3, 42, 44, 54, 72-3, 95,
Isabel Douglas. “LGBT History Month: Gillian Cox”. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, February 16, 2021. Online.
Elke Mackenzie was born in London and raised in Scotland, and was given the name Ivan Mackenzie Lamb. Lamb did a B.Sc. in Botany at Edinburgh University and, with a scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, did further research at the universities of Munich and Würzburg.
Lamb was employed as an assistant keeper at the British Museum in 1935, and was mentored by the recently retired pioneering lichenologistAnnie Lorrain Smith who had worked in the museum’s cryptogamic herbarium 1892-1933, but who had to be paid from a special fund because officially the museum did not employ women. Lamb became especially interested in the lichen flora of the Antarctic, as it was comparatively unknown, and began studying early British, French, and Belgian Antarctic collections in Turku, Finland and Paris. While in Finland Lamb met and married a Finnish woman. Their first child was born in London during the Blitz, and Lamb was granted the degree of Doctor of Science from Edinburgh University in 1942 with a monographic thesis dealing with the hypothesis of the previous movement of the continents of the southern hemisphere based on studies of the Antarctic lichen flora.
Lamb took a leave of absence from the British Museum in 1943 to join Operation Tabarin, a secret Antarctic expedition organized by the Admiralty on behalf of the Colonial Office to assert British sovereignty in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Falkland Islands Dependencies against Chilean and Argentinian claims, and against possible German naval actions. Lamb served in Antarctica from 1944 to 1946 as a cryptogamic botanist, but he assisted in the construction of bases at Port Lockroy and Hope Bay, which involved person-hauling and dog-sledging 800 miles.
Andrew Taylor in his account of the years in the Antarctic writes:
“Dr. I. Mackenzie Lamb … in my opinion, possessed the best scientific mind of any of us. Subsequent events probably threw me into closer contact with Lamb than any other individual in our party. A diligent worker as well as a modest and courteous gentleman, he was one of the most unselfish characters I have ever met. It was a privilege to know him so well. Possessing a humour that at times approached elfishness, he was a most sincere and earnest person. Both logical and imaginative, he possessed a realism that did not allow any histrionics or dramatics to warp his steady judgment.” (p24)
Taylor comments on Lamb’s scientific studies, done in addition to the other duties at the base.
“To most people, for example, the study of the botany of such a region would seem a most uninspiring prospect. To Lamb, a specialist in the study of mosses and lichens, it was an exciting challenge. All can recognize the moss that carpets the forests and climbs up the bases of the trunks of the trees in temperate regions. Perhaps few of us have noticed the lichen—or we pay scant attention to it. Prior to my meeting Lamb, I confess that I never more than casually noticed them, (p113) …Lamb’s diligence and persistence rewarded him with a large collection of lichens gathered from the various localities we visited on Wiencke Island, as well as those collected in the course of his ecological studies of Goudier Islet. Many of the species he collected were new to the Graham Land area, others were new to the Antarctic, and he found a few which were new to science. In addition, he highly prized a few blades of grass that he discovered in a crevice between the rocks of the rookery. His interest also included mosses as well as a variety of marine algae and flora. These specimens were not easily found, but one is amazed at the diversity and luxuriance of some of the growths that the cold rock-faces of the country support. (p114)”
In 1947 Lamb, with wife and child, took a teaching position at the Instituto Miguel Lillo at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán in northwest Argentina. Lamb built up a collection of lichens, adding Argentinian and Brazilian specimens to those from Antarctica. One field trip ended in disaster when on returning via a mountain pass the wind was so intense that the strings came untied and the new specimens and their annotations were scattered over the mountain.
In 1950 Lamb was offered a position as cryptogamic botanist at the National Museum in Ottawa. Perhaps because of the cost of moving it from Argentina, Lamb sold the herbarium (3,200 specimens with annotations) to the Museum, and either sold or donated an annotated library on the subject.
Lamb left Ottawa on short notice in 1953 when offered the Directorship of the Farlow Library and Herbarium at Harvard University. Unfortunately the Farlow had been inoperative for some time, there was no staff, not even janitorial, and there was a large backlog of unanswered correspondence. However the collection did include 1,400,000 specimens, including approximately 75,000 types, of lichenized and non-lichenized fungi, bryophytes, diatoms and algae. Mrs Lamb helped out with work at the Farlow. Lamb directed the Farlow Library and Herbarium for almost twenty years, extending an interest to algae and marine phycology as well as lichens, and trained in scuba diving for a return to the Antarctic to obtain marine specimens.
In the 1960s the Lambs experienced family and personal crises possibly resulting from feelings of gender incongruence. Mrs Lamb ran up debts in her husband’s name. Lamb started living in the Farlow, and at one point was taken to the University Infirmary with a stay of three weeks. Afterwards Lamb obtained a legal separation from Mrs Lamb. A psychiatrist advised a consultation with “a specialist in New York City in resolving a torment that left him uncomfortable with his gender” (presumably Harry Benjamin).
This was during the final stages of the Antarctic project. Lamb decided on transition, and also dropped her surname, taking her middle name, Mackenzie as her new surname and Elke as her personal name. She applied for a legal name change, new social security number and passport. Publications by Lamb started to acknowledge the technical assistance of Miss Elke Mackenzie. Elke also joined a theatre troupe directed by Laurence Senelick, the historian of theatre and drag performance.
Harvard arranged sabbatical leave in 1971 followed by a total disability retirement (Elke was only 60). Mackenzie turned to translating German botanical text books into English, and for some years lived in Costa Rica, building a house there. She returned to Boston in 1980, living for a while with her daughter. She took up carpentry and started to make furniture. However in 1983 she experienced weaknesses in her legs and was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). She died age 78.
Laurence Senelick’s The Changing Room, sex, drag and theatre has the following dedication:
“This book is dedicated to Elke Mackenzie, whose transformation taught many who enjoyed transvestism on stage to appreciate transsexualism in life”.
Mackenzie’s original surname was assigned to two genera, Lambia and Lambiella, and several species.
The list of species includes:
Buellia lambii
Neuropogon lambii
Parmelia lambii
Placopsis lambii
Verrucaria mackenzie-lambii
The name was also assigned to Cape Lamb on Vega Island, close to the most northerly point in Antarctica.
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Note: Cryptogams are algae, lichens, fungi, mosses, and ferns. They differ from trees and plants in not having flowers or seeds. Their reproductive apparatus is hidden.
Some comments on other accounts:
Turku, Finland is not Turkey. Mrs Lamb was Finnish.
Lamb/Mackenzie could not be “diagnosed” with “gender dysphoria’ before 1971, because Norman Fisk did not propose the term until 1973. She was probably told she was Transsexual.
Surely “Disfonia Syndrome” is a misprint.
While Lamb met and was influenced by Annie Lorrain Smith, she did not direct or supervise him, as she retired in 1932 (age 77) and Lamb did not start at the British Museum until 1935.
There is no Instituto Lilloa in Tucamán or anywhere else. There is there the Instituto Miguel Lillo, and its journal is named Lilloa, to which Lamb frequently contributed.
After transition Mackenzie continued publishing as I M Lamb (for consistency). Where she is referenced on other lichenologists' work it is as I M Lamb. WorldCat has changed her name to Elke Mackenzie in its catalogue, but not of course in the actual publications. Any lichenologist reading up on her work needs to know both names.
Many trans persons retain the same surname. The decision to change it is in addition to transitioning. To refer to her as Mackenzie is ironically to use one of her male first names.
___________________________
Publications by Lamb/Mackenzie:
“Lichenological notes from the British Museum herbarium.-I”. Journal of Botany74, 1936.
“Lichenological notes from the British Museum herbarium.-II”. Journal of Botany76, 1938.
“A new cephalodiate Lecidea from Japan”. Journal of Japanese Botany14,1938.
“Lichenological notes from the British Museum herbarium.--III “.Journal of Botany 77, 1939.
“What is Lecidea pringlei Tuckerman?”. The Bryologist, 42, 1939.
“A review of the genus Neuropogon (Nees & Flot.) Nyl., with special reference to the antarctic species”. Journal of the Linnaean Society of London, Botany52, 1939.
“Lichens from east Greenland collected by the Wager Expedition, 1935-36”. Nyt Magazin for Naturvidenskaberne 1940.
“The lichen genus Placopsis in Tristan da Cunha. Results of the Norwegian Scientific Expedition to Tristan da Cunha, 1937-1938”, 3, 1940. Norske videnskaps-akademi, Oslo.
“Lichenological notes from the British Museum herbarium.-IV. Rhizocarpon sect. Catocarpon in the British Isles”. Journal of Botany 78, 1940.
“Lichenological notes from the British Museum herbarium.--V”. Journal of Botany 79, 1941.
“A lichenological excursion to the west of Scotland”. Transactions of the Botanical Society, Edinburgh33, 1942.
“A monograph of the lichen genus Placopsis”. Lilloa13:1947.
“Further data on the genus Neuropogon”. Lilloa 14, 1948.
"New, Rare or Interesting Lichens from the Southern Hemisphere". Lilloa 14,1948.
“New lichens from northern Patagonia, with notes on some related species”. Farlowia, 4, 1955.
“Codex Lichenum”. Taxon, 5, 1956.
“Compsocladium, a new genus of lichenized ascomycetes”. Lloydia 19, 1956.
“Symbiosis: Part II. The remarkable lichens”. Natural History,47, 1958.
“La vegetaci6n liquénica de los Parques Nacionales Patag6nicos”. Anales de Parques Nacionales, 7, 1959.
“Lichens”. Scientific American,201(4), 1959
“Two new species of Stereocaulon occurring in Scandinavia”. Botaniska Notiser 114, 1961.
with Alexander Zahlbruckner. Index nominum lichenum inter annos 1932 et 1960 divulgatorum. Ronald Press Co, 1963.
"Antarctic Lichens. I. The Genera Usnea, Ramalina, Himantormia, Alectoria, Cornicularia". British Antarctic Survey Scientific Reports,38, 1964.
“The Stereocaulon massartianum assemblage in East Asia”. Journal of Japanese Botany,40, 1965.
“Die Gattung Stereocaulon, Lichenes, Stereocaulaceae. (Flechten des Himalaya 3)”. Khumba Himal: Ergebnisse des Forschungsunternehmens Nepal Himalaya 1,
Chemotaxonomy in the lichens. International Lichenological Newsletter 1(3), 1967.
with A. Henssen. “The Genera Buellia and Rinodina”. Antarctic lichens, 2.; Scientific reports (British Antarctic Survey),61, 1968.
“The species of Stereocaulon with protosacculate cephalodia”. Journal of Japanese Botany,43, 1968.
Antarctic terrestrial plants and their ecology, pp. 733-751. In M. W. Holdgate (ed.), Antarctic Ecology, 1970.
“Stereocaulon arenarium (Sav.) a hitherto overlooked boreal-arctic lichen”. Occasional Papers of the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany2, 1972.
With W. A. Weber, H. M. Jahns& S. Huneck. “Calathaspis, a new genus of the lichen family Cladoniaceae”. Occasional Papers of the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany4: 1972.
Stereocaulon Sterile (Sav) and Stereocaulon Groenlandicum (Dahl) Two More Hitherto Overlooked Lichen Species.Harvard, 1973.
“Further observations on Verrucaria serpuloides the only known permanently submerged marine lichen”. Occasional Papers of the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany6, 1973.
“The lichen genus Argopsis”. Fr. Journal of the Hattori Botanical Laboratory, 38, 1974.
With A. Ward. “A preliminary conspectus of the species attributed to the imperfect lichen genus Leprocaulon”. Journal of the Hattori Botanical Laboratory, 38, 1974.
With S Huneck. “I'-Chloropannarin, a new depsidone from Argopsis friesiana: notes on the structure of pannarinand on the chemistry of the lichen genus Argopsis”. Phytochemistry, 14, 1975.
With D J Galloway & G C Bratt. “Two new species of Stereocaulon from New Zealand and Tasmania”. . Lichenologist, 8, 1976.
“Structurally unusual types of cephalodia in the lichen genus Stereocaulon (subgen. Holostelidium)”. Journal of Japanese Botany51, 1976.
“A conspectus of the lichen genus Stereocaulon (Schreb.) Hoffm”. Journal of the Hattori Botanical Laboratory, 43, 1977.
“Keys to the species of the lichen genus Stereocaulon (Schreb.) Hoffin”. Journal of the Hattori Botanical Laboratory44, 1978.
edited by S. Haddelsey & R. Lewis-Smith, The Secret South: A Tale of Operation Tabarin, 1943–46. Greenhill Books, 2018.
By Others:
David James. That Frozen Land.The Falcon Press, 1949.
Andrew Taylor, . “Dr. Ivan Mackenzie Lamb.” Polar Record26, 159, 1990: 343.
Geirge A Llano. “I. Mackenzie Lamb, D.Sc. (Elke Mackenzie) (1911-1990)”. The Bryologist,94, 1991.
Vernon Ahmadjian. “Obituary: Ivan Mackenzie Lamb (Elke Mackenzie) (1911-1990)” Lichenologist, 23,1,1991.
“Lamb, Ivan Mackenzie (1911-1990)”. JSTOR Global Plants. Online.
Geoffrey C Ainsworth edited by John Webster & David Moore. "Lamb (ivan Mackenzie (Elke Mackenzie Lamb)" Brief Biographies of British Mycologists. British Mycological Society, 1996. Online.
Laurence Senelick. “Dedication”. The Changing Room: sex drag and theatre. Routledge, 2000.
Andrew Taylor edited by Daniel Heidt & Whitney Lackenbauer. Two Years Below the Horn: Operation Tabarin, Field Science and Antarctic Sovereignty, 1944-1946.Universiy of Manitoba Press, 2017.
Sabrina Imbler. “The Unsung Heroine of Lichenology”. JSTOR Daily,Sepember 26, 2020. Online.
Isabel Douglas. “LGBT History Month: Elke Mackenzie”. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, February 1, 2021. Online.
Walt Heyer, raised in Los Angeles, had a grandmother who loved to dress him as a girl, and an uncle who sexually abused him. He married in 1965 and they had children. His wife knew about his cross-dressing. He became national manager of port operations for American Honda Motor Company, a job that required frequent travel to ports around the US.
Since childhood his inner woman, who named herself Christal West, had expressed herself in his cross-dressing. Walt moved his family to Sonoma, north of San Francisco so that he would have easy access to the city’s Tenderloin area. At first he went to the drag bars, particularly the Roadrunner, in male guise, until he found a friend who let him change, and then in female guise.
From there he was given the name of a doctor in Beverly Hills who prescribed female hormones, and then a plastic surgeon for top surgery. At this point his sex life with his wife had ended. In 1981 Heyer obtained the name of gay psychologist Paul Walker from the grapevine. Walker was building a practice catering to transsexuals, and was located on nearby Union Street. Heyer enrolled as a patient. Walker recognized Heyer, having seen his female persona in the Roadrunner. According to Heyer’s account, at the end of the first session Walker diagnosed gender dysphoria, and in the third session gave Heyer a letter recommending trans surgery. This despite the 1979 Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association Standards of Care (of which Walker was the major co-author) requiring two such letters and at least one year of cross-living before surgery.
Heyer actually went to Trinidad, Colorado and saw Dr Biber. His intention was to have a surgical sex change without telling his boss, his wife or anyone else. The choice of Biber was almost unavoidable he recalled:
“He was the only one anyone talked about. At the time he was the only one doing the surgery. I had tried to get into UCLA and other places, but everyone had shut down their clinics. There was nothing left. You had one choice.” (Smith p 15)
Biber read the letter from Walker and asked his usual questions. Heyer gave a check for $7,500, and agreed to the additional hospital fees. He went then to the hospital, felt bad about what he was doing, and returned to Biber’s office with a change of mind. He got a 50% refund. Back home Heyer finally told his wife. Divorce proceedings were started.
In 1983 Heyer again gained approval from Walker, and again went to Trinidad. Some things had changed. Heyer had started using the name Andrea West. Andrea had had buttocks implants, a nose job and electrolysis. However her resolve had wavered, and she had had her breast implants removed, but later had them replaced. As Walt she was still working for Honda and had been transferred to southern California. Walt’s drinking had become more intense. On return to Trinidad it was Andrea West who signed the papers, but then the name Laura Jenson popped into her head and that is who she became. It was still her intention to continue to work as Walt, and to be Laura out-of-work. She finally told her mother what she was doing. She actually continued to work as Walt. However her attorney maintained that she could not legally continue to work using the name Walt. She procrastinated for several months, until October 1983 when during a business meal and appearing as Walt, she explained that she had already had the surgery. The stunned boss took the issue to the president. Two weeks later she was offered six months severance pay, and she was to disappear and not discuss the termination with anyone.
Laura
Laura Jensen could not find another job, but still had alimony, child support and mortgage to pay. She was still drinking, and started taking cocaine. Most of her friends had disappeared, but one offered to help get her sober and took her to an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting. One AA member offered a garage to sleep in, and others offered odd jobs, but one of the others, also trans, took her to a bar, and she relapsed into alcohol and cocaine. AA again helped her out of that. Her son was the only family member still in contact, although she dressed as a man to meet him.
Laura’s break came when she was taken in by a Christian family, with a father who was a psychologist with a masters in theology. Laura ended up staying nine months, and returning often over the next twelve years. The family led her to accept Jesus as her savior, and helped her to decide to return to being Walt. Walt obtained a job in an auto body shop owned by a Christian man who also convinced him to start attending Bible classes. However, as Walt later wrote:
“Laura tormented Walt’s thoughts, enticing him to switch back. I began feeling more and more fragile, slowly crumbling under the weight of wanting relief from the intense emotional pain.” (Smith p 91)
It was Laura who climbed onto the roof of a restaurant and shouted that she wanted to die. This led to Walt losing his job and a court ordered recovery treatment. It was Laura who was admitted into a residential Women Recovery Association program. She began attending a local church in Foster City, south of San Francisco, where the pastor, while admitting that he had no experience with trans persons, welcomed her and they met regularly.
Laura took courses to become a counselor for people in drug or alcohol recovery - this at the same time as working a job, and working with her church and with AA. She began noticing differences between her two personas. Laura preferred healthy food; Walt was a junk-food fan. Walt’s voice was lower, while Laura’s was pitched higher. Their handwriting and opinions often were quite different. She remained Laura at school and at work, rather than risking discovery by changing whenever the impulse to do so struck. She attended men’s AA group meetings as Walt, and women’s AA group meetings as Laura. She knew that the major imperative was to stay sober. She did and she graduated in 1989 with an advanced certificate in drug and alcohol studies. Working with her pastor, Laura asked if it would be okay to come to church as Walt. After discussion and prayer it was arranged that the pastor gave a sermon on the theme of a sinner saved by repentance, and then told of Walt’s journey, and then Walt in person was well received.
Walt began working at CityTeam, a non-denominational Christian non-profit in San Jose. But at weekends she was still Laura. Walt was baffled by this as were friends and psychologists. Walt/Laura made a follow-up appointment with Paul Walker who had diagnosed gender dysphoria in 1981. By Heyer’s account, Walker responded to her claim of four years of sobriety, by admitting that he too was in a 12-step program, that he had been addicted to drugs and alcohol after a ski accident, and that he was HIV+. Before he died in 1991, Walker wrote to her that therapists should address alcohol and drug issues before moving on to gender issues. He assured Jensen/Heyer “that I share, as best I can, some of the pain that this mistake has caused you”. Heyer seized onto the word “mistake”.
Walt’s 12-month contract with CityTeam also ended in 1991, and he applied for a position as a counselor in a psychiatric ward in southern California - but as Laura, as all his papers were in that name. The job required working with severe psychological disorders, including self-mutilation and schizophrenia. The psychiatrist who oversaw her work took note of her as a person, and proposed clinical meetings in his free time. After three weeks he had her consult with another colleague, who used a term to explain Laura’s condition: Dissociative disorder (more popularly known as Multiple-Personality disorder). Laura sought a third and fourth opinion. Both confirmed: Dissociative disorder. A Dissociative disorder specialist used hypnosis, and identified 13-15 separate personalities. Penmanship varied according to which persona was active: Andrea’s signature was tight, small, and slanted left; Laura’s was bold and slanted right. If Walt/Laura had Dissociative disorder, it explained why transition had not solved her problems.
Laura returned to the San Francisco Bay area to be close to those who supported her best. She restarted at AA, and after an initial hesitancy, was welcomed back to the Foster City church. A new therapist advised that working a job interfered with the required therapy: Laura couch surfed, ran errands for a restaurant in exchange for meals and applied for permanent disability income. Whilst praying with her therapist, she had a religious experience, a vision of Jesus who took her into his arms. For the next few years Walt and Laura alternated. A friend who had taken in Laura some years before was dying of cancer at age 46. Walt became part of her support network, and got to know a woman named Kaycee who was doing the same. They started to meet in addition to supporting the friend. Kaycee accepted him while knowing his past. He had his breast implants finally removed and changed what documents he could. After five years Walt and Kaycee were formally dating. They married in May 1997. The gender switching stopped.
In 2006 Heyer published his first autobiography, Trading My Sorrows, in which he discusses his diagnosis of Dissociative Disorder. In 2008 he set up sexchangeregret.com. At first response was small. However in 2015, when Caitlyn Jenner was front-page news, Heyer was suddenly in demand. “I did forty radio and TV shows in five days”. He appeared at events with Paul McHugh and Ryan T Anderson, both of whom have also written books decrying transsexuality. Heyer endorsed both McHugh’s and Ray Blanchard’s ideas. He repeats conspiracy ideas that George Soros and Barack Obama have respectively financed and appointed activists to push a transgender agender:
“They want to destroy the moral fabric of society, of the Church, and if you can destroy gender, then you can destroy the basis of man-woman marriage, and then in due time destroy the foundation of society, which is the male-female family and spawning of offspring. So George Soros is totally against God and family.” (Smith p 145)
In 2018 Heyer edited an anthology of accounts by 30 others who detransitioned.
By Heyer:
Trading My Sorrows: A True Story of Betrayals, Bad Choices, Love, and the Journey Home. Xulon Press, 2006. Reissued as A Transgender’s Faith. CreateSpace, 2015.
Perfected with Love. Xulon Press. 2009.
Paper Genders: Pulling the Mask Off the Transgender Phenomenon. Make Waves Publishing, 2011.
Paper Genders: Pulling the Mask Off the Transgender Phenomenon.Make Waves Publishing, 2011.
Gender, Lies and Suicide: A Whistleblower Speaks out. CreateSpace, 2013.
Kid Dakota and the Secret at Grandma’s House. CreateSpace, 2015. A novel based on Heyer’s childhood.
(ed)Trans Life Survivors. Bowker Identifier Services, 2018.
Articles of Impeachment against Sex Change Surgery. Walter Heyer, 2020.
"Walt Heyer". TransChristians, February 21, 2010. Online.
"Walt Heyer?" Maple Centers, October 2, 2011 – January 25, 2012. Online.
Jeff Schapiro. "Transsexual Returns to Original Gender After Relationship With Christ". Christian Post, January 11, 2012. Online.
Sheila Jeffreys. Gender Hurts: A feminist analysis of the politics of transgenderism. Routledge, 2014: 73-4.
Jay Akbar. “The man who's had TWO sex changes: Incredible story of Walt, who became Laura, then REVERSED the operation because he believes surgeons in US and Europe are too quick to operate”. The Daily Mail, 26 January 2015. Online.
Zinnia Jones. “Walt Heyer and ‘sex change regret’ ”. Gender Analysis, July 31, 2015. Online.
Ryan T Anderson. When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. Encounter Books, 2018: 87-91.
Martin J Smith. Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town, and Stories from an Unlikely Gender Crossroad BowerHouse, 2021: Passim.
“Walt Heyer was never transgender, yet underwent SRS. Distraught that he was approved for surgery, he hopes to make the psychological community stop SRS.
Walt has a unique circumstance. Walt was eventually diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, archaically called multiple personality disorder. One of his identities happened to be a woman and that identity gradually came into dominance. Not realizing this, he interpreted his feelings as transexual and had SRS. Eventually counselors gave him an accurate diagnosis which provided the proper treatment to eliminate his other false identities. Heyer's situation is undoubtedly tragic.”
Walt Heyer is probably the best known detransitioner or changeback although of course there are many who have done so. Like Alan Finch he set up a webpage and advocated against other people choosing to transition. Some revert to their original gender and admit to a personal mistake. However others go on a crusade to decry that others may decide to do what did not work out for them personally. Back in 2014 I estimated detransition as around 3% based on the data in this encyclopedia. Most other estimates are roughly the same. This Wikipedia article summarizes various studies and concludes: “It is estimated that the number of detransitioners ranges from less than one percent to as many as five percent”. As others have pointed out a 95% success rate makes sex-change surgery one of the most successful branches of medicine.
Heyer claims that 40% of trans persons attempt suicide. He does not differentiate between those who so attempt because they are not able to transition, those who are oppressed by others for being trans and those who actually regret transition.
Heyer is of course right that trans persons with substance abuse/alcoholism should get that sorted out before proceeding with transition. He is also right that those with a Dissociative disorder should get that sorted out first. The persona who becomes the final dominant persona may not want to transition.
There is a divide among trans persons between those who regard therapy as essential and those for whom such a requirement is at best an irritant. I was never offered nor ever wanted professional counselling. I was accepted after one session with Russell Reid. By that time I was working as female, and living so 24/7. I had several years in trans support groups and had talked with, even counselled, many others. I knew what I was doing, and 35 years later have no regrets. Apparently the only trans women that Heyer had met by 1981 were those in the Roadrunner bar. He was on the down-low, and had definitely not done a social transition prior to surgery.
If it actually was as Heyer tells it, Paul Walker did indeed make a serious mistake.
Heyer credits his destiny to grandma's purple dress, father's chastisement and uncle's sexual abuse. However many children experience worse and become neither trans nor dissociative. It is not that simple.
