Ewa Kłobukowska (1946 - ) athlete.

Ewa was raised in Warsaw.
She became a champion sprinter and won a gold and a bronze medal for Poland in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. In 1965 she set a world record for 100 metres with a time of 11.1 seconds. In 1966 she won two gold medals at the European Athletics Championships in Budapest.

In 1967 she failed the new Olympics gender test when she was discovered to have an XXY phenotype. Her Olympic medals were taken back. She was subsequently banned from professional sports.

She later married and gave birth to a son.

She was rehabilitated in 1999.

• “Ewa Kłobukowska”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewa_K%C5%82obukowska.

Stella Walsh (Olson) (1911 –1980) athlete.

Stanisława Walasiewiczówna was born near Rypin, Poland. Her family emigrated to the United Sates when she was three months old. They lived in Cleveland.

In 1927 she won a place on the US Olympic team, but was disqualified in that she was not a citizen, and could not become one until age 21. So she ran in Polish diaspora sporting events, and won five gold medals at the Pan Slavic games in Poznań. She then joined the Polish national team. She also continued to run in US amateur events under the name of Stella Walsh.

In 1930 she was voted the most popular Polish athlete. She ran for Poland in the 1932 and 1936 Olympics winning five gold, three silver and one bronze medal.
At the time it was commented that she had rather extraordinary musculature and excessive body hair, and that she ran like a man. At the 1936 games, Walasiewiczówna was narrowly beaten by Helen Stephens of the US. This aroused suspicion and Stephens was obliged to submit to a genital inspection.

After 1936, Stella competed only in amateur events. In 1947 she became a US citizen. She won her last US title at age 40.

In 1956 she married boxer Neil Olson; they separated after eight weeks, but never divorced, and she continued to use his surname.

In 1975 she was inducted into the US Track and Field Hall of Fame. She retired to a suburb in Cleveland and dedicated herself to working with children in athletics.

In 1981, as a bystander, she was fatally shot during a robbery at a Cleveland department store. It came out during the autopsy that she had both male and female chromosomes, mosaicism, and ambiguous genitals. The US Olympic Committee announced that there would be no attempt to posthumously retract Walsh's Olympic medals.

Walsh was sometimes beaten by other women, and her finishing times were in line with the women's statistics of the thirties - not the men's.

• “Stanislawa Walaslewicz”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82awa_Walasiewicz.
• “Stanislawa Walaslewicz”. Mujeres Riot. http://mujeresriot.webcindario.com/Walasiewicz.htm. Lots of photographs.
  

Santhi Soundarajan (1981 - ) athlete.

Santhi was born and raised in Tamil Nadu, the daughter of parents who worked in a brick kiln.

She competed in the middle distance track events. She holds the national record for the women’s 3000 metres steeplechase clocking 10:44.65 seconds, and in 2005 at Bangalore she won the 880 metres, 1,500 m and 3,000 m events. At the Asian Championships in 2005 at Incheon, South Korea she won the 800 m silver medal.

She won the same silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. However she then failed a subsequent sex test and was stripped of the medal, despite the fact that persons with similar intersex conditions are now accepted by the Olympics.

She later attempted suicide. However the Tamil Nadu government stood by her and awarded her 1.5 million rupees for her Asiad performance. She now is working as a coach in her home district of Pudukottai.

• “The sad story of Santhi Soundarajan”. The Times of India. 9 January 2007. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/The-sad-story-of-Santhi-Soundarajan/articleshow/1109135.cms.
• “Shanthi Soundarajan weaving Olympian dreams all over again”. The Times of India. 2 Jan 2009.
• “Santhi Soundarajan”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santhi_Soundarajan.

Louis Gooren (1943 - ) endocrinologist.

Louis Gooren was born in Wanssum, in the Netherlands. He was educated at the medical school of the Catholic University of Nijmegen, 1962-70, and then trained in internal medicine and endocrinology at the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) of Amsterdam, 1972-6.

In 1975 he founded the gender clinic at the Free University Hospital. In 1976 he studied with John Money at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He was registered as a specialist in in internal medicine and endocrinology in 1977, and completed his PhD on testicular hormones in 1981.

In 1988 he became the Professor of Endocrinology at the special chair of Transsexology at the Free University.

He is also interested in male aging, and co-edited two books on the subject.

He is highly critical of Michael Bailey’s book. He was featured in the 2005 television film, Middle Sexes.

He has treated over 2,200 transsexuals. He was one of the first sex-change doctors to accept patients as young as five years old.

He retired in 2008, but still works at the Free University, and also works as a consultant in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Patients include: Veronique Renard,  Rachel Pollack. 

• Louis Gooren. “Closing Speech”. 23rd Colloquy on European Law:
• Transsexualism, medicine and law. 16 April 1993. www.pfc.org.uk/gender/louis-gooren-speech.
• Norman Swan. “Gender Dysphoria”. The Health Report. 4 Sept 2000. www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s171717.htm.
• Peter Vermij. Een man gevangen in een mannen – lichaam. www.europeants.org/WTPS/Papers/man_gevangen.htm. Partially translated by Arianne van der Ven at www.tsroadmap.com/info/louis-gooren.html.
• Antony Thomas (dir & scr). Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She. With Louis Gooren, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Milton Diamond, Alice Dreger, Joan Roughgarden, Calpernia Addams, Andrea James. USA/UK 74 mins 2005.

María José Martínez Patiño (1961 - ) athlete.

Patiño was Spain’s best female hurdler. She competed at the 1983 World Track and Field Championships in Helsinki, where she passed the Barr Body test based on a buccal smear and was given a Certificate of Femininity.

In 1985, at the Kobe World University Games, she had forgotten her Certificate and was retested. This time she failed the Barr Body test. She was subjected to a complete karotype analysis which took two months to complete, and she was prevented from competing. The Spanish officials asked her to fake an injury, and she did so.

The karotype analysis showed that she was 46,XY, that she is a woman with Androgen-Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS). For the January 1986 Spanish National Games, she was again told to feign an injury, but she insisted on competing, and she came first in the 60m hurdles. Her test result was revealed to the press, and she lost her medals, the running times were erased, she lost her scholarship, her fiancé and was ejected from the national team.

She was supported by Albert de la Chappelle, the Finnish geneticist, and Alison Carlson, the US coach and journalist. A Spanish professor presented the medical evidence to the Olympic Medical Commission at Seoul in 1988. She was reinstated on the grounds that her body could not use the extra testosterone, and thus she had no unfair advantage. She was given a new Certificate of Femininity that exempted her from further sex testing. However her momentum as an athlete was lost. She failed to qualify for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics by hundredths of a second.

She then retired from sports and did a PhD on women in sports. She teaches at the University of Vigo.

*Not the Spanish television personality.

• Robert Peel. “Maria’s Story”. In Eve’s Rib - Searching for the Biological Roots of Sex Differences. New York: Crown Publishers 1994. Excerpt online at http://www.aissg.org/articles/MARIA.HTM.
• María José Martínez-Patiño. “Personal Account A woman tried and tested”. The Lancet. Vol 366. December 2005. http://www.aissg.org/PDFs/Patino-Tried-Tested-Lancet-2005.pdf.
• Chris Alonzo. “Meet Maria Patino, The Latino Woman/Man Athlete Who Already Went Through This Gender Nonsense Decades Ago”. Anyguey: Unidos en chicas, gadgets y sports. 21 August 2009. http://anyguey.guanabee.com/2009/08/maria-patino-transgender-athlete.

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It is a shame that all this nonsense is happening again with Caster Semenya.

Patsy Valdalia (1921 - 1982) performer.

Irving Ale was born in Vacherie, midway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. His father died and his mother took him to New Orleans.

After seeing female impersonators, of whom one of the most prominant was Caldonia, he decided to become one and took his name from the sweet Vidalia onion, that was also slang for a prostitute.

After stints at various clubs in the mid-1940s, he joined the Dew Drop Inn, which was developing as New Orleans’ premier black club, and stayed for over 25 years as emcee, resident singer, waiter and bartender.

He often performed with Bobby Marchan. He also hosted the New Orleans Gay Ball every year at Halloween.

When the club went into decline in the mid-1960s, he took care of his mother whose health was failing, and then after that his own health.

He was an inspiration on the young Little Richard Penniman, who saw Patsy many times.

• J.D. Doyle. “Patsy Vidalia” Queer Music Heritage. www.queermusicheritage.us/drag-vidalia.html.
• Jeff Hannush. “The South's Swankiest Night Spot: The Legend of the Dew Drop Inn” ikoiko.com www.satchmo.com/ikoiko/dewdropinn.html.

Francis Francine (? - ) film actor.

Frank di Giovanni, elevator operator, was the first of the Andy Warhol transvestite superstars.

Francine had been intended as the star of Flaming Creatures, 1962, but disappeared partway through filming, leaving Mario Montez the throne.

He was given star treatment in the Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey film Lonesome Cowboys, 1968, as a the transvestite sheriff. The camera lingers as he puts on drag and makeup. This in a cowboy village partly owned by John Wayne.

He is the subject of Coming Attractions, a poignant documentary about growing old without much to look forward to.

• Beverly Conrad (dir). Coming Attractions. With Francis Francine. US 78 mins 1970.

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One wonders if there is any connection with Francis Francine Hodgkiss? Had Frank di Giovanni perhaps caught her show and remembered her name? Maybe.