On the 2nd of July 1813, a young man successfully passed his examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, earning his doctoral degree qualifying him as a medical surgeon.
His medical education had not been without obstacles. In fact, he was very nearly denied entry into medical school entirely - not because of poor grades or lack of intelligence, but because his short stature, unbroken voice, delicate features, and smooth skin led many to suspect that Barry was a young boy not yet past puberty. The University Senate at Edinbourgh initially attempted to block Barry's application for the final examinations due to this apparent youth. However, David Erskine, the 11th Earl of Buchan, and a close family friend, personally persuaded the Senate to relent. What neither the Senate nor Lord Buchan knew at the time was that young James Barry's stature and voice were not due to his youth, but to his status as a trans man.
So, in 1812, at the age of 23, a young James Barry earned, first his medical degree, and then not a year later, his license to practice as a surgeon. Barry immediately enlisted in the British Army and was enlisted as a Hospital Assistant, taking posts in Chelsea and then Plymouth. Not two years later, in December of 1815, he was promoted to Assistant Surgeon to the Forces (a rank equivalent to lieutenant).
Once again, Lord Buchan came to the young man's aid. His next posting was to Cape Town, South Africa - which had been permanently ceded to the United Kingdom from the Dutch a year prior as part of the treaty following the Napoleonic Wars. Through Lord Buchan, Barry had a letter of introduction to the Governor of Cape Town, a Lieutenant General Lord Charles Somerset.
Charles' daughter had been gravely ill for some time, and Barry was able to nurse the young girl back to full health in what some called a miraculous recovery. Charles then welcomed Barry into the family with open arms. James became his personal physician and the two maintained a close personal friendship for years.
In 1822, at the age of 33, Somerset appointed Barry as Colonial Medical Inspector. This was an extraordinary career jump from Barry's previously low military rank, bringing with it a lot of new responsibility which James was determined not to squander. Over the next ten years of work in the Cape, James was able to effect significant changes such as improved sanitation and water conditions, better conditions for enslaved people, prisoners and the mentally ill, and the creation of a sanctuary for a local leper population.
But his crowning achievement in the field of medicine was performing the first ever known C-Section birth in which both the mother and child survived. The child was named James Barry Munnik in Barry's honor, and the name was passed down through the family for generations. One of that child's later descendants, still bearing the same name, became Prime Minister of South Africa. General James Barry Munnik Hertzog, better known as Barry Hertzog or J. B. M. Hertzog, was one of the principle advocates during the late 1920's and early 1930's for the development of Afrikaner culture and was determined to prevent Afrikaners from being excessively influenced by British culture.
Barry was promoted again to the rank of Surgeon to the Forces on the 22nd of November, 1827, and subsequently posted to Mauritius. A year into his assignment, Lord Somerset took ill, and Barry went AWOL, risking his entire military career, to go care for his sick friend in England. He stayed there until Charles' death in 1831.
James then took a series of postings, to Jamaica, the island of St Helena, the West Indies, Malta, Corfu, and Canada. He dealt with outbreaks of yellow fever, and a cholera epidemic which eventually claimed the lives of over a million people worldwide. Barry rose through the ranks, earning promotion after promotion, relentlessly fighting for better food, sanitation and proper medical care for prisoners and lepers, as well as soldiers and their families wherever he went.
Barry was outraged by unnecessary suffering, and took a heavy-handed and sometimes tactless approach to demanding improvements for the poor and underprivileged which often incited anger from officials and military officers. On several occasions Barry was both arrested and (temporarily) demoted for the extremity of his behavior.
In 1859, over his very vocal protests, Inspector General James Barry was forcefully retired from the military, citing his now advanced age and ill health. James retired to London, and died six years later of dysentery.
The charwoman who laid out his body discovered James' assigned sex at birth and attempted to blackmail Barry's physician, a Major D.R. McKinnon, who had issued the death certificate, threatening to go public with the knowledge if she was not paid. When McKinnon refused, she followed through with her threat. As the situation became more and more public knowledge, George Graham of the General Register Office asked McKinnon about the story's veracity. McKinnon responded in writing. Among his many remarks about having known James for many years, he said this: "[The charwoman] seemed to me to think that she had become acquainted with a great secret & wished to be paid for keeping it, I informed her that all Dr Barry's relatives were dead, & that it was no secret of mine, & that my own impression was that Dr Barry was a Hermaphrodite. But whether Dr Barry was male, female, or hermaphrodite I do not know, nor had I any purpose in making the discovery as I could positively swear to the identity of the body as being that of a person whom I had been acquainted with for a period of eight or nine years."
Barry is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, with a Portland stone headstone, on which is inscribed simply "Dr James Barry, Inspector General of Hospitals"
The year is 1949. The second great war has recently ended, and you have just walked into the Shalimar Room, a bar with a rather seedy reputation in the logging town of Roseberg, Oregon. The band in the corner is playing jazz standards from the wartime days. "Flying Home". "If I Knew Then." "Sophisticated Swing". You sit at the bar and order a beer and listen. The band is good. Very good. Particularly the pianist - a young man with a wide smile and slicked back hair.
The band takes a break and you strike up a conversation with the young man at the piano. He tells you he's been touring the circuit now for almost 14 years with the George Meyer Band, playing gigs everywhere from Seattle to Joplin to Houston to Memphis to Topeka. But he's particularly excited tonight because this place is recording the band's performance onto acetate "instant discs" for rebroadcast on the radio later.
The man you just met is Billy Tipton from Oklahoma City. And you don't know it, but you just met a celebrity. Though this recording at the Shalimar goes relatively unnoticed at the time, pianist Billy Tipton is about to become a household name.
In 1951, Tipton left the George Meyer Band at what is perhaps the height of their popularity and launched his solo career. His first solo gig was playing at the Elks Club in Longview, Washington. There, he started the Billy Tipton Trio, which included Dick O'Neil on drums, and Kenny Richards (and later Ron Kilde) on bass. The trio quickly gained local popularity. Capitalizing on this success, Billy took his jazz trio on tour all up and down the West Coast, playing shows in Washington, Oregon, and California. On one of these trips, at King's Supper Club in Santa Barbara, CA, a talent scout from Tops Records heard them play and offered the trio a recording contract.
Billy and the trio recorded two albums for Tops in 1956 and 57, mostly comprised of covers of jazz standards like "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "What'll I Do". The albums were not an overnight success, but did sell almost 18,000 copies, a quite respectable sum for a small, independent label.
However, talent scouts took note. In 1958, Billy was offered a contract to record 4 more albums for Tops plus a gig as the house band opening for Liberace at the Holiday Hotel in Rio, NV. Billy turned both offers down and instead returned to Spokane, WA, where he semi-retired, though still took occasional work as a talent scout. His trio performed weekly at local venues until the 70s, when his worsening arthritis forced him to stop playing.
Billy never married, but as many as five separate women called themselves "Mrs Tipton" at one time or another. The first was a woman named Non Earl Harrell, whom Billy lived with from 1934 to 1942. Then came a woman known only as "June". Almost nothing is known about June, not even her true name. "June" was just Billy's nickname for her. Billy and June were together for several years before separating. Then, for the next seven years, Billy lived with a woman named Betty Cox, who was just 18 years old when she and Billy met. Cox remembered Billy as "the most fantastic love of my life". In 1954, Billy's relationship with Betty ended, and he began seeing a woman named Maryanne. He and Maryanne bought a house in Spokane together, but only two years later the relationship dissolved after Maryanne discovered he had been involved with a nightclub dancer named Kathleen "Kitty" Kelly.
Billy and Kelly settled down together in 1961. At this time, Billy was still touring weekly with his Trio. Still, the couple found time to adopt children - three sons named John, Scott, and William. In 1977 though, Billy and Kelly separated and Billy resumed his relationship with Maryanne again.
Throughout all of this, Billy kept his assigned sex at birth secret from everyone, even from his wives and children. Tipton reportedly kept the secret by telling his lovers that he had been in a serious car accident that resulted in damaged genitals and broken ribs. Maryann discovered Tipton's birth certificate once, and asked Tipton about it, but was given no reply other than a "terrible look".
In 1989, Tipton developed symptoms which he attributed to the emphysema he had contracted from heavy smoking, but he refused to call a doctor. What was actually happening was that he was suffering from a hemorrhaging peptic ulcer which, left untreated, proved to be fatal. On January 21, 1989, his son William called emergency services. While paramedics were trying to save Tipton's life, they, alongside Tipton's son William, discovered that Billy was a trans man. This was a shock to everybody - his wives, his sons, and his fellow musicians who traveled and worked with him every day of his life.
His fifth wife Kelly, following financial offers from the media, went public with his story. Articles appeared in magazines and newspapers all across the country, including tabloids like the National Enquirer and the Star, but also in more "respectable" news outlets like People, the Seattle Times, and the New York Times. Members of the family including Kelly and his other wives made talk show appearances. It was a complete media circus.
Tipton left two wills after his death - the first one handwritten and unsigned which left everything to William Jr, and the second one typed, notarized, and signed which left everything to John, his first adopted son. However, there was even controversy over whether or not either son could even legally inherit from their father, since Billy and Kelly were never legally married, and Billy's trans status brought even the adoption of their sons into legal question.
The court upheld the first will, despite it being unsigned and unnotarized. William inherited the bulk of Billy Tipton's estate and catalogue of music, with John and Scott inheriting just one dollar each. Both John and Scott legally changed their last names in an effort to disassociate from their father's name, citing transphobic concerns that he had "deceived" them. Later, a judge awarded all three sons an equal share of their adoptive mother's estate, a sum which, after lawyers' fees, amounted to about $35,000 each.
Billy Tipton was the quintessential jazzman. And that is both a compliment and a condemnation. Uniquely talented. Utterly joyful in everything musical. An unabashed philanderer and womanizer. A smoker. A drinker. A carouser. A father of three. A man who felt everything beautiful in the world deeply and completely. He was a man who knew exactly what he wanted out of life - sex, drugs and music. At the end of the day, Billy Tipton was a man.
Andrea Jenkins is a politician, poet, activist and community historian. She was the first Black trans woman to be elected to public office in the United States and continues to work for the whole community.
“Transgender people have been here forever…I look forward to more trans people joining me in elected office and all other kinds of leadership roles in our society." Andrea Jenkins
In 1945, a woman named Lucy Hicks Anderson was arrested for the crime of marrying her husband, Reuben Anderson, a soldier in the US Army.
Lucy Lawson seemingly always knew exactly who she was. In 1886, a beautiful black baby was born to Bill and Nancy Lawson of Waddy, KY. While this child was identified as male, she insisted that she was a girl. She chose the name Lucy and informed her parents that she would be wearing dresses to school.
At this point in history, the term 'transgender' had not yet been coined, and public knowledge about trans people was sadly lacking. Confounded, her mother and father took her to see the local doctor who advised them to raise her as they would any other little girl. Bill and Nancy did just that. And by all accounts, Lucy's childhood and school years were uneventful and happy.
At age 15, Lucy left home, taking domestic work to support herself, then moved west, first to Texas then to New Mexico where she married her first husband, a man named Clarence Hicks, in Silver City, NM. The couple settled in Oxnard, CA, a wealthy community about an hour up the coast from Los Angeles. There, Lucy's culinary skills opened doors for her, and she began to cater elaborate parties for Oxnard's rich and elite. Her rolls and fruitcakes reportedly won many local contests and awards. Lucy worked diligently and tirelessly, and saved nearly every penny she earned from her employment as a domestic worker, a nanny, and a cook. And in 1920, at the age of 34, Lucy managed to save enough to purchase business property — a local brothel.
Lucy's brothel operated between 1920 and 1933, a period in American history known as Prohibition. During this time, selling alcohol was illegal. But as a brothel madam, Lucy had already skipped merrily over the lines of propriety, so she served her customers alcohol anyway.
In 1929, Lucy divorced Clarence Hicks. Not much is known about her marriage or divorce to Clarence, so we can infer that the separation was mutual and uncontested by either party. Lucy kept her business, and kept bootlegging alcohol.
She was busted a few times, but her numerous social connections with wealthy socialites allowed her to avoid any aggressive prosecution. Rumor has it that one wealthy banker even posted her bail so that she could cater his party that evening.
In 1944, Lucy fell in love a second time. At 58 years old, she met and married the love of her life, Reuben Anderson. Reuben was a soldier stationed in Long Island, NY. But their happiness was not to last.
Just one year after their marriage, a sailor claimed he had caught a venereal disease from one of the women at Lucy's brothel. At that time, the law required all sex workers to undergo a medical examination, and the Ventura County examiner insisted on including Lucy. It was at this time that her trans identity was revealed, and subsequently made public. He chose to put her on trial for perjury, arguing that she lied on her marriage licence, impersonated a woman, and stole VA benefits to which military spouses were entitled. After the story ran in a small Pacific coast newspaper, Time Magazine ran an article on Lucy, exposing her as a trans woman to the entire nation.
During her trial, Lucy stated in her defense, "I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman. I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman". However, the court convicted both her and Reuben of perjury, and they were both sentenced to incarceration in a male prison. Lucy in particular was court ordered not to wear women's clothes.
Reuben and Lucy's relationship survived these indignities, somehow. After serving ten long years in a male penitentiary, Lucy and her beloved Reuben retired to Los Angeles, where they quietly lived out the remainder of their lives together. At age 68, Lucy Hicks Anderson died and was mourned by all who knew her.
Lucy Hicks Anderson was not an activist. She was not even known as a trans woman for the vast majority of her life. She simply wanted to live her life, love her loves, and pursue the projects and interests that made her happy. Lucy wanted only one thing out of life, and that was to be the woman she knew herself to be. And it turns out she was willing to fight for that.
On the 20th of May, 1810, a member of the French nobility died. And nobody, including the attending physician who examined the body, knew what to write on their death certificate.
The Chevalier d'Eon had always had a naturally androgenous appearance, a fact which they capitalized on frequently throughout their life. The child of a minor French nobleman, d'Eon enjoyed the benefits of an education, excelling in school, and earning a law degree. After school, they took work as a political writer for a time, and then became secretary to a series of Parisian administrators, working in areas of finance as well as in history and literature.
But in 1756, they joined a secret network of spies known only to King Louis XV, and working without the official knowledge or sanction of the French government. d'Eon's mission was to infiltrate the court of Empress Elizabeth of Russia, and there, conspire with members of a pro-French faction of the Russian government against the Habsburg monarchy of Austria. At the time, Russian border crossings were restricted only to women and children. So, according to d'Eon's memoirs, they were forced to pass convincingly as a woman or risk execution. Thus disguised as "the Lady Beaumont", they served as maid of honor to the Empress.
Years later, d'Eon returned to France, awarded an enormous sum of money for their service to the King, and became Captain of Dragoons - a military title involving mounted cavalry. Later, they served in the Seven Years' War against England. When the war ended, d'Eon themself drafted the peace treaty, and was awarded another handsome sum of money for their efforts, receiving the title "Chevalier" - a French title of nobility roughly translating to "Knight".
In 1763, a series of political machinations saw d'Eon embroiled in a scandal. Having lived in London now for years, d'Eon published a series of letters detailing some (though not all) of their secret dealings as a spy. This breach of diplomatic discretion was scandalous in the extreme, but secured them the sympathy of the English public. In these letters, d'Eon claimed that the new ambassador to England, a man named Guerchy, had tried to poison them at a dinner. Guerchy sued for libel, and d'Eon strangely offered no defense at the trial. They were thus declared an outlaw and went into hiding. Eventually, Louis XV granted d'Éon a pension (possibly a pay-off for d'Éon's silence) and a 12,000-livre annuity, but refused a request to pay off the rest of their debts. d'Eon continued to work as a spy for Louis XV, but lived in political exile in London.
And here is where our story truly begins to get strange.
It was around this time that rumors began circulating in London that d'Eon was actually a woman, despite the fact that they routinely wore their military dragoons uniform, and claimed to be, and have always been a man. A betting pool over their true gender was started on the London Stock Exchange. d'Eon was invited to participate but declined, stating that an examination would be dishonoring whatever the result. After a year without any further updates, the wager was abandoned and the monies returned.
Then, in 1774, King Louis XV died, and d'Eon, sensing an opportunity to return to their homeland, attempted to negotiate an end to their exile. The resulting twenty page treaty permitted d'Eon to return to France, but demanded that they turn over any documents and correspondence from their time as a spy under Louis XV. Additionally, a clause in the treaty demanded that they present themselves as female during the voyage.
So the Chevalier d'Eon, now stylizing themself as the Chevalière d'Eon (a feminized form of the title given to them by Louis XV at the end of the war), and wearing their dragoon uniform, began making plans to return to France. However, now claiming to have always been a woman, they demanded recognition by the French government as such. They claimed that their father had to raise them as a boy, because his father could only inherit from his in-laws if he had a son. King Louis XVI complied with this demand, but required in turn that d'Eon no longer wear the military uniform and instead dress as a woman. Included with the offer was a substantial sum of money for a complete women's wardrobe. Whether it was because d'Eon really was assigned female at birth, as they claimed, or whether it was merely the money and station offered by the new King, d'Eon agreed. So, d'Eon returned to France a woman, and as punishment, was summarily banished to Tonnerre.
For the rest of their life, d'Eon would maintain this presentation, even offering to join with the Americans in the War of Independence, leading a battalion of female fighters against England, though their banishment ultimately prevented it. During this time there are accounts of the Chevalière d'Eon fencing, fighting, and participating in duels with other French nobility, always presenting as the woman they claimed to always have been. After the French Revolution, the king's pension vanished, and d'Eon was forced to sell much of their possessions to survive - though they did not give up their female attire. In 1809 at the age of 80, d'Eon suffered a fall and became paralyzed and bedridden. They died in poverty in 1810 at the age of 81.
But their story doesn't quite end there.
The surgeon who examined d'Éon's body after their death attested in their post-mortem certificate that d'Eon had "male organs in every respect perfectly formed", while at the same time displaying feminine characteristics such as "unusual roundness in the formation of limbs", as well as "breasts remarkably full". Though buried in an unmarked pauper's grave, there exists to this day a memorial in London listing the Chevalier d'Eon as one of the important graves lost to time.
Even by modern standards, the Chevalier/Chevalière d'Eon's gender identity is a bit of an enigma. Some have suggested they may have been intersex. Some choose to interpret their story as transgender or gender fluidity. Some have even coined a term - "eonism" - to describe similar cases of gender nonconformity.
In July of 1862, at age 18, Albert D.J. Cashier, wearing male clothes, and presenting as a man, enlisted in the Army, answering President Lincoln's call for soldiers. Even before this, he had already adopted his male name and presentation for many years prior, working at a shoe factory and on a farm as a hired hand.
Albert was then trained to be an infantryman of the 95th regiment at Camp Fuller and assigned to Company G, where he fought to liberate the Confederate strongholds of Columbus, KY, and Jackson, TN. His regiment was then ordered to become part of the Army of the Tennessee under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. At one point, he was actually captured by the Confederate army, but managed a daring escape, rejoined his regiment, and then laid siege to Vicksburg against the very army that had captured him just days prior. The siege lasted over a month, and was the last remaining Confederate stronghold along the Mississippi River. The importance of this battle cannot be understated. Capturing Vicksburg completed the second phase of Lincoln's "Northern Strategy", called the Anaconda Plan. Lincoln himself called Vicksburg "the key to the war". Under Grant, Albert Cashier fought in at least 40 battles, including Vicksburg and the Battle of Spring Hill.
After the war, Albert returned to civilian life and continued to live and work as a man until his declining mental health finally placed him in a mental institution where his birth sex was discovered and he was stripped of his military pension and forced to wear a dress. Fortunately, Albert was able to prove he was the same person who fought in the war, and his pension was reinstated. He is buried with full military honors in his uniform.
Andrea Jenkins is a politician, poet, activist and community historian. She was the first Black trans woman to be elected to public office in the United States and continues to work for the whole community.
“Transgender people have been here forever…I look forward to more trans people joining me in elected office and all other kinds of leadership roles in our society." Andrea Jenkins
This is the site of the place in Islington where trans people used to meet, socialise and swap advice back in the 1970s, long before search engines and online pharmacies. There were groups like this around the country as described in my book Trans Britain. These were places you could rely on finding someone with the contacts to get you the hormones you wanted — at a price. #TransHistory is the manual for when the trans present gets tricky. Sad if we have to go back there.
After the Armistice of 1918, immediately it was safe to travel to Europe, the mother of the child who grew up to become Ewan Forbes-Semphill, took them to see the foremost experts on transgender people at the time and sourced the early form of drugs that would help avert the irreversible effects of female puberty and allow them to grow up a young man. Transgender hormone therapy is really that old #TransHistory
Frances Thompson is thought to be the first trans woman to testify before a U.S. Congressional Committee. Her 1866 testimony was in relation to a riot in Memphis in which many African-Americans were murdered, raped and injured. Frances was later arrested on charges of “transvestism”, an arrest which was used to discredit the testimony she had made.
Self-determination for trans people is nothing new. Sir Ewan Forbes changed the sex on his birth certificate in the 1940s, announced his new name in the newspaper and legally married his wife. His cousin challenged the change for reasons of inheritance, but the judge ruled in Ewan’s favour.
Lucy Hicks Anderson
While it's important to acknowledge famous names like Christine Jorgensen and Lili Elbe,it's also important to talk about other trans women
who might be less well known,but have had their own big impact on Trans history
Andrea Jenkins is a politician, poet, activist and community historian. She was the first Black trans woman to be elected to public office in the United States and continues to work for the whole community.
“Transgender people have been here forever…I look forward to more trans people joining me in elected office and all other kinds of leadership roles in our society." Andrea Jenkins
Crystal Love Johnson is a community educator, mentor and performer from the Tiwi Islands in Australia. She's a member of the sistergirl commuity, also known as the Yimpininni community.
"I had a hard life growing up as a sistergirl but that was a journey that I had to take to be who I am now." Crystal Love Johnson
It's women's history month and we want to celebrate a woman who's making a difference to others now.
Yaya Mavundla is a South African activist, artist and entrepreneur . Through her art she seeks to amplify the voices of trans women and to create visibility for trans people in society.
Frances Thompson is thought to be the first trans woman to testify before a U.S. Congressional Committee. Her 1866 testimony was in relation to a riot in Memphis in which many African-Americans were murdered, raped and injured. Frances was later arrested on charges of “transvestism”, an arrest which was used to discredit the testimony she had made.
(Accessibility : Painting of a town with burning building, people aiming guns and people shielding children.)
We've been sharing lots of history related articles over the past week - obviously because it's #LGBTHistoryMonth in the UK, but also because there's a lot to be gained by knowing our history.
All too often, timelines of key milestones in trans and/or broader LGBTQ+ history entirely ignore the work and histories of people in the global majority.
That's one of the reasons we love the timeline on the Trans and Intersex History in Africa website.
Elagabalus was made a Roman Emperor at the age of just 14. The Emperor often wore wigs and makeup, and liked to be referred to by feminine titles. Elagabalus reportedly offered a large sum of money to any doctor who could give them a vagina.
James Barry born 1789, Barry was a British Army surgeon. Before he died he left behind a remarkable professional legacy and a simple request: that his body remain unexamined after his death and that he be buried in the clothes he was wearing when he died.
Self-determination for trans people is nothing new. Sir Ewan Forbes changed the sex on his birth certificate in the 1940s, announced his new name in the newspaper and legally married his wife. His cousin challenged the change for reasons of inheritance, but the judge ruled in Ewan’s favour.