Yikes -- Yesterday I forwarded a query that was sent to me from someone
named Paula Hector about the world's "first transsexual" and now
everything thinks that query was mine. It wasn't! (I debated on whether
or not to forward this question to trans-academic--recognized that it
was ill-informed, but thought that since the person said they were
working on some media project, it would be better if they had accurate
information.
So, the person to respond to is paula hector <[log in to unmask]>,
not me, thanks! THe original query is at the bottom of this message.
Best,
Paisley Currah
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Fwd: World's first transsexual]
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 18:19:53 +1100
From: "Katherine Cummings" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Paisley Currah" <[log in to unmask]>
References: <[log in to unmask]>
Dear Paisley,
You'd need to define what you mean by transsexual. The fact that
medical
science caught up with a psycho-sexual phenomenon does not mean that the
phenomenon did not previously exist. The most you could say is that a
certain person was the first recorded and recognised case of
transsexualism.
I don't know if Roberta Cowell qualifies in those terms as the first
English
case. As far as I know, disregarding nationality, Lili Elbe who had her
operation in 1930 would be the first recorded case of a serious attempt
at
surgical intervention in a transgendered person. Lili (formerly Einar
Wegener, was Danish and had her operation(s) in Germany. But there were
cases much earlier which could not be taken as serious medical attempts
at
gender reassignment. One of the Roman emperors (Caligula?) had one of
his
catamites surgically transformed into a "woman" so that he could have
sex
with the poor wretch, but I don't know of any records which tell how
long
the person survived the surgery. There is a rather bad piece of faction
(The Danish Girl) about the Lili Elbe case which gets a lot of the facts
wrong and introduces an American connection which never existed --
rather
reminiscent of the way in which Disney sticks gophers into
Winnie-the-Pooh
cartoons.
Katherine
----- Original Message -----
From: Paisley Currah <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, 15 December 2000 12:46
Subject: [Fwd: World's first transsexual]
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: World's first transsexual
> Date: 14 Dec 00 17:30:57 +0000
> From: paula hector <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: paula hector <[log in to unmask]>
> To: pcurrah <[log in to unmask]>
>
> I work for a documentary production company. I am doing some research
about
> Roberta Cowell and wondered if you might be able to help me on two
matters:
>
> Is she Britain's first transsexual?
> Could she be the world's first transsexual?
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
>
> Paula Hector
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