Happy Birthday, Jan Morris! Picture: Jan Morris (b. October 2, 1926), North Wales, c. 2005. Photo by Eamonn McCabe, c/o @guardian. "I was three or perhaps four years old when I realized that I had been born into the wrong body, and should really be a girl. I remember the moment well, and it is the earliest memory of my life." So begins Jan Morris's "Conundrum," the Welsh writer's 1974 memoir detailing her journey as a trans woman and an early trans activist. As a young adult, Morris served in World War II and wrote for The Times, where she gained notoriety for accompanying Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on the British Mount Everest Expedition, reporting the success of the journey via coded message. In 1949, Morris married Elizabeth Tuckniss, and the couple eventually had five children. In 1972, Morris sought gender affirming surgery in Morocco because British doctors would not perform the procedure while Morris and Tuckniss were married. While the couple eventually divorced, they never separated and, in May 2008, they entered a civil union. "I have lived with the same person for fifty-eight years," Morris told reporters. "We were married when I was young...and then this sex-change, so-called, happened, so we naturally had to divorce...but we always lived together, anyway. So, I wanted to round this thing off nicely." Morris, who turns ninety today, is considered one of the greatest British writers of the twentieth century. #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #lgbtpride #QueerHistoryMatters #HavePrideInHistory #TransIsBeautiful #JanMorris