“It’s easier to change a body than to change a mind.” – Roberta Cowell . Picture: Roberta Cowell (April 8, 1918 - October 11, 2011), London, United Kingdom, c. 1962. . Six years ago, as Matthew Bell of The Independent wrote in a 2013 article, “a 93-year-old woman died alone. She was found lying on the bedroom floor of her sheltered-housing accommodation in West London. The flat was so cluttered that the wardens struggled to remove her body. Half-a-dozen people attended the cremation, and news of her death did not spread beyond Twickenham. This is not how Roberta Cowell should be remembered. Yet, in a way, it was the ending she chose, after leading one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th century. Before withdrawing from the world, she had been a racing driver, a Spitfire pilot, and a prisoner of war.” . Roberta Cowell, a trans pioneer who was born ninety-nine years ago today, also was the first known person in Britain, and among the first in the world, to undergo gender affirming surgery. . In 1952, the media attention paid to Christine Jorgensen introduced the world to the concept of “sex reassignment,” although the press conflated the ideas of sex assignment, gender identity, and sexual orientation; consequently, stories almost always linked the stereotypical effeminacy of homosexual men with the “desire” to “become” a woman. Cowell's story threw a wrench in that narrative, however, as she had fathered children, raced cars, and was decorated in World War II, all of which fit stereotypes of traditional heterosexual masculinity. . In 1954, Cowell sold her story to Picture Post magazine and enjoyed some celebrity for a short period. . In the years that followed, however, Cowell struggled financially and, later in life, she became a recluse. Per her instructions, as Bell’s article references, Cowell's October 2011 death went unreported, and only a handful of people attended her burial. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #RobertaCowell




















