10 Famous Trans Women
by kalyani10
While mainstream norms of sexuality and gender roles still prevail, increasingly there is space for gender variant people in popular media. It is thus not uncommon to see transwomen in the news for reasons other than their gender choice. At its simplest, a transwoman is a transgender person with a female gender identity and here are some of them you might have seen in the papers or on the TV.
- Calpernia Sarah Addams
Along with being a spokesperson and activist for transgender rights and issues, Addams is an American author, actress and musician in her own right. After a childhood spent in Nashville, Tennessee, she served as a Hospital Corpsman with the Navy and United States Marine Corps. During her last year in the military she came out as a transgender woman. The year 1999 proved a turning point in her life – the same year, while working as a performer, Addams began dating PFC Barry Winchell. As the relationship became known at Winchell's Army base, he became a victim of harassment by fellow soldiers and was ultimately murdered. Winchell's murder and the subsequent trial resulted in widespread press and a formal review of the U.S. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) military policy, ordered by President Bill Clinton. The case became a prominent example used to illustrate the failure of DADT to protect LGBT service members. Currently Addams remains busy with her production company, Deep Stealth Productions which she co-founded with Andrea James for the purpose of creating educational and entertainment material around gender-identification issues and the experiences of differently-gendered people. Addams also writes a blog on gender issues for Psychology Today.
- Rebecca Anne "Becky" Allison
Rebecca Allison is an American cardiologist and former President of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA). After graduating magna cum laude from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1971, Allison began practicing primary care/internal medicine and in 1985 she returned to school to study cardiology, working in that field beginning in 1987. In 1993, Allison made the transition to a female gender identity while living in Jackson, Mississippi, for which lost her practice within a year. However Allison didn’t give up and she moved to Phoenix, Arizona, for a position with CIGNA where she served as the chief of cardiology from 1998 to 2012, after which she entered private practice. In 2008 she was elected Chair of the American Medical Association Advisory Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues.
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- Renée Richards
Richards wears several hats with consummate ease - she is an ophthalmologist, author and former professional tennis player. Born Richard Raskind in New York City, she excelled in tennis since an early age. While continuing to win tournaments, Richard graduated from Yale and then attended medical school at the University of Rochester. Following this she even served in the United States Navy as a Lieutenant Commander. However in mid-1970s she began planning to come out and in 1975, Richards underwent sex reassignment surgery. She was denied entry into the 1976 US Open by the United States Tennis Association, citing an unprecedented women-born-women policy. She disputed the ban and the New York Supreme Court ruled in her favor in 1977. This victory of Renee Richards is still considered to be a landmark decision in favor of transsexual rights in the US.
- Christine Jorgensen
A European-American, Christine Jorgensen was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery in order to change her gender from male to female. She was born George William Jorgensen, Jr. and grew up in the Bronx area. Jorgensen graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in 1945 and shortly thereafter was drafted into the Army. Returning to New York after military service and increasingly concerned at her anomalous sexual development, Jorgensen planned to go to Europe for sex-reassignment surgery. In Copenhagen, she met Dr. Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy. Jorgensen stayed in Denmark and under Dr. Hamburger's direction, was allowed to begin hormone replacement therapy, eventually undergoing a series of operations to change her sex. When Jorgensen returned to New York in 1953, she became an instant celebrity; she also went on to work as an actress and nightclub entertainer, and even recorded several songs. Eventually Jorgensen put her fame to use as a spokesperson for transsexual and transgender people.
- Sister Mary Elizabeth
Sister Mary Elizabeth Clark is a transgender activist and the main mover of the AIDS Education and Global Information System database. Born as Michael Clark, she served as a United States Navy chief petty officer as well as an instructor in anti-submarine warfare. She later underwent a sex change operation and became Joanna Clark. Though she signed up with the US Army, she was discharged when her history became known to the authorities. She brought suit against the Army and won a settlement of $25,000 and an honorable discharge. During the 1970s, she was an activist for the rights of transsexuals and was instrumental in winning the right of Californians to have their gender changed on their birth-certificates and driver's licenses.
The next stage of her life of service began In the 1980s, when she felt a religious calling and worked to become an Episcopal nun. Conflict with the church led to her leaving it shortly after she took her vows in 1988, and she has since become a nun of the American Catholic Church, a small independent church using Catholic rites.
In 1990, inspired by meeting an isolated young man with AIDS in rural Missouri, she returned to her family home in San Juan Capistrano, taking on the bulletin board system AEGiS begun by Jamie Jemison which she eventually built into the largest AIDS information database in the world.
- Jan Morris
A well known historian, author and travel writer, Jan Morris was actually born as James Humphrey Morris in Clevedon, Somerset, England. She continued to publish in her male identity until 1972 when she began the process of medical transition. For this Morris traveled to Morocco to undergo sex reassignment surgery because doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and his wife Elizabeth Tuckniss divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do at the time. They divorced later, but remained together and in May 2008 were legally reunited when they formally entered into a civil partnership. Now Morris lives mostly in Wales, the land of her father and she considers herself Welsh. As a writer, she is best known for the Pax Britannica trilogy (1968-78), a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, notably Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong, and New York City
- April Ashley
April Ashley is an English model and restaurant hostess. She was the first British person to be outed as a transsexual, when in 1961, the Sunday People carried her story. Born George Jamieson, Ashley endured a difficult childhood because of her problem in identifying with the male gender and endured several traumatic experiences as a young adult including attempted suicide, a dishonorable discharge from Merchant Navy, admission in a mental health facility for electric shock treatment and even rape. She moved to Paris in the 1950s and using the name April E became a Drag Queen. At the age of 25 Ashley underwent a seven hour long sex reassignment surgery in Casablanca, Morocco under Dr Georges Burou. After she returned to England, she began working as a model and a small-time actress. In 1963 she wed Hon. Arthur Corbett (later 3rd Baron Rowallan), the Eton-educated son and heir of Lord Rowallan, who also enjoyed cross-dressing. However, in 1970 Corbett had the marriage annulled on the grounds that Ashley had been born male, even though he knew about her history when they married. Finally in 2005, after the passage of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, Ashley was legally recognized as a female and issued with a new birth certificate. In the 2012 Birthday Honours, Ashley was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to transgender equality.
- Dana International
Dana International is the stage name of Sharon Cohen, an Israeli pop singer of Yemenite Jewish ancestry. Born male, Dana discovered that she was transsexual at an early age. When only thirteen years old, she decided to come out and later went through sex reassignment surgery. She has released eight albums and three additional compilation albums, cementing her position as one of Israel's most successful musical acts ever. She is most famous for having won the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 in Birmingham with the song "Diva". Dana International has been credited with being one of the world's best known transsexuals.
- Amanda Simpson
While transwomen in the arts and showbiz are common enough, Amanda Simpson has charted a relatively different path for herself in aiming for recognition in aerospace and then government service in the United States. After a stellar career in flight training and aeronautical engineering, Simpson joined politics. She became the Senior Technical Advisor in the Bureau of Industry and Security and was the first openly transgender woman political appointee in any administration. Today she is the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the United States Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology) and works in the United States Department of Defense.
- Aya Kamikawa
While emancipated cultures of US and West Europe have made it easier for transgender people to come out and gain professional and social success in mainstream society, things are not so easy in traditional cultures with long established fixed gender identities. This is why the success of transwomen like Aya Kamikawa is all the more remarkable. Kamikawa is a Tokyo municipal official, the first transgender person to seek or win elected office in Japan. At the time she submitted her application to run for the office in 2003, Kamikawa was a writer. Despite an announcement that the government would continue to consider her male officially, she stated that she would work as a woman. Her platform was to improve rights for women, children, the elderly, the handicapped, and LGBT people. Kamikawa’s success was driven home by the fact that In April 2007, she was re-elected to her second term in the office.
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