Oh to be in England now that April Ashley's There!

by Katherine Cummings

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

She has truly been an example, an inspiration and an icon to the transgendered world.

April Ashley was born George Jamieson in June 1935 to a working class family in Liverpool, England. She realised very early in life that her feminine appearance was going to cause her problems, at school and in society, and by the time she was fourteen she went to sea in the merchant marine but became depressed and tried to commit suicide. By the time she was sixteen she was in a high security mental hospital with desperation her only companion. She was given shock treatment and testosterone to make her more masculine.

She escaped this barbaric treatment and found a new life in London and then the famous cabaret show at the Carrousel Club in Paris in 1955, where she became one of the stars of the impersonator show, along with Bambi and Coccinelle. The three of them must have been a stunning addition to the Carrousel's attractions.

Five years later, in 1960, April took the inevitable decision to undergo gender reassignment in Casablanca. At that time the risks were far greater than they are now and she was told there was only a 50 percent chance of survival.

She did not return to the Carrousel after reassignment but took up a modelling career and lived the high life of society parties, sex and delicious sin. She slept with Omar Sharif and with Peter O'Toole and, later, (in 1982) with George Hutchence. She also had a weakness for "toy boys" and confesses to having slept with many adoring undergraduates.

She was the toast of the town and the darling of society. She took a big part in the Bob Hope movie "The Road to Hong Kong" and modeled for Vogue. In 1961 the vile Fleet Street press outed her as transgendered and she lost the friends who were not worth keeping.

One of her admirers, however, Arthur Corbett, the son of Lord Rowallan (who was at one time governor of Tasmania) persisted in wooing her and April and Arthur were married but almost immediately separated. Arthur Corbett, himself a cross-dresser, sued for annulment of the marriage on the grounds that April was not a woman, and the Corbett v. Corbett case gave rise to the infamous Ormrod decision which laid a dead hand on the marital fortunes of transgenders for many years. Ormrod was clearly biased against April from the outset and his reference to the neo-vagina as a "pouch" and his omitting any reference to April's innate self-identity, preferring physical evidence of genitalia at birth and chromosomal tests show this. In later years he stated in correspondence that he didn't understand why April would want to have vaginal sex when anal sex was so pleasant! His judgement has been questioned many times by more intelligent and humane jurists but was really only invalidated by the recent Gender Recognition Act passed in Britain, which allows post-operative transgenders to have their records re-issued in their newly recognised genders.

After her divorce and annulment April worked in the restaurant milieu in London, then moved to Hay-on-Wye in Wales, a charming village where every second shop is a second-hand bookshop. She was adored by the people of Hay-on-Wye and missed when she decided to move on after eleven years. She lived in San Diego, California, for a number of years. This year she moved to the south of France, as the San Diego climate was not good for her health. A recent photo shows she is still very beautiful, although her bouffant hair is now a gloriously soft grey.

She says she hates growing old but if we could all retain our beauty as she has there would be little to complain of. In addition to her physical beauty she retains her wit and her charisma. She has said that she would like her womanhood to be recognised as a present for her seventieth birthday. There seems no doubt that at long last she will attain this legal status, so long denied, and those of us who have admired her for so many years and applauded her insouciant defiance of convention will be able to celebrate with her this long-delayed admission of her true status. She has truly been an example, an inspiration and an icon to the transgendered world.

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