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Roman Emperor Elagablus dies
The Roman Emperor Elagablus was believed to have had several wives, as well as male lovers. It is thought he often dressed up as a woman, wore wigs and applied make up. He also asked doctors whether they could give him female genitalia. But Elagabalus was assassinated at the tender age of 18. Picture courtesy: mharrsch -
May 12, 1575
Henry III of France dies
Henry III of France - also known as Henri duc d'Anjou - reportedly cross-dressed and asked his courtiers to refer to him as "her majesty". Henry III's cross-dressing was featured in the successful film "Elizabeth", starring Cate Blanchett as the Virgin Queen. -
Queen Christina of Sweden
Queen Christina of Sweden is the first known female-to-male trans person. She is famed in plays as dressing in men's clothing and behaving like a man. She abdicated the throne, left Sweden under the guise of Count Dohna. Her life was fictionalised in a film, where she was portrayed by Greta Garbo - although much of the film is said to have trivialised her life. -
The Ikoneta discovered
Canadian explorers Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette discover a tribe on the Mississippi river called the Illini Indians. Among they're group were young boys and men who were brought up as females and took on the role of women. The tribe called them "Ikoneta", the French called them the "berdache". Picture courtesy guano -
Transsexual attends Papal ball
Abbé François-Timoléon de Choisy was brought up by his mother in female clothes. Despite dressing as a man for a short time, he resumed cross dressing later on in life. In 1676 he attended a Papal ball in Rome. His memoirs were published after his death and are the first written account of cross dressing. -
Molly Houses become popular
Throughout most of the 18th Century, Molly Houses became popular in England. These were taverns where homosexual activity was prevalent, as well as cross dressing. "Mollies" were especially effeminate men and often played the female role. "Marriage" ceremonies would take place in Molly Houses to signify the commitment by a man to his Molly. -
Nelson's transvestite Navy
Female to male transvestites join Nelson’s Navy as did hundreds of others and were only discovered when they were flogged. They were never punished and often went on stage and became celebrities. Mary Lacy known as William Chandler served on the Sandwich as a carpenter is one of the most famous as ‘she’ wrote a biography others include William Brown who served on the Queen Charlotte until being outed by a newspaper in 1815, and Alice Snell AKA James Gray served as a navy marine. -
The Chevalier d'Eon publishes memoirs
The Chevalier d'Eon was a French spy and diplomat. He lived much of his life as a woman and claimed he was actually born a woman but raised as a man. The king, Louis XVI demanded he wore women's clothing, which he did. However, a postmortem after death revealed he was male. -
Rebecca and her Daughters
Rebecca and her Daughters was a militant group in south Wales. Men dressed as women would destroy toll gates in a move to show solidarity amongst the poor. -
Franklin Thompson fights in the US Civil War
Franklin Thompson, born Sarah Emma Edmonds, fought for the Union Army in the Civil War. During the war, Franklin served as a spy, nurse, dispatch carrier and later was the only woman mustered into the Grand Army of the Republic. -
George Sand dies
George Sand was born Amandine Lucile Dupin and became one of the most prolific in French history. She shocked her contemporaries by dressing as a man but it allowed her to circulate more freely in Parisian society. -
Henry Havelock Ellis publishes Psychology of Sex
Henry Havelock Ellis of the Fabian Society, a supporter of sexual liberation. His interests in human biology and his own personal experiences, led Havelock Ellis to write his six volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex. The books, published between 1897 and 1910 caused tremendous controversy and were banned for several years.
Picture courtesy Magnus Manske -
Crossdressing festival in Crewe
Turn of the Century filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon record a cross-dressing Carnival in Crewe. -
Word Transvestite is coined
It's believed Magnus Hirschfeld coined the word "Transvestite" in a work in 1910. -
First recorded transsexual wedding
Female to Male transsexual Colonel Sir Victor Barker D.S.O 1895 – 1960 Marries Elfrida Haward in Brighton
Valerie Barker was born in Jersey in 1895 but she was educated in England after her family moved to Surrey. She always wished to have been born a boy. -
Encyclopeadia of Sexual Knowledge
Encyclopeadia of Sexual Knowledge by Norman Haire (1930) Published, addresses transvestism in detail.
It also illustrates the First ‘Sex-change’ procedures. -
First sexual reassignment surgery
Lili Elbe is believed to have had the first sexual reassignment surgery from a man to a woman in a series of 5 operations over 2 years. However, doctors tried to implant female ovaries and a uterus, and she died of complications over transplant rejection. -
Nazi persecution of homosexuals and transgenders
Nazis abuse, murder and sterilise transgender people. The Institute for Sexology is raided, shut down, and its records destroyed by the Nazis in 1933 . Physicians and researchers involved in the clinic flee Germany. Some, unable to escape, commit suicide in the coming years. -
Electroshock seen as a cure
Electroshock is first used by Ugo Cerlettito produce convulsions that he thought would alleviate schizophrenic and manic-depressive psychosis; it was later found to be more effective in the latter illness and is still in use today. Commonly used on transgender people! -
First Female to Male surgery
Michael Dillon was the first person to have surgery to become male. Sir Harold Gillies, internationally renowned as the father of modern plastic surgery, played a pioneering wartime role in Britain developing pedicle flap surgery. -
Roberta Cowell becomes UK's first fully surgical altered male to female
Roberta Cowell was also operated on by Dr Harold Gillies -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall Riots in New York. Transgender and gender-noncomforming people are among those who resisted arrest in a routine bar raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village, thus helping to ignite the modern LGBT rights movement. -
April Ashley court case
The judgment by Justice Ormrod sets the precedent that will leave UK post-op transsexual people unable to marry until the 21st Century – In September 1963 the parties went through a ceremony of marriage. April Ashley's marriage is annulled and declared to be legally still a man despite sex reassignment. Image: Loz pycock -
"A Change of Sex" aired on the BBC
In 1979 a series of programs entitled ‘A Change of Sex’ are aired on the BBC – viewers could for the first time follow pre-op transsexual Julia Grant through her transition. It also highlighted the arrogance at that time of psychiatrists based at the Gender Identity Clinic, Charing Cross Hospital, London. -
Press for Change founded
Picture courtesy, Christine Burns -
Transsexualism a medical condition
Brain material provided by the Netherlands Brain Bank demonstrates transsexualism is a medical condition and not a ‘state-of-mind’. The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions and point to a neurobiological basis of gender identity disorder. -
Goodwin v UK
Case at the ECHR led to the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The ruling was that the lack of recognition in the UK of a transsexual's new gender identity for legal purposes is a breach both of article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (respect for private life) and article 12 (right to marry). -
Gender Recognition Act
The Gender Recognition Act becomes law. This allows transsexuals to apply to legally change gender. -
Equal Marriage Consultation closes
If the UK government proceed with plans to go ahead with same sex marriage, married transsexuals will not have to divorce before being issued with a gender recognition certificate. -
Scotland proposes same sex marriage
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