Roberta Cowell
From LGBT Archive
Revision as of 11:45, 2 November 2011 by Ross Burgess (Talk | contribs) (Created page with "'''Roberta Cowell''' (born 1921 in Croydon) was the first known British male-to-female transsexual to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Born Robert Cowell, she was a Spitfir...")
Roberta Cowell (born 1921 in Croydon) was the first known British male-to-female transsexual to undergo sex reassignment surgery.
Born Robert Cowell, she was a Spitfire pilot in World War II and a racing driver after the war. She had a vaginoplasty in 1951, via a surgical method invented and performed by Dr Harold Gillies. This occurred two years before Christine Jorgensen's surgery in Denmark. Roberta Cowell's surgical transformation and friendship with the female-to-male transsexual Michael Dillon, also operated on by Dr Harold Gillies, is documented in the book "The First Man-Made Man" by Pagan Kennedy [1].
References
- Roberta Cowell, The First British Transsexual, Transgender Zone Media Archives.
- Roberta Cowell's Story by Roberta Cowell, Heinemann, 1954
