Roberta Cowell
Roberta Cowell was the first British transgender woman to undergo gender reassignment. She was born Robert Marshall Cowell in 1918, one of three children of Major General Sir Ernest Cowell, a prominent surgeon. At first glance, Robert seemed an average boy. At school, he was an enthusiastic member of the school’s motor club and at sixteen became an apprentice aircraft engineer. In 1936, he took his love of all things mechanical further, studying for an engineering degree and starting to race in several Grande Prix.
Cowell’s gender uncertainty revealed itself during the Second World War when she served as a British fighter pilot. By then married, she undertook several raids before being shot down and captured by the Germans. After two escape attempts, Cowell was moved to the prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft 1. In the camp, many of the men indulged in same-sex relationships; something Cowell avoided. She began to become paranoid about being seen as feminine and would not even play female parts in plays.
Once back home and demobbed, Cowell returned to motor racing and business. By now, she was suffering from depression and trauma. In 1948, she separated from her wife. After seeking help, the second of two psychiatrists helped her to discover how her “unconscious mind was predominantly female” and “feminine side of my nature, which all my life I had known of and severely repressed, was very much more fundamental and deep-rooted than I had supposed.”
By 1950, Cowell was taking estrogen, but still living as a man. Then she read Michael Dillon’s “Self: A Study in Endocrinology and Ethics“. The two became friends, and Cowell realized there was nothing wrong with changing her body to match the sex she identified as. Dillon performed Cowell’s initial castration, and then Robert officially became Roberta, completing her transition with a vaginoplasty in 1951.
Although Cowell enjoyed some publicity, she dropped out of the public eye after writing her autobiography. Then, in 1972, she reappeared when she gave an interview to justify her gender reassignment. Cowell explained it was perfectly acceptable to do so in cases like hers, as she had a chromosomal abnormality, XX male syndrome. However, in the interview she was less than sympathetic to other transgender men seeking to change sex, claiming if they had standard XY chromosomes reassignment surgery, would turn them into ‘freaks‘.