A Gender Variance Who's Who

Part I: beginnings
Part II: business woman
Part III: bibliography and comments

1953:

• “Fails to be New Christine”. The Times (San Mateo). Aug 15, 1953.
• “Sex Operation Fails; Wanted To Be Like Christine”. The Register (Santa Ana) Aug 16, 1953.
• “Sex Operation of Self Fails”. The San Francisco Examiner, Aug 19, 1953.

1954:

• Herb Caen “Medical Insidem”. The San Francisco Examiner, Jan 20, 1954.

1955:

• Frederick G Woden & James T Marsh. “Psychological Factors in Men Seeking Sex Transformation: A Preliminary Report”. Journal of the American Medical Association, 157, 15, April 9 1955: 1292-4, 1297-8.

1956:

• Karl M Bowman & Bernice Engle. “Medicolegal Aspects of Transvestism”. Read at the 112th annual meeting of The American Psychiatric Association, Chicago, Ill., April 30-May 4, 1956. Printed in American Journal of Psychiatry, 113, 1957: Case 4 p597.

1965:

• Ira B Pauly. Male Psychosexual Inversion: Transsexualism: A Review of 100 Cases. Archives of General Psychiatry, 13,2, 1965: Case 48.

1966:

• Harry Benjamin. The Transsexual Phenomenon. Julian Press, 1966. photographs by request on medical stationary only.

1967:

• “Mt. View acid Tank springs leak”, The Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto), Mar 24, 1967.

1968

• Who's who of American Women and Women of Canada 1968 p354.

1969:

• Elinor Hayes. “Old Films. Organ Revived”. Oakland Tribune, July 6, 1969.
• Harry Benjamin. “Introduction” to Richard Green & John Money. Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment. The Johns Hopkins Press, 1969.

1971:

• “Chemical fire in Mt. View”. The Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto), Oct 22, 1971.
• Herb Caen. “You know the Avenue Theatre”. Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Nov 18, 1971.

1974:

• Myron K Myers. “Koltron shaking specialized world of precision etching”. The Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto), Oct 8, 1974.

1976:

• “Claire Elgin – firm founder, scientist, teacher – died”. The Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto), Nov 22, 1976: 3.
• “Claire Elgin: A long, varied career”. The San Francisco Examiner, Dec 1, 1976: 46.

1977

• Harry Benjamin. The Transsexual Phenomenon. Julian Press, Warner Books Edition 1977: p137 & last 4 photographs. Online. Online. A close rereading. (Claire’s photographs not in PFD)

1995/6:

• Connie Christine Wheeler & Leah Cahan Schaefer “Harry Benjamin's first ten cases (1938-1953): a clinical historical note”. Archives of Sexual Behavior 24:1 Feb 1995. Online. Revised as the Afterword to Randi Ettner. Confessions of a Gender Defender: A Psychologist's Reflections on Life Among the Transgendered. Chicago Spectrum Press, 1996.

1997

• Susan Stryker. “Don Lucas Interview”. The Gay and Lesbian Society of Northern California, June 12, 1997: 10-11. Online.
• Susan Stryker. “Aleshia Brevard Crenshaw Interview”. The Gay and Lesbian Society of Northern California, August 2, 1997: 67-8. Online.

2002:

• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, Ma, London: Harvard University Press, 2002: 143, 145, 155, 165, 167.

2011:

• Donald Laub. “The Claire Elgin Story”. Many People, Many Passports, April 11, 2011. Online.

2017:

• Penney Lewis, ‘The lawfulness of gender reassignment surgery’, American Journal of Legal History, 57, 2017: n139, n152.

2019:

• Donald R Laub, MD. “The Cast of Characters (and Characters in Casts)” in Second Lives, Second Chances. ECW Press, 2019: Chp 12.

2020:

• Annette Timm. “ ‘I am so grateful to all you men of medicine’: Trans Circles of Knowledge and Intimacy” in Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories. University of Calgary, 2020: Chapter 3 p103-118.

FamilySearch(Claire LeVern Elgin)

Thank you to Jacob for the research.

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We have a collision of two different spheres of discourse. For Bowman and Benjamin, and Meyerowitz and Timm, the accounts of Claire are those of a patient, and thus patient confidentiality applies. For Laub, while Claire was initially a patient, she became a friend and colleague, a noted photographer and businesswomen and a philanthropist. He wrote of her as an admired citizen of the San Francisco area. He mentions in passing that she was trans, as he also mentions that she was raised Moslem – these are passing details, mentioned but not dwelled upon. She was also mentioned in San Francisco area newspapers as a businesswoman – especially in her obituaries. These latter did not mention that she was trans. Claire was first and foremost a photographer, a business woman, a musician. She was in the Who's who of American Women and Women of Canada. She was a successful trans woman whose history has been neglected. To reduce her to a medical patient, as do Meyerowitz and Timm is not at all satisfactory.

Meyerowitz worked with Stryker for the two interviews listed above, and thus knew that people in the trans community knew who Claire was. Timm wrote later than Laub, when his account of Claire’s story, with a passing mention that she was trans, was already in the public domain. Timm knew of the pseudonym used by Meyerowitz, and weirdly used a different pseudonym – and went so far to alter the title of Laub’s blog post to remove Claire’s name.

Benjamin’s account of Claire could have been quite different. Connie Christine Wheeler & Leah Cahan Schaefer’s “Harry Benjamin's first ten cases (1938-1953): a clinical historical note”, written in 1995, but based on Benjamin’s file notes, give her the pseudonym ‘Janet’, and tell the story somewhat differently:

“Janet fought her transsexualism bravely and desperately all her young life: she ran away from home, joined the Navy, tattooed her entire body, jumped ship, attempted two unsuccessful marriages, became both an alcoholic and a morphine addict. After jumping ship in Mexico, Janet lived the happiest year of her life being courted by a young man until he accidentally discovered her ‘secret,’ forcing her to give up her ‘girlhood’ to return to the United States and to continue unhappily trying to live the male life. Eventually Janet began a correspondence with Benjamin, who replied sympathetically, ‘I understand the difficult situation you're in but I do believe a way can be found to help you lead a happier life than you are doing now.’

“Janet finally met Benjamin in person at age 48, after the last of many self-castration and mutilation attempts in order to get a surgeon to complete the operation she had desired for so long. With Benjamin's encouragement and the inspiration of Jorgensen's story, Janet took a more scientific and intelligent path toward fulfilling her dream. As with Inez, despite her generally masculine appearance and the late age at which she completed her surgery (in her late 50s), Janet's is a genuine success story. Freed from her lifelong gender struggle, her brilliant talent emerged. Janet and a business partner developed an invention sufficiently valuable to be sold eventually for millions of dollars.

“Except for her closest and most intimate friends, no one in Janet's life knew that this loved and wonderful woman was not a genetic female. Although she died at 72 of lung cancer, Janet lived her last 25 years in great wealth and contentment.”

The Warner Books paperback version of The Transsexual Phenomenon came out in May 1977, only months after Claire’s passing. It contains the photographs missing from the Julian Press Hardback, including five of Claire, including a full-frontal nude to show her tattoos, with her face clearly visible. One wonders if they would have done so were Claire still alive.

Claire was a self-made millionaire. She was not a nepo baby like Reed Erickson who inherited the majority of the family businesses, Schuylkill Products Co., Inc. and Schuylkill Lead Corp. Having made money Claire was then generous as a philanthropist – although she no longer donated time or money to trans activism, as she had done in the 1950s.

As the 1940 census records Clair and Ruth as having a 15-year-old son, the child would have been born circa 1925 when Clair was 20 years old. Neither the autobiography given to Benjamin, nor that given to Laub allow for marriage and fatherhood at this date. Bowman records Clair has having two marriages, but also claims that Clair was impotent, and implicitly not the biological father of the son.

There is no mention that either Benjamin or Laub prescribed estrogen.

It is generally assumed that ‘Claire’ is a female name, and ‘Clair’ a male name. However there are women called Clair and men called Claire. See Wikipedia. The gender ambiguity of the name is lost when it is replaced by a pseudonymous Caren or Carla.

Elgin is usually taken to be a Scottish name, Gaelic Eilginn, perhaps meaning ‘little Ireland’. There is an 18^th century Lord Elgin (of the Elgin Marbles), and there are many Elgin place names across Canada and the US. It is also Turkish for ‘stranger’.

There are mentions of a second pre-transition marriage to a woman, and a post-transition short-lived marriage to a man. However I could not document these.

Part I: beginnings
Part II: business woman
Part III: bibliography and comments

In 1962 Claire encountered Yugoslavian immigrant Franz Kolterer who founded Micro Science Associates, a precision etching firm. Claire provided skill in micro-photography, and was manager of the art and photo department and a director of the company until 1967.

Claire in Benjamin's book, 1977

October 3rd, 1963 Claire was admitted to Stanford Hospital with an incarcerated hernia. Her doctor there was Donald Laub (1935-2024), then an intern but who later became known for transgender surgery. She told him that she herself had removed her penis. She also gave him an alternate autobiography:

“She explained it to me. She told me further that she was born in Arabia, the son of a Scottish trader who ran a ship between Arabia and England, and was educated aboard ship by specialized tutors. She was genetically XY, a male born with a grade 3 hypospadias, a birth defect in which the urine comes out just above the scrotum. The mistake was made that Clair was a female because the genitalia resembled a clitoris and labia in appearance. The diagnosis was plausible, since no genetic karyotype was available in Arabia in 1900. When puberty came along she developed an ample penis, which was upsetting to her, having been raised for 15 years as a female. For many years, she sought medical advice but there was no one who would help her. Unable to live as the woman she felt she was, she removed the penis and the rest of the male apparatus with a sharp knife and presented herself at the University of California emergency room. She was taken care of there by urologist Dr. Goodwin, who was sympathetic to her plight and fixed her up as well as possible at the time.” … “I asked her about her body art, and she told me she’d once traveled with a circus as a tattooed lady and sword swallower.”

The surgery to fix the hernia went well. However follow-up tests revealed adenocarcinoma of the kidney cells, and the left kidney had to be removed. Again the surgery went well.

Dr Laub got to know Claire as a person:

“Well, Clair had some idiosyncrasies, as you might have suspected by now. Having been raised Muslim, she had good habits; she abstained from drinking coffee or alcohol. Despite being female, Clair had retained some of her male spirit, owning a motorcycle, a gull-wing Mercedes, and a 300 Savage telescopic rifle. She had a fondness for Japanese architecture. Her profession was photography, which she had been taught on the ship during her schooling years, and during the birth of Silicon Valley she was able to make microphotography negatives of the plans for a computer chip; the manufacturing process utilized silver salts in the negatives of her microphotos to etch silicon into chips.

“Clair was rewarded for her efforts and gained a large number of shares in one of the more prominent laser and computer companies in the Silicon Valley. With her money she built a Japanese home, a five-sided pagoda on the top of one of the highest hills in a most exclusive suburb, Los Altos Hills. She included koi fish tanks where the fish were able to swim from outside the home into the inside for Clair’s pleasure. The five alcoves of the pagoda each had a wind-generated musical organ, insulated so that there was no sound of blowing air during the playing of the pipes.”

Harry Benjamin’s seminal book on Transsexuals came out in 1966. He condensed his three years of meetings and correspondence 1953-5 and described Claire in three paragraphs, but, as she requested, without giving a reference name. No photographs were included in the book, but medical and other professionals could request them if they wrote in on medical stationary. Black stripes were placed over Claire’s face to prevent recognition.

“One patient who is now, several years after the operation, a decidedly masculine-looking 'woman,' with tattoos all over her body, is getting along well in an active business and is unrecognized as a former male. She is merely considered eccentric by her associates.

“Under no circumstances, she assured me repeatedly, would she ever go back to living as a man. 'This way I am at least myself and can relax,' were her own words.

“A couple of times she was arrested under the suspicion of 'impersonating.' When she was taken to a police station, examined and declared to be a woman, the arresting officers apologized and in one instance, bought her a dinner. Not all patients in such situations fared equally well”.

In his introduction to the 1969 anthology, Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment edited by Richard Green and John Money, Benjamin wrote, probably with Claire in mind:

“These few instances of attempted self-castration by definitely non psychotic individuals impressed me greatly. Their desperation as well as the entire clinical history with their vain search for help, often from childhood on, made me realize that the medical profession truly treated these patients as ‘stepchildren’. Educational and medical lectures and scientific publications were urgently needed.”

In 1967 Micro Science had merged with Alloys Unlimited. That was the year that one of the company’s acid tanks sprang a leak in March, and a fire captain had to be rushed to hospital. There was a further incident in October 1971 when there was fire in a tank of nitric acid.

The firm was sold to the British Plessey Group and became Plessey Micro Science Inc in 1974, and then Kolterer set up Koltron Corp. By now Claire was no longer involved, but she had invested in shares of Micro Science Associates, Alloys Unlimited and then Plessey Micro Science Inc, and had become a millionairess.

However, by the end of the 1960s, with age, the many lines in her face made her look more male than female. Laub and his team did a face-lift, which went very well. By this time, Dr Laub had started doing transgender surgeries – his first trans patient (other than Claire) was Ella in 1968. In 1969 Donald Laub founded Interplast to provide necessary reconstructive surgery for persons in developing countries. Claire became the official Interplast photographer, and travelled to central and south America and chronicled surgeries for cleft lip, cleft palate, and burn scar deformities. She was greatly appreciated for the excellence of her photography and her compassion toward patients, even though she was not passing that well. The patients – affectionately – referred to her as “Señor Clair”.

Vernon Gregory, an organist who played the mighty Wurlitzer organ, took over the Avenue cinema in Oakland to install the Wurlitzer that his son had found in Chicago. They moved it to Oakland, installed it and started a program of films accompanied by the organ, but were deeper and deeper in debt until Claire – who played a smaller organ at home – came in to rescue the project in 1972. She also bought a plane that year and learned to fly.

Claire lost most of her money in the recession of the 1970s, and was for a while bankrupt. She developed a working 3-D television and patented it, but it was the alternate model by Matsushita Electric (now Panasonic) that was more successful.

Claire in later years

In 1976, Claire called Dr Laub complaining of severe pain in the rib when she coughed. After a preliminary examination, Claire was admitted to the Stanford Hospital oncology medical service. X-rays showed that her lung cancer had metastasized to the rib. Claire asked how long she had left and was told about six weeks. She asked for a glass of water, and took one of the cyanide pills that she had in her purse.

The next year Benjamin’s The Transsexual Phenomenon was reprinted as a Warner Books Paperback. This time the photographs were included within the book, and the black strips hiding Clair’s face were removed.

Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States, 2002, included 5 short mentions of Claire disguised under the pseudonym of Caren Ecker. These mentions were based solely on documents in the Kinsey archives, mention her auto-castration and surgery in 1953, her contact with Louise Lawrence and with Worden and Marsh, but say nothing about Claire’s subsequent career as a business woman and photographer.

Both Claire’s only son, age 82, and her business partner, Frank Kolterer, age 76, died in 2007.

Sheldon was raised in Idaho, grew to 6’2’’ (1.88m) and served in the military as a Marine sergeant. Sheldon had been cross-dressing since early childhood, with an initial emphasis on shoes. He married but did not tell his bride, Gail, of his cross-dressing until two months afterwards. She did not understand, but allowed him to ‘dress-up’. He over-did it and Gail was afraid of friends finding out. So, Shelden quit doing so but fell into periods of deep depression – which led to Gail consulting the family doctor. 

The doctor called Sheldon in for a talk, and referred him to a psychiatrist in another city. This doctor advised that his feminine side not be pushed aside. Sheldon worked with his wife on finding a balance. She suggested the name Annette. Annette needed a place to go to, and they confided in two couples who were close friends and Annette was accepted – although they still referred to her as Sheldon and treated her as a man, even when they went to a restaurant as a foursome. Annette and her wife also went to costume dances and to movie theatres. 

On the psychiatrist’s advice Sheldon wrote to his mother, explaining his hobby and enclosing photographs. She wrote back "you do make a snappy looking gal", and remembered the child Sheldon in dresses.

This was only a few years after the 1955 “Boys of Boisie” homosexual scandal and witch hunt in the Idaho state capital, when adult men loving other adults were accused of paedophilia.

Sheldon was an engineer and business manager, and was appointed to a position in the Lewiston city council.

Annette sent an account of herself with photographs to Virginia Prince’s Transvestia newsletter. 

Transvestia #5 1960 featured its first cover girl. Potential cover girls were asked to supply several photographs and a personal history, and were requested to pay for their page of photographs. The first such was Annette of Idaho. A year later, issue #10 contained supportive letters from Sheldon’s wife and mother.

Word spread about Sheldon being Annette. He even passed around photographs of Annette at the city offices. Annette never passed himself off as a woman; on meeting strangers he always mentioned that he was a man. Some refused to believe it. Once at a party, a young man, making a play for Annette, had it confirmed again that Annette was a man and grabbed her wig in fury. Not a wise move against an ex-Marines sergeant.

In 1962 Donald Wollheim/Darrell Raynor, planning a business trip to the US Northwest, used the Transvestia mail forwarding system to contact Annette, and was duly invited to visit. Raynor flew to the Lewiston airport where he was picked up by Sheldon. Raynor described the home where Annette/Sheldon lived with Gail, two children and his mother: 

“Imagine then that on the outskirts of this town there suddenly rises one single hill, a hill that looms above the city and dominates it. Imagine that on top of this solitary hill, there is a grove of trees, the only such orchard to be seen for miles around. Within this grove of trees there is a ranch-type, sprawling house, surrounded by lawns, concealed from view by the encircling green arbors. This was Annette’s house, as perfect a home for a cross-dresser as can be imagined. Complete privacy, open air, beauty against the drabness and sereneness of the land.”

The next year, using his femme name of Doris, Raynor wrote an account of the visit for Transvestia. This first draft was reworked as Chapter 10 of Raynor’s 1968 book.

Sheldon, after much consideration, started his own business, including a car-wrecking yard. He also invented a mobile car crusher designed to pick up abandoned cars and compress them into a cube of scrap metal on the spot. 

Most years Annette invited members of Virginia Prince’s FPE and others to her home with an overflow to a local motel if needed. She spoke to the local police officials explaining what transvestism is and promising to be “the model of discrete behavior, conducting herself as a lady should and drawing no public attention to herself” (Maureen).

In 1968 Katherine Cummings and most of the Seattle Chapter went. Virginia drove up from Los Angeles. Cummings observed that Virginia managed to alienate most of the wives by telling them that she was just as female as they were. (Cummings: 185).

The 1970 event was written about by Virginia (Transvestia 62) and by Maureen (Transvestia 63).

Only a few months later, Sheldon died of a sudden heart attack at age 39. There were several fond rememberings in Transvestia # 68. 

1971 was also the year that a new Idaho criminal code repealed the anti-sodomy laws dating from 1864. However strong opposition from the Mormon and Catholic churches and Republican Party led to a reinstatement of the anti-sodomy laws just one year later.

• “Miss Annette – Our COVER GIRL of the Month”. Transvestia, 1.5, 1960: Cover, 3-13. Online.
• “My son is a Transvestite” and “My husband is a Transvestite”. Transvestia, 2,10, Aug 1961: 68-73. Online.
• Darrell Raynor writing as Doris. “Visit to a Happy Man”. Transvestia 2, 20, 1963:32-4. Online.
• Virginia Prince. “Travelling Saleslady”. Transvestia, 2,62, 1970 :65-6. Online.
• Maureen. “Weekend Women”. Transvestia, 2, 63, 1970: 73-80. Online.
• “In Memoriam”. Transvestia,2, 68, 1971 :26-31,
• Darrell G Raynor. A Year Among the Girls. Lancer Books, 1968: Chp 10, 76-83.
• Katherine Cummings. Katherine’s Diary: The Story of a Transsexual. Beaujon Press, Revised edition, 1993: 104-5, 185.
• Robert S Hill. As a man I exist; as a woman I live’: Heterosexual Transvestism and the Contours of Gender and Sexuality in Postwar America. ‘PhD Thesis, University of Michigan 2007: 1-6, 9, 44, 92-3, 147n28, 238, 354-62.
• Sophie McMahon. “Finding Annette: Uncovering Trans History in Idaho, 1950-70”. Outhistory, 2023. Online.

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McMahon makes no mention at all of the books by Cummings and Raynor nor the thesis by Hill that discuss Annette. She uses Raynor writing as Doris –but ignores Raynor’s book.

McMahon writes: “I try and picture Annette sitting cross legged at the kitchen table reading articles such as these that condemn homosexual life, and then taking off her long white dress and earrings and going out into the world as a man named Sheldon, knowing that she could likely face similar levels of anger and villainization if people knew about her secret life as a woman.” Surely this misses the point. Annette/Sheldon – remarkably – was by force of personality, social skills and self-confidence able to be semi-out as trans in the 1960s– even in the city council – in a state noted for its homophobia.

Darrell Raynor writing as D Rhodes in Turnabout #3 1964 contributed “Overs and Unders” in which he proposes two kinds of male heterosexual transvestites, of both of which he says: "The ‘Overs’ first fixate on shoes, the ‘Unders’ first fixate on under garments".  In this scheme Annette would be an ‘Over’, and was probably in his mind as he wrote.

The major book on the homosexual panic in 1955 Boise is John Gerassi’s The Boys of Boise: Furor, Vice and Folly in an American City, 1966, in which he proposes that the investigation began as a means for the wealthy elite of Boise to assert and maintain economic control of the city and the state. He asserts that a gay millionaire known as "The Queen" was the target of the probe, although he was never charged. This person is still anonymous almost 70 years later – “the name itself carries the name of one of the big huge families in America, entrepreneur families dating back a century”. Other men with less money, clout and access to lawyers were charged instead, some being sent to prison – one was given a life sentence. Collateral damage!!

Of course Annette/Sheldon – like Virginia Prince – maintained that transvestites were not homosexual. However this perception was not common in the general public or in most police forces.

Sam Hashimi was born and raised in Zofaranaya, a suburb to the south of Baghdad. When the family was out, he would dress in his sister’s clothes, until caught by his brother. His one masculine interest at school was football. However he was perceived as feminine by the other boys, and started having sex with them in the passive role.

At age 16, he moved to England, to Swindon where he took a National Diploma in engineering. He financed it by selling hot food at night from a van. He met a woman in a disco, and eventually married her in 1984 in a Anglican church in a village outside Swindon. They soon had two children. He launched two companies: one importing fruit and vegetables, and the other making computers.
He later met an Arabian sheikh and they created a property and investment company. This company thrived. Hashimi became known for negotiating on behalf of wealthy Arabs. He also ran a club and a restaurant in Mayfair. In 1990 he had the opportunity of investing in Manchester United Football Club, but was unable to raise the required ₤10 million in the specified 24 hours. Later the same year he launched an unsuccessful takeover bid for Sheffield United FC, at a time - unlike today - when foreign ownership of British football clubs was not done. The bid resulted in much publicity. It was discussed in the House of Commons, and the Saudi King expressed his disapproval. Coincidentally it came out that a Sheffield company was supplying materials for Iraq to build a ‘supergun’, and then Iraq invaded Kuwait. The deal was off; his major investor pulled out; Hashimi was bankrupt.

For the first time he told his wife that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. She was at first sympathetic and helped him to cross-dress, but quickly segued to divorce, and, once she found another rich man to keep her, ousted Sam from the family home, and obtained injunctions to keep him from seeing the children. In violation of those injunctions he was arrested and served a few months in HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

During a subsequent period of depression and living at the Ealing YMCA, he started going to gay and trans clubs and was told how great it was to be a woman. He applied through his doctor to be evaluated by the Gender Identity Clinic at the Charing Cross Hospital. However the wait would be over a year, and if he were to become a woman he needed money.

Through his old contacts he was able to get restarted as a property refurbisher. In the course of that work he met an Israeli divorcee, and they became both business partners and spouses. However that was short lived, and a second divorce ensued.

He then contacted Dr Russell Reid and was accepted as a private transsexual patient.

"First of all, I thought I would do my nose to make it look more feminine. I had eye correction surgery to get rid of my glasses. Then I did my teeth to give me a better smile and I had electrolysis all round my face to remove the masculine beard. I had my Adam's apple removed and my vocal chords tightened. I had breast implants, all before the sex change surgery to remodel my genitalia".

Six months after first seeing Dr Reid, in December 1997 Samantha Kane had genital surgery with Michael Royle. She spent over £100,000 in total on her transition.

She had not seen her family for 10 years. She contacted them and, because of the situation in Iraq, they arranged to meet in Amman, Jordan. They did not know about her change until they actually met at Amman airport, but they did accept her. ____________________________________________________________

I also had the surgery only six months after first meeting Russell Reid, but unlike
Hashimi/Kane I had by that point been on female hormones for some years, was living full-time as female and working as female.

Why is it that many of those who change back, then feel that they want to ban the operation for everyone?

Walt Heyer, raised in Los Angeles, had a grandmother who loved to dress him as a girl, and an uncle who sexually abused him. He married in 1965 and they had children. His wife knew about his cross-dressing. He became national manager of port operations for American Honda Motor Company, a job that required frequent travel to ports around the US. 

Since childhood his inner woman, who named herself Christal West, had expressed herself in his cross-dressing. Walt moved his family to Sonoma, north of San Francisco so that he would have easy access to the city’s Tenderloin area. At first he went to the drag bars, particularly the Roadrunner, in male guise, until he found a friend who let him change, and then in female guise. 

From there he was given the name of a doctor in Beverly Hills who prescribed female hormones, and then a plastic surgeon for top surgery. At this point his sex life with his wife had ended. In 1981 Heyer obtained the name of gay psychologist Paul Walker from the grapevine. Walker was building a practice catering to transsexuals, and was located on nearby Union Street. Heyer enrolled as a patient. Walker recognized Heyer, having seen his female persona in the Roadrunner. According to Heyer’s account, at the end of the first session Walker diagnosed gender dysphoria, and in the third session gave Heyer a letter recommending trans surgery. This despite the 1979 Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association Standards of Care (of which Walker was the major co-author) requiring two such letters and at least one year of cross-living before surgery. 

Heyer actually went to Trinidad, Colorado and saw Dr Biber. His intention was to have a surgical sex change without telling his boss, his wife or anyone else. The choice of Biber was almost unavoidable he recalled: 

“He was the only one anyone talked about. At the time he was the only one doing the surgery. I had tried to get into UCLA and other places, but everyone had shut down their clinics. There was nothing left. You had one choice.” (Smith p 15) 

Biber read the letter from Walker and asked his usual questions. Heyer gave a check for $7,500, and agreed to the additional hospital fees. He went then to the hospital, felt bad about what he was doing, and returned to Biber’s office with a change of mind. He got a 50% refund. Back home Heyer finally told his wife. Divorce proceedings were started. 

In 1983 Heyer again gained approval from Walker, and again went to Trinidad. Some things had changed. Heyer had started using the name Andrea West. Andrea had had buttocks implants, a nose job and electrolysis. However her resolve had wavered, and she had had her breast implants removed, but later had them replaced. As Walt she was still working for Honda and had been transferred to southern California. Walt’s drinking had become more intense. On return to Trinidad it was Andrea West who signed the papers, but then the name Laura Jenson popped into her head and that is who she became. It was still her intention to continue to work as Walt, and to be Laura out-of-work. She finally told her mother what she was doing. She actually continued to work as Walt. However her attorney maintained that she could not legally continue to work using the name Walt. She procrastinated for several months, until October 1983 when during a business meal and appearing as Walt, she explained that she had already had the surgery. The stunned boss took the issue to the president. Two weeks later she was offered six months severance pay, and she was to disappear and not discuss the termination with anyone.

Laura

Laura Jensen could not find another job, but still had alimony, child support and mortgage to pay. She was still drinking, and started taking cocaine. Most of her friends had disappeared, but one offered to help get her sober and took her to an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting. One AA member offered a garage to sleep in, and others offered odd jobs, but one of the others, also trans, took her to a bar, and she relapsed into alcohol and cocaine. AA again helped her out of that. Her son was the only family member still in contact, although she dressed as a man to meet him. 

Laura’s break came when she was taken in by a Christian family, with a father who was a psychologist with a masters in theology. Laura ended up staying nine months, and returning often over the next twelve years. The family led her to accept Jesus as her savior, and helped her to decide to return to being Walt. Walt obtained a job in an auto body shop owned by a Christian man who also convinced him to start attending Bible classes. However, as Walt later wrote: 

“Laura tormented Walt’s thoughts, enticing him to switch back. I began feeling more and more fragile, slowly crumbling under the weight of wanting relief from the intense emotional pain.” (Smith p 91) 

It was Laura who climbed onto the roof of a restaurant and shouted that she wanted to die. This led to Walt losing his job and a court ordered recovery treatment. It was Laura who was admitted into a residential Women Recovery Association program. She began attending a local church in Foster City, south of San Francisco, where the pastor, while admitting that he had no experience with trans persons, welcomed her and they met regularly. 

Laura took courses to become a counselor for people in drug or alcohol recovery - this at the same time as working a job, and working with her church and with AA. She began noticing differences between her two personas. Laura preferred healthy food; Walt was a junk-food fan. Walt’s voice was lower, while Laura’s was pitched higher. Their handwriting and opinions often were quite different. She remained Laura at school and at work, rather than risking discovery by changing whenever the impulse to do so struck. She attended men’s AA group meetings as Walt, and women’s AA group meetings as Laura. She knew that the major imperative was to stay sober. She did and she graduated in 1989 with an advanced certificate in drug and alcohol studies. Working with her pastor, Laura asked if it would be okay to come to church as Walt. After discussion and prayer it was arranged that the pastor gave a sermon on the theme of a sinner saved by repentance, and then told of Walt’s journey, and then Walt in person was well received.

Walt began working at CityTeam, a non-denominational Christian non-profit in San Jose. But at weekends she was still Laura. Walt was baffled by this as were friends and psychologists. Walt/Laura made a follow-up appointment with Paul Walker who had diagnosed gender dysphoria in 1981. By Heyer’s account, Walker responded to her claim of four years of sobriety, by admitting that he too was in a 12-step program, that he had been addicted to drugs and alcohol after a ski accident, and that he was HIV+. Before he died in 1991, Walker wrote to her that therapists should address alcohol and drug issues before moving on to gender issues. He assured Jensen/Heyer “that I share, as best I can, some of the pain that this mistake has caused you”. Heyer seized onto the word “mistake”. 

Walt’s 12-month contract with CityTeam also ended in 1991, and he applied for a position as a counselor in a psychiatric ward in southern California - but as Laura, as all his papers were in that name. The job required working with severe psychological disorders, including self-mutilation and schizophrenia. The psychiatrist who oversaw her work took note of her as a person, and proposed clinical meetings in his free time. After three weeks he had her consult with another colleague, who used a term to explain Laura’s condition: Dissociative disorder (more popularly known as Multiple-Personality disorder). Laura sought a third and fourth opinion. Both confirmed: Dissociative disorder. A Dissociative disorder specialist used hypnosis, and identified 13-15 separate personalities. Penmanship varied according to which persona was active: Andrea’s signature was tight, small, and slanted left; Laura’s was bold and slanted right. If Walt/Laura had Dissociative disorder, it explained why transition had not solved her problems. 

Laura returned to the San Francisco Bay area to be close to those who supported her best. She restarted at AA, and after an initial hesitancy, was welcomed back to the Foster City church. A new therapist advised that working a job interfered with the required therapy: Laura couch surfed, ran errands for a restaurant in exchange for meals and applied for permanent disability income. Whilst praying with her therapist, she had a religious experience, a vision of Jesus who took her into his arms. For the next few years Walt and Laura alternated. A friend who had taken in Laura some years before was dying of cancer at age 46. Walt became part of her support network, and got to know a woman named Kaycee who was doing the same. They started to meet in addition to supporting the friend. Kaycee accepted him while knowing his past. He had his breast implants finally removed and changed what documents he could. After five years Walt and Kaycee were formally dating. They married in May 1997. The gender switching stopped.

In 2006 Heyer published his first autobiography, Trading My Sorrows, in which he discusses his diagnosis of Dissociative Disorder. In 2008 he set up sexchangeregret.com. At first response was small. However in 2015, when Caitlyn Jenner was front-page news, Heyer was suddenly in demand. “I did forty radio and TV shows in five days”. He appeared at events with Paul McHugh and Ryan T Anderson, both of whom have also written books decrying transsexuality. Heyer endorsed both McHugh’s and Ray Blanchard’s ideas. He repeats conspiracy ideas that George Soros and Barack Obama have respectively financed and appointed activists to push a transgender agender: 

“They want to destroy the moral fabric of society, of the Church, and if you can destroy gender, then you can destroy the basis of man-woman marriage, and then in due time destroy the foundation of society, which is the male-female family and spawning of offspring. So George Soros is totally against God and family.” (Smith p 145) 

In 2018 Heyer edited an anthology of accounts by 30 others who detransitioned.

By Heyer:

• Trading My Sorrows: A True Story of Betrayals, Bad Choices, Love, and the Journey Home.  Xulon Press, 2006. Reissued as A Transgender’s Faith. CreateSpace, 2015.
• Perfected with Love. Xulon Press. 2009.
• Paper Genders: Pulling the Mask Off the Transgender Phenomenon. Make Waves Publishing, 2011.
• Paper Genders: Pulling the Mask Off the Transgender Phenomenon.Make Waves Publishing, 2011.
• Gender, Lies and Suicide: A Whistleblower Speaks out. CreateSpace, 2013.
• Kid Dakota and the Secret at Grandma’s House. CreateSpace, 2015. A novel based on Heyer’s childhood.
• (ed)Trans Life Survivors. Bowker Identifier Services, 2018.
• Articles of Impeachment against Sex Change Surgery. Walter Heyer, 2020.

www.tradingmysorrows.com

www.sexchangeregret.com

https://waltheyer.com

https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/author/walt-heyer/

https://www.dailysignal.com/author/walt-heyer/

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/contributors/walt-heyer/

https://thefederalist.com/author/walt-heyer/

Other:

• "Walt Heyer". TransChristians, February 21, 2010. Online.
• "Walt Heyer?" Maple Centers, October 2, 2011 – January 25, 2012. Online.
• Jeff Schapiro. "Transsexual Returns to Original Gender After Relationship With Christ". Christian Post, January 11, 2012. Online.
• Sheila Jeffreys. Gender Hurts: A feminist analysis of the politics of transgenderism. Routledge, 2014: 73-4.
• Jay Akbar. “The man who's had TWO sex changes: Incredible story of Walt, who became Laura, then REVERSED the operation because he believes surgeons in US and Europe are too quick to operate”. The Daily Mail, 26 January 2015. Online.
• Zinnia Jones. “Walt Heyer and ‘sex change regret’ ”. Gender Analysis, July 31, 2015. Online.
• Ryan T Anderson. When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. Encounter Books, 2018: 87-91.
• Martin J Smith. Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town, and Stories from an Unlikely Gender Crossroad BowerHouse, 2021: Passim.

EN.Wikipedia     Conservapedia    Susan’s Place

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Ephilei at TransChristians wrote in 2010: 

“Walt Heyer was never transgender, yet underwent SRS. Distraught that he was approved for surgery, he hopes to make the psychological community stop SRS.

Walt has a unique circumstance. Walt was eventually diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, archaically called multiple personality disorder. One of his identities happened to be a woman and that identity gradually came into dominance. Not realizing this, he interpreted his feelings as transexual and had SRS. Eventually counselors gave him an accurate diagnosis which provided the proper treatment to eliminate his other false identities. Heyer's situation is undoubtedly tragic.”

Walt Heyer is probably the best known detransitioner or changeback although of course there are many who have done so. Like Alan Finch he set up a webpage and advocated against other people choosing to transition. Some revert to their original gender and admit to a personal mistake. However others go on a crusade to decry that others may decide to do what did not work out for them personally. Back in 2014 I estimated detransition as around 3% based on the data in this encyclopedia. Most other estimates are roughly the same. This Wikipedia article summarizes various studies and concludes: “It is estimated that the number of detransitioners ranges from less than one percent to as many as five percent”. As others have pointed out a 95% success rate makes sex-change surgery one of the most successful branches of medicine.

Heyer claims that 40% of trans persons attempt suicide. He does not differentiate between those who so attempt because they are not able to transition, those who are oppressed by others for being trans and those who actually regret transition.

Heyer is of course right that trans persons with substance abuse/alcoholism should get that sorted out before proceeding with transition. He is also right that those with a Dissociative disorder should get that sorted out first. The persona who becomes the final dominant persona may not want to transition.

There is a divide among trans persons between those who regard therapy as essential and those for whom such a requirement is at best an irritant. I was never offered nor ever wanted professional counselling. I was accepted after one session with Russell Reid. By that time I was working as female, and living so 24/7. I had several years in trans support groups and had talked with, even counselled, many others. I knew what I was doing, and 35 years later have no regrets. Apparently the only trans women that Heyer had met by 1981 were those in the Roadrunner bar. He was on the down-low, and had definitely not done a social transition prior to surgery.

If it actually was as Heyer tells it, Paul Walker did indeed make a serious mistake.

Heyer credits his destiny to grandma's purple dress, father's chastisement and uncle's sexual abuse.  However many children experience worse and become neither trans nor dissociative.   It is not that simple.

​Ernest Marples was raised in Manchester by parents active in the Labour Party. In 1941 he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery and rose to the rank of Captain, before being medically discharged in 1944.

He joined the Conservative Party and was elected Member of Parliament for Wallasey in the 1945 election – despite the winning Labour Party surge. Around the same time he became a director in a construction firm. In 1948, with civil engineer Reginald Ridgway he founded Marples Ridgway and Partners which went on to build roads, dams and power stations.

He was appointed Postmaster General in 1957 by Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and then Minister of Transport in 1959, where he stayed until the transfer of power to Labour in 1964. MacMillan remarked that Marples was one of only two in his cabinet who was self-made.

Mr & Mrs Marples

Marples had resigned as a director of Marples Ridgway in 1951 when he became a junior minister, but continued to hold 80% of the company’s shares. He still held them in early 1960 when Marple Ridgway won a tender to build the Hammersmith Flyover despite not being the lower bidder. After a kerfuffle in the press, he attempted to sell his shares to his former partner, Ridgway, but the Attorney-General rejected this as he would be able to buy them back. But he was allowed to sell them to his wife instead. Marples Ridgeway, although not the direct contractor, was involved in the building of the M1, Britain’s first motorway.

In 1962 Marples oversaw the Transport Act which simplified the closure of railways, and appointed Richard Beeching to recommend such closures which amounted to 55% of stations and 30% of track.

It was an open secret that Marples engaged prostitutes, however he was not involved in the Profumo Scandal of 1963 wherein the Secretary of State for War was found to be sharing a mistress with a Soviet naval attaché. A senior judge, Tom Denning was appointed to report on the scandal, and also investigated rumours about other ministers.

His investigation was close to its conclusion when on 9 July a woman using the name Mrs Ann Bailey, but sometimes Mrs Smith, came forward. She explained that she was a full-time prostitute and had for a long time been paid by Marples. She described how he bought women’s clothes and wore them when he met her. She described his further tastes of which, she said, ‘whipping was the least sickening’.  Their meetings often took place at Marples' home at 33 Eccleston Square, (map) previously inhabited by Winston Churchill and close to Victoria Station, and Mrs Bailey was able to give a detailed description of the interior of the house. She further testified that even after their relationship ended, a series of ‘annoying, obscene and filthy’ letters signed by the Minister with the initial E were sent to her, describing services and practices he still required.

It was felt that this very much exposed Marples to a risk of blackmail. It was also felt that Bailey had been encouraged to approach the Denning inquiry by a national newspaper so that once her evidence was authenticated and published in Denning’s report, the newspaper would be clear to pay her and publish the story. Denning arranged a meeting in his office of Marples and Bailey. He acknowledged that he knew her, and they shook hands.

On 14 August there was a crisis meeting of Denning with Prime Minister Macmillan - but they did not mention the Marples situation.  Macmillan hinted at a curious compromise, suggesting to Denning that it might be ‘appropriate at a later stage to write confidentially to the Prime Minister drawing his attention to suspicions of discreditable conduct on the part of Ministers in their private lives’.

The slightly expurgated Denning Report was published in September 1963, and very unusually for a judicial report was a best seller.  A few weeks later Macmillan was hospitalised with prostate cancer, and he used this as an excuse to resign.  He was replaced by Alec Douglas Hume who took the Conservative Party to defeat in the election of October 1964.

Marples was not a minister in the next Conservative Government, that of Edward Heath, 1970-4, and he retired at the 1974 general election. Later that year he became a life peer as Baron Marples of Wallesey.

However his business activities were catching up with him. The tenants of a block of flats he owned in Putney were demanding that he repair serious structural faults; he was being sued for £145,000 by the Bankers Trust merchant bank; Inland Revenue was demanding that he pay nearly 30 years of back taxes on his residence in Eccleston Square; and that he pay capital gains tax on other properties.

In early 1975 he fled to Monte Carlo, and the Treasury froze his assets in Britain. In November 1977 he made a payment of £7,600 to the British government and was able to return.  He spent his final years in France, and died in hospital in Monte Carlo in July 1978 age 70.

In 1994 as per standard practice the official archives relating to the Macmillan government were released, but without the archives relating to the Denning Report.  The then Prime Minister John Major questioned this and was invited to read them.  He then agreed that they remain closed to the public until 2048.

In 2020 Denis Bedoya/Tom Mangold obtained access to the diaries of Thomas Critchley, Denning’s secretary. On this basis they were able to reveal the evidence of Mrs Bailey.  They conclude that she was paid off with an amount equal to what she could expect from a major newspaper for the story.

 “Such a deal would have involved taxpayers’ money buying off a prostitute to keep her quiet to save the government of the day. I calculate that the amount would have been equivalent today to about £250,000. Now that really would have been a scandal.”

​
______________

The reports by Mangold and Bedoya are word-for-word identical including the use of the first person.

John Campbell:

Murray Hall:

“Her real name was Mary Anderson, and she was born in Govan, in Scotland.   Early left an orphan, on the death of her only brother she put on his clothes and went to Edinburgh, working as a man.  Her secret was discovered during an illness, and she finally went to America.”