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Roberta Cowell
(April 8, 1918 - October 11, 2011) U.K.

Roberta Cowell

Businessperson

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Born Robert Marshall Cowell, Roberta had a keen interest in motor racing and engineering from an early age. As Robert, she became a celebrated racing driver - even competing in the Belgian Grand Prix- and was also a keen pilot, clocking up many flying hours before seeing service in the Second World War. 1941 saw marriage to Diana Carpenter, a fellow student at UCL who shared a keen interest in motor racing. They had two daughters together, born shortly into the marriage. Roberta, still living as Robert, was transferred to the RAF in 1942 and became a spitfire pilot. However, while on a flight over Germany, her plane crashed and she was captured by German troops and taken to the prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft I. Roberta spent 5 months at the camp, until it was liberated by the Red Army in 1945.

It was here that some of Roberta's gender confusions began to be revealed. Although she spent much of her time there teaching fellow inmates automotive-engineering, she was also offered the role of a woman in a camp theatrical production. However, she turned it down as she thought this might have made her appear homosexual to the other prisoners. She also stated that while there, some inmates exhibited situational sexual behaviour, and they would often proposition her, thinking that she would partake.

Following the war, Roberta continued with her love of racing, even competing at the Grand Prix at Rouen-Les-Essarts. However, Roberta described this period as one of great distress. Not only was she dealing with the trauma of the war, but she had much deeper issues regarding her gender. In 1948, Roberta left her family; she was suffering from depression and decided to seek help. It was gradually revealed to her that her "unconscious mind was predominantly female". Roberta came to realise that she had been severely repressing the feminine side of her nature her whole life, attempting to cover it with what some would see as an excessively masculine lifestyle.

Roberta Cowell

In 1950, Roberta struck up a friendship with Michael Dillon, Britain's first female-to-male transsexual and a physician, who believed that individuals should have the right to change gender. Roberta had been taking oestrogen, but she was still living as a man. It was Dillon who secretly performed an illegal inguinal orchiectomy on Roberta. This allowed Roberta to obtain a document from the gynaecologist stating that she was intersex. She was then able to have her birth certificate reissued, changing her sex to female. For this to be true, Roberta would never have been able to father children. Therefore she chose to deny their very existence, maintaining that they were a product of her ex-wife's affairs. It was in 1951 that she underwent a vaginoplasty.

Among other things, Roberta Cowell was a competitive race-car driver, a front-line Royal Air Force pilot and instructor, and a successful businessperson; she also was Britain's first known trans woman to undergo gender affirming surgery. In 1952, the media attention paid to Christine Jorgensen introduced the world to the concept of "sex reassignment", although the press conflated the ideas of sex assignment, gender identity, and sexual orientation; consequently, stories almost always linked the stereotypical effeminacy of homosexual men with the "desire" to "become" a woman.

Roberta Cowell's story, however, threw a wrench in that narrative, as Cowell fathered children, raced cars, and was decorated in World War II, all of which fit into stereotypes of traditional heterosexual masculinity. In 1954, Cowell sold her story to Picture Post magazine and enjoyed some celebrity for a short period.

Despite some later financial difficulties, Roberta continued motor racing and flying throughout the rest of her life. In the years that followed, however, Cowell struggled financially and, later in life, she became a recluse. Per her instructions, Cowell's death went unreported, and only a six people attended her burial.

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Sources: http://lgbt-history-archive.tumblr.com/ - https://www.britishpathe.com/

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