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April Ashley
April Ashley MBE (29 April 1935 – 27 December 2021), styled as The Honourable Mrs Corbett from 1963 to 1980, was an English model, author, and LGBT rights activist. In the 1950s, upon being discharged from the Merchant Navy, she performed under the stage name Toni April at Le Carrousel de Paris in Paris. Ashley was outed as a transgender woman by The Sunday People newspaper in 1961 and was one of the earliest British people known to have had gender confirmation surgery. Her first marriage, to the future 3rd Baron Rowallan, was annulled in the High Court of Justice case of Corbett v Corbett. Ashley was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to transgender equality.
Born at 126 Smithdown Road (then Sefton General Hospital) in Liverpool, Ashley was one of six surviving children of a Roman Catholic father, Frederick Jamieson, and Protestant mother, Ada Brown, who had married two years before. During her childhood in Liverpool, Ashley suffered from both calcium deficiency, requiring weekly calcium injections at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital, and bed-wetting, resulting in her being given her own box room, at the age of two, when the family moved house.[page needed]
Ashley joined the Merchant Navy in 1951 at the age of 16. Following a suicide attempt, she was given dishonourable discharge,[page needed] and a second attempt resulted in her being sent to Ormskirk District General Hospital psychiatric unit at age 17. She was treated with hormones and electric shock therapy in the unit.
In her book The First Lady, Ashley tells the story of the rape she endured before transitioning. A roommate raped her and she was severely injured.[page needed]
After leaving the hospital, Ashley moved to London, at one point claiming to have shared a boarding house with then ship's steward John Prescott, later deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom. Having started cross-dressing and holidaying in France, she moved to Paris in the late 1950s, began using the name Toni April, and joined the entertainer Coccinelle in the cast of the drag cabaret at Le Carrousel de Paris.[page needed]
At the age of 25, having saved £3,000, Ashley had a seven-hour-long experimental sex reassignment surgery on 12 May 1960, performed in Casablanca, Morocco, by Georges Burou. She had been told there was a 50/50 chance of surviving the operation, and when she woke from the surgery Burou greeted her by saying "Bonjour, Mademoiselle." All of her hair fell out, and she endured significant pain, but the operation was successful.[page needed]
After returning to Britain, she began using the name April Ashley and was recognised for National Insurance taxes as a woman. She became a successful fashion model, appearing as lingerie model in British Vogue, for which she was photographed by David Bailey. She had a small role in the 1962 film The Road to Hong Kong, which starred Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
A friend sold her story to the media for £5 and on 19 November 1961 The Sunday People outed Ashley as a trans woman, under the headline "Her secret is out." She responded on 6 May 1962 by telling her story in an article called "My Strange Life" for The News of the World.
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April Ashley
April Ashley MBE (29 April 1935 – 27 December 2021), styled as The Honourable Mrs Corbett from 1963 to 1980, was an English model, author, and LGBT rights activist. In the 1950s, upon being discharged from the Merchant Navy, she performed under the stage name Toni April at Le Carrousel de Paris in Paris. Ashley was outed as a transgender woman by The Sunday People newspaper in 1961 and was one of the earliest British people known to have had gender confirmation surgery. Her first marriage, to the future 3rd Baron Rowallan, was annulled in the High Court of Justice case of Corbett v Corbett. Ashley was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to transgender equality.
Born at 126 Smithdown Road (then Sefton General Hospital) in Liverpool, Ashley was one of six surviving children of a Roman Catholic father, Frederick Jamieson, and Protestant mother, Ada Brown, who had married two years before. During her childhood in Liverpool, Ashley suffered from both calcium deficiency, requiring weekly calcium injections at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital, and bed-wetting, resulting in her being given her own box room, at the age of two, when the family moved house.[page needed]
Ashley joined the Merchant Navy in 1951 at the age of 16. Following a suicide attempt, she was given dishonourable discharge,[page needed] and a second attempt resulted in her being sent to Ormskirk District General Hospital psychiatric unit at age 17. She was treated with hormones and electric shock therapy in the unit.
In her book The First Lady, Ashley tells the story of the rape she endured before transitioning. A roommate raped her and she was severely injured.[page needed]
After leaving the hospital, Ashley moved to London, at one point claiming to have shared a boarding house with then ship's steward John Prescott, later deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom. Having started cross-dressing and holidaying in France, she moved to Paris in the late 1950s, began using the name Toni April, and joined the entertainer Coccinelle in the cast of the drag cabaret at Le Carrousel de Paris.[page needed]
At the age of 25, having saved £3,000, Ashley had a seven-hour-long experimental sex reassignment surgery on 12 May 1960, performed in Casablanca, Morocco, by Georges Burou. She had been told there was a 50/50 chance of surviving the operation, and when she woke from the surgery Burou greeted her by saying "Bonjour, Mademoiselle." All of her hair fell out, and she endured significant pain, but the operation was successful.[page needed]
After returning to Britain, she began using the name April Ashley and was recognised for National Insurance taxes as a woman. She became a successful fashion model, appearing as lingerie model in British Vogue, for which she was photographed by David Bailey. She had a small role in the 1962 film The Road to Hong Kong, which starred Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
A friend sold her story to the media for £5 and on 19 November 1961 The Sunday People outed Ashley as a trans woman, under the headline "Her secret is out." She responded on 6 May 1962 by telling her story in an article called "My Strange Life" for The News of the World.