GENDER IDENTITY
See Also: THE CHEVALIER D'ÉON
The Armed Forces
See
Also: THE ARMY
Marine
Gray
Hannah
Snell was a native of Worcester. She was
born into a family that had numerous military connections. As a child she had a reputation for being a
tomboy. In her late teens she left the
city and went to live in Wapping with one of her sisters. There, she met a sailor whom she
married. While she was pregnant, he
abandoned her. Their child lived for
only a few months.
In 1747
Hannah opted to conduct her life as a man.
Using the name of her brother-in-law, James Gray, she enlisted in a
marines regiment. The unit was
dispatched to India. On the voyage out
James soon became popular with his colleagues for his willingness to perform
domestic tasks. He fought in a number of
actions before being badly wounded in 1749.
He managed to retain the secret of his true gender during the time that
he spent convalescing in a hospital.
James
was put on board a ship that was bound for Portsmouth. As the vessel made its way northwards along
the western coast of Africa, he began to be increasingly teased about his
inability to grow any facial hair. The
vessel called in at Lisbon. The men were
allowed to partake of the city's pleasures.
Gray's carousing was so vigorous that all the remarks about his supposed
effeminacy ceased for the rest of the voyage.
The
craft docked at Portsmouth. James then
walked back to London in the company of a small party of marines. He went to live with Hannah's sister. He collected his back-pay. He then met up with his fellow
servicemen. It was then that s/he
revealed the truth of her identity. The
mess mates refused to credit her assertion.
Only when her sister and her brother-in-law, the real James Gray,
vouched for the truth of the matter was she finally believed.
Wearing
male dress, Hannah presented a petition to the Duke of Cumberland, King George
II's younger, martially-inclined son.
The soldier-prince had the facts that were set out in the document
verified. Upon their proving to be true,
he had her made an out-pensioner of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. She was paid a daily allowance of 5d for the
rest of her life.
Hannah
used commercial means to exploit her celebrity.
For two months she appeared in a show that was staged at Goodman s
Fields Theatre. An account of her
experiences was published as The Female Soldier (1750). She also became the subject of a ballad. She had two further marriages. By the first of these she had two sons. Upon her death in 1792, like Mother Ross
before her, she was granted the distinction of her corpse being buried in the
Hospital's graveyard.
Location:
Royal Hospital Chelsea, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, SW3 4SR (purple, yellow)
Goodman's Fields
Theatre, 10 Leman Street, E1 1LL (orange, brown)
Mother
Ross
The
Army only became subject to gender equality towards the close of the 20thC. However, it was not unknown for women to
serve in the service's ranks covertly.
From time to time, incidents of the practice became known to the public.
Christian
Cavanagh inherited a pub in Dublin while she was young. She married her potman, one Richard
Welsh. They had three children
together. In 1691, in somewhat
mysterious circumstances, he was enlisted into the English Army, which was then
fighting the Nine Years War. His wife
was a spirited soul. She lodged their
offspring with relatives, put on men's clothes, assumed the name of Christopher
Welsh, and also joined up. She served
for several years without her secret being uncovered, first in the 1st
Earl of Orkney's Regiment and then in the Scots Guards. At the Battle of Schellenberg (1704) she was
wounded in the hip but managed to conceal her gender.
Later
that year she at last encountered her husband.
At the time, he was holding a Dutch lady in his arms. She made herself known to him. He desired that they should be reunited. However, she stated that she was unwilling
for such to happen until either the war had ended or her true identity had been
revealed. He respected her wish in the
matter. To explain their sudden
intimacy, they claimed that they were brothers.
Christian
suffered a head injury at the Battle of Ramillies (1706). The doctor who treated her discovered that
she was a woman and made the fact known.
Her husband was sent for and the truth of what had happened was
established. A new marriage was
celebrated in a ceremony that was attended by most of the officers of her
regiment. She then stayed with the army
by working as a provisions merchant.
Richard Welsh was killed at the Battle of Malplaquet (1709).
The
widow remarried. Her second husband died
in combat at Taisniers (1710).
Subsequently, she was consoled by the affections of a Captain Ross. As a result, she became known as Mother
Ross . Following her return to England,
Queen Anne granted her both a bounty of 50 and a pension of a shilling a
day. She married a third husband, yet
another soldier. When he became elderly,
he entered the Royal Hospital Chelsea, she did likewise. She died in 1739. Her corpse was buried in the institution s
cemetery in a ceremony that involved its being granted full military honours.
It was
be another 270 years before the first women former service personnel, who had
been recruited as women, were to take up residence in the Hospital.
Location:
Royal Hospital Chelsea, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, SW3 4SR (purple, yellow)
Website:
www.scotsdgmuseum.com
Cross-Dressing
Charlotte Charke
The
actress Charlotte Charke (1713-1760), the daughter of Colley Cibber,
specialised in playing en travestie roles. She took to wearing men's clothes off-stage
as well.
Gender Identity Development Service
The
Gender Identity Development Service (G.I.D.S.) specialised in treating children
with gender dysphoria. It operates as
part of the Tavistock Clinic and Portman.
One of the treatments its furnished was prescribing puberty blockers to
children who were aged under sixteen.
In 2018
Dr David Bell was re-elected the staff governor. He was a psychoanalyst and consultant
psychiatrist who had worked in the Tavistock adult services since 1995. Over the following seven months ten G.I.D.S.
staff contacted him in an unsolicited manner to express their concerns about
unit's activities (they represented approximately a third of its staff at the
time). However, only one of them spoke
to him at the Tavistock. The others were
worried about being subject to intimidation.
Their concerns included the way in which some children did not have the
same urgency about the issue as their parents appeared to have been rehearsed
in what they said. Some children were
recommended for treatment after only two appointments and were often subject to
little in the way of follow-up monitoring.
Bell was not opposed to the use of puberty blockers, however, he was
concerned that the halting of puberty might make the prospect of it more
frightening to children
As a
matter conscience Bell concluded that he should write a report about G.I.D.S. s
activities. In July he contacted the
hospital management to express his wish to do so. The idea was approved. He then contacted G.I.D.S. to ask for a range
of data. He received no reply. The Trust's chief executive, Paul Jenkins,
then sent him a terse letter that G.I.D.S. was extremely busy and that it was
under no obligation to supply him with any information. In September Bell sent his report to Jenkins
and Paul Burstow, the Chairman of the Board.
They responded by sending he could not submit it to the Council of
Governors. However, the document was
discussed at the body's next meeting. It
appointed Dinish Sinha, the Trust's Medical Director, to conduct a review
G.I.D.S.. In November Bell received two
letters that stated that he might be subject to disciplinary action. One of them made the claim that he had
bullied people. This was not true. He was told that he was only allowed to
communicate to about his work his immediate line manager.
Keira
Bell was born female. In the early
1990s, when she had been aged sixteen, she had been prescribed puberty
blockers. In retrospect she regretted
her transition to a male identity and concluded that she should bring a legal
action against the Tavistock Trust over the treatment she had received. In December 2020 the High Court ruled that it
was unlikely that people aged under sixteen were able to give informed consent
to be prescribed puberty blockers.
Ultimately, the case was lost on appeal.
However, it made apparent that G.I.D.S. had never collected any
substantive data upon the efficacy of its treatments. It was unable to furnish the court with basic
data about how many children had been prescribed puberty blockers, what they
ages had been, or what their initial genders had been.
In
January 2021 David Bell retired. The
following month The Observer newspaper covered how he had been treated. In the article he expressed the opinion that
the Trust had failed in its responsibility to whistle-blowers and its broader
mission. At the time, he had a
crowdfunding appeal to cover the legal fees he had incurred. The Trust declared that the issues that he
had raised were historical and were dealt with following proper
processes . It denied that any steps
were taken against Bell for being a whistleblower.
G.I.D.S.
closed in March 2023. It had come to be
appreciated some members of the Clinic's staff had not examined the children s
circumstances as fully as they could have.
Many of the youths that it dealt with were being bullied, were gay,
and/or were autistic. The following
month Hilary Cass, a prominent paediatrician, delivered a report that stated
that the rigour of scientific research in the field fell short of that in other
branches of medicine. It criticised
G.I.D.S. for failing to keep records and for its failing what harm hormones
cause to young bodies and brains.
G.I.D.S. had failed to acknowledge that for many children or young
adults who experienced gender dysphoria it was a temporary phase. The report called on the N.H.S. to undertake
a complete overhaul of its to dealing gender-questioning young people. It called for puberty blockers to only be
prescribed as part of research trials.
Mermaids###
Mermaids
was a group that from 2016 lobbied actively for untested certainties of hormone
treatment. It was scientifically naïve
in view of what the Cass Report was to state in 2024.
David
Backhouse 2024