April Ashley
Actor · 1935 – 2021 · Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK
April Ashley MBE (29 April 1935 – 27 December 2021), styled as The Honourable April 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.
Movies4
Movie6.2DocumentaryTwo legends contested their identities as women in the court of public opinion: April Ashley, who was immortalized as a trailblazer by embracing her transgender history; and Amanda Lear, who has consciously denied and obfuscated her history for decades. Their divergent paths reveal disparate but intertwined legacies.
Enigma
2025 · 15 votes
Movie9.0DocumentaryDramaDrama documentary which takes the form of an up-dated version of Pygmalion. With a special music score by jazz group Working Week, with real "society" characters and locations from 1984.
Ligmalion: Or How to Help Yourself in Self-Help Britain
1985 · 1 votes
MovieDocumentaryFrom wartime Liverpool to London’s high society, the epic story of one of Britain’s most prominent transgender women - model, dancer, and pioneer for transgender equality.
Movie4.3DocumentaryWhoever wanted a sex reassignment surgery in the 1950's could do so in Casablanca, at French gynaecologist Georges Burou's clinic, without fear of psychological examination. The French transgender singer known as Coccinelle was one of the first to use Burou’s services, and many others followed. Michiel Van Erp’s film follows five women who underwent surgery during that time, just before the sexual revolution and the Gay Liberation movement of the 1960's. Intimate interviews reveal their lifestyle, what made them change their sex, how it influenced their lives, and how they cope with the unavoidable ageing.
I Am a Woman Now
2011 · 5 votes