turns out transgender self-id got abolished over a succession dispute

At the time [in the 1930s], trans people could take hormones, have gender confirmation surgery, and then change their birth certificates. There were no panels of psychiatrists and endocrinologists, as we have today, deciding whether to grant you a gender recognition certificate, which since the 2004 Gender Recognition Act has provided certain legal protections. There was no need; you could simply change your birth certificate and therefore other necessary paperwork.

It was the case of Ewan Forbes that changed that. He became a GP, corrected his birth certificate, and married a woman. Having been accepted as a man, he never considered that it all might be threatened until his father, Lord Sempill, died, and then his elder brother, William, in 1965.

As the second son, Forbes would inherit both paternal titles: the barony and the baronetcy, which could only be passed down the male line. But a cousin called John “turns up at William’s funeral”, says Playdon, and tells him he’ll contest the succession in court “because you’re not a real man”.

What followed in 1968 was a trial in which Forbes fought for his male birth certificate to be judged legitimate. His defence had to contend with a recent and radical change in medical thinking. Up until the 1960s, doctors largely regarded trans people as intersex; that is, a physiological difference in which individuals have elements of both sexes.

This idea was then engulfed by a new American psychiatric ideology, “which classifies being trans as a mental illness,” says Playdon, “as floridly psychotic”. The only way for Forbes to bypass this legally would be to prove he had physical male traits.

If he lost, he faced jail, because if declared female his marriage would be deemed perjured. If the case were held in open court, the media would have exposed the most intimate parts of his life and anatomy. […]

The experts’ conclusion was that “Ewan has female anatomy with some male characteristics,” says Playdon. Although the examiners didn’t know Forbes had been taking testosterone, this wasn’t enough. Forbes procured some testes tissue and passed it off as his own.

“He wins,” says Playdon. “But it causes a constitutional crisis. A trans man won a primogeniture baronetcy. It could be used as precedent, not just for trans people, but crucially for primogeniture. What if an older sister of the heir turns out to be trans? Or the person you’re sure is heir is trans and no longer eligible?”

So the case was covered up. “Everyone involved in the trial was sworn to secrecy, and the trial was removed from public life,” says Playdon. […] Finally, it took a complaint to the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard, to begin to gain access to the legal documents in 1998.

But the effect on trans people had already been dramatic. In 1970, April Ashley, who had become the first well-known trans woman in Britain after being outed by a tabloid, was seven years into her marriage with the aristocrat Arthur Corbett. But it was failing. Rather than divorce her and give her money, Corbett attempted to have the marriage annulled, asserting that she was male.

This was despite Ashley having had lower surgery, and Corbett being fully aware before they married in Gibraltar. But she had not corrected her birth certificate.

The judge sided with the aristocrat and swore the lawyers to secrecy about the Forbes trial. During Ashley’s case, the judge “creates a sex test which dis-authenticates her,” says Playdon. Ashley was subjected to the most invasive genital examinations imaginable – twice – because after the expert clinicians concluded that she “had a perfectly usual vagina” the judge demanded they look again. After which, in defiance of their report, the judge declared her a “homosexual transvestite who’s mentally ill” and with a “supposed vagina”, says Playdon.

Ashley lost. It was this case that set the legal precedent, blocking legal rights for trans people, preventing the correction of birth certificates, while the opposing precedent was suppressed. It would be decades before any rights were reinstated.