Zoë Playdon: The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes (1967)

Travels Through Time

This week we uncover a fascinating legal case that had major implications for transgender rights in the U.K., but that has been hidden for the last fifty years.

Ewan Forbes was born in 1912 into an aristocratic Scottish family. He grew up in Aberdeenshire, studied medicine, started practising as a doctor in his local community and married. His patients and neighbours were aware that Ewan had been christened Elisabeth, but that, apart from a few exceptions, he had been viewed as a boy by himself and others since he was a child. In 1952, Ewan had successfully corrected the sex on his birth certificate from “female” to “male”.

In this episode we hear the story of what happened to Ewan some fifteen years later, when his older brother died and the question of who was the rightful heir of the family’s baronetcy sparked a legal battle which was to be of huge significance to the history of LGBTI rights.

Our guest is the academic Zoë Playdon. Zoë is the Emeritus Professor of Medical Humanities at the University of London. She holds five degrees, including two doctorates. For over thirty years Zoë has worked pro bono in the front lines of LGBTI human rights. She is a former co-Chair of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Doctors and Dentists, and in 1994 she co-founded the Parliamentary Forum on Gender Identity with Dr Lynne Jones MP.

As ever, maps, images and much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.

Click here to order Zoë Playdon's book from John Sandoe’s who, we are delighted to say, are supplying books for the podcast.