The most famous "sex-change" case to get to court was that of England's April Ashley. She
had been born with
male genitals but was psychologically female, i.e. she was a transsexual. She hated her penis
and in 1960
underwent an operation to remove the visible signs of maleness: strictly speaking this was not
a change of sex,
since all she had accomplished was to remove the visible evidence of her genetic sex. In the
eyes of the law she
was still a man (and in fact had been brought up as George Jamieson). In February 1970 her
marriage to Arthur
Corbett was declared null on the ground that she was not really married. Mr. Justice Ormrod
declared that "She
is a biological male and has been so since birth." She had male chromosomes and male gonads.
Lawyers
supported the court ruling but medical opinion was divided. Dr. Benjamin, author of
"The Transsexual
Phenomenon", noted that "April Ashley has a vagina, so she is a woman." For April
Ashley herself the court
ruling was a personal disaster.