Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - April Ashley: Paris Showgirl, Vogue Model & Trans Trailblazer

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

As the UK’s second person to go through gender reassignment surgery, April Ashley was a trans trailblazer, breaking new ground fearlessly and with humour and grace.She wowed the crowds of Le Carrousel as a showgirl in 1950s Paris, graced the pages of Vogue and, when accepting her MBE for services to transgender equality in 2012, she stood every bit as gracious and regal as the Queen herself.April's achievements seem even more remarkable in the context of a life story replete with real hardships, from an extremely tough upbringing in post-war Liverpool to her public outing in a national newspaper by a friend.Behind the demure glamour she presented, who was April Ashley? And why is it so vital that her story his heard today? Kate is joined by author and journalist Charlie Craggs to find out.This episode was produced by Stuart Beckwith, and edited by Tom Delargy. The Senior Producer was Charlotte Long. If you're enjoying Betwixt please vote for us at the British Podcast Awards here. It would mean the world to us!Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Kate Lister, Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Mary Beard and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code BETWIXT. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Leave a tricksters, it is I, Kate Lister. I am here once more with your fair do's warning. Why do we persist in doing this? Well, it is because we want to just make sure that you are safe and okay and not triggered and in a safe space and just basically that you are okay and tucked up in bed and we can look after you.

This is a warning about the content of this podcast because it is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults in an adulty way about adulty things, and you should be an adult too. Actually, today we are talking about the trans trailblazer April Ashley, and we will be covering things from surgeries. Definitely, there'll be swearing involved a lot as well, some sexual content. And just, well, you know the drill by now. And if you're not ready for it, then just scroll on.

But if you are, let's do this. Here's a question for you, but Twixters. If you could go back in time for a night out in any time period at all, where would it be? When would it be? I mean, 1950s Paris would have to be up there surely, right? It just would. Specifically, Le Carousel de Paris, an iconic drag venue where beautiful trans women, such as the acclaimed coxinell would enthrall the rowdy crowds of the day long into the night.

Even Elvis stopped by to see what all the fuss was about. And it's here in this club that one dancer, known then as Tony April, joined the ranks and stole the show. Under the hotlights of the carousel and a long way from the rough streets of Liverpool where they grew up, Tony finally found a place of belonging and quickly became a star. Tony became April and their life... Well, what can we even say about it? but it was absolutely one for the history books.

Today, betwixt the sheets, we are going to find out about April Ashley's extraordinary life and the odds she overcame as a pioneering trans woman and why it's so important that we hear her story today. What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs

by just turning it up and pushing the button. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Dary. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, with me, Kate Lister. We often explore the lives of gutsy individuals

on this podcast, but today's subject has got to take some beating. To see April Ashley accepting her NBE from the Queen in 2012 for services to transgender equality with the same grace and poise as she'd presented her whole life, really was nothing short of remarkable. There wasn't a hint of the unbelievable poverty and hardships that she'd faced,

whether that's growing up as a boy in impoverished post-war Liverpool, while coming to terms with being gay, or being publicly humiliated in the courts and the national newspapers when her marriage with an aristocrat broke down, cruelly broke down in the 1960s. April's is a very compelling story with many twists, and turns, that also includes gracing the pages of vogue, no less. Today, we are joined by author and journalist Charlie Craggs to explore and to celebrate April's life and legacy. But before we get into that, I would like to ask you a little favor.

A tinsie-wit-wit-liver, please, lovely betwixters, if you are enjoying betwixt, and I hope that you are. I'd really love it if you would just take a couple of minutes and vote for us for the listeners' Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards. If you follow the link in the show notes, you can just give us a click. It'll be over very, very quickly, just a couple of seconds and it really, really would mean the world to us. We were shortlisted last year and we only just missed out on it and frankly, it's just made us hungry for more. Please give us a vote if you enjoy what we're up to. Now, that is out the way. I am ready to do this if you are. Oh, and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only challenge.

Ali Craigs. How are you doing? I'm all right, Kay. How are you, babe? I think I'm a bit better than you, because you just said you're trying to move house. Yeah, I wasn't sure how much to say when you asked me that. I'm like, I'm not going to trauma dump on top of our listeners. But yeah, I'm trying to move at the moment and it's horrible as anyone who's moved knows. Isn't it a complete bag of shit? Like, you think you've got a handle on it. I'm so glad I can say shit as well. You've made me feel so comfortable. It is shit. It's shite. Not just shit. It's shy. It's horrible. The bit that always catches me out is when you remember you've got to pack up the food.

Like that always, and it's like a massive job. I didn't even remember that. So thanks a lot. You've just reminded me of that. You've just ruined my morning. But if there are any hot men with vans listening who want to do my removers for free. There'll be kinks out there, you know. There'll be like, it's a submissive thing of people to come around and help clear your house.

Oh, I've just got a kink from men in vans, to be honest. I do love a trade. I love a tradie. I'm not even joking it anyway. I love that. Right, we have to talk. Yeah, talking of tradies. Talking of tradies, there's a nice segue there

that a more skilled presenter would get than me. But we are here to talk about April Ashley's life. Now, what is it about this person that has so caught your attention? I mean, trans-history is, it's as long as there have been people, and it is in the process of being recovered because so much of it has been forgotten.

Yeah. But what is it about April that really caught your attention? I mean, just to jump on what you said as well about being forgotten, a lot of has been deliberately forgotten as well. And we saw the stuff in Nazi Germany. For me, April is so important because she was kind of like the first trans person in a way that I not found out about,

because that was Nadia, our big brother, when I was at about 11. Nadia, I'd almost think of that. God bless Nadia. Yeah, I love Nadia so much. She's changed my life, literally. But I literally wouldn't be here now or who I am now if it wasn't for her. Because she was the first time I had a word for how I felt. But the first, like, kind of piece of media I consumed around trans stuff was April Ashley's book.

It's called April Ashley's Odyssey. It's out of print now, I think. And I got it for, like, really expensive on eBay. It was like a really old, dusty book. And this is, like, 2012-ish. And this was kind of before the massive tipping point of, like, they're being kind of trans stuff in the media. like now there's too much trend stuff in the media there was really nothing like we had just had um calm and carrera and kiley come out on drag race but other than that like levin cox wasn't even like

in oranges new black then which was like that felt like the dawn of the new tipping point so like i found this book about this woman who i'd never heard of on eBay paid about 50 quid for it which was a lot of money for like a 20 year old for a book but um i was so hungry for it and i'm so glad i did i still have it now it's probably worth a lot of money now it was was, yeah, just really important to me because it was the first time, like I said, I really, like, had something to read about a trans person. So, like, I didn't even have anything to watch back then. But, like, it helped me see myself.

It helped me understand myself. It helped me understand my history and my community's history. Yeah, it was just really pivotal in not just my transition, but my life. Wow, that had a really big impact on you. Yeah, I imagine I was like, no, not really. Actually, no, I returned it. Two days later and got my 50 pound back. It's shy April. Try harder April. No, it was so good. Like, I remember reading the book when I was going for my like laser hair removal, which was like so hard and so painful. I don't know if anyone else has had laser hair removal, but especially like on areas like your face and downstairs that I think it's to do like the nerve endings there. Like it is so painful. It's so I would like have panic attacks. And like I would read her book on the way there and like at the start my transition. And it would just give me like strength to know like look at what the women who have gone before.

you have gone through and they've gone through so much worse. And if they can get through, if ABLE can get through everything she bloody got through in her life, which we're going to get to talking about, you can get through a laser hair removal session. Like, laser didn't even exist in the 60s. Do I mean when, bless her, like people like April needed it most, I was reminding myself how lucky I am that I can even get laser.

And like, do I mean, and I'm literally like living my truth because of and able to get things like laser and transition because of people like April and the steps they took forward for me to follow behind. So, yeah, it was really, really, really important for me reading that book at that time. Let's start with the origin story, I suppose, we've got to.

For anyone listening going, I don't know who they're talking about. Who was April Ashley? Yeah, so you might have, like, heard of her recently because really sadly she passed away and she really was like a pioneer within the trans community because she was kind of like the first, one of the first, I'm not going to say the first because everyone has a different first person. But for most people, in kind of living memory, she was like the kind of. a first significant representation of a trans person in the media.

And it was not for the best reasons. It was like often her being in the media was, it wasn't for good reasons, not by her doing, but as in like a tabloid, it altered her as being trans. Prior to that, like she was a Vogue model. And she was, even before the Vogue model stuff, she had had an insane life where she grew up in immense poverty in Liverpool. She then fled her really, like I said, poverty-stricken,

but also very Catholic upbringing to like, and be her herself. And she went, well, originally she actually joined the Navy, but then she went to become a showgirl in Paris and she had this incredible life as a really celebrated showgirl at the La Carousel. And then she stumbled into, from that world, into the high society world of being like a Vogue model here in the UK. And then she was out as being trans.

And then everything fell to shit. Everything she'd worked so hard for, and she had literally fought two for Nel for, was taken away from her. She lost her marriage even. And like, that's kind of a, big part of why we know her as well as because the case she had in the high courts where she was defending her right to be seen as the woman she is and within the eyes of the law and within the

context of marriage. And then it's just ridiculous that she lost that battle and the repercussions of that onto even trans people today. Do you know I mean? Like we're still feeling those repercussions and so much has changed but also so much hasn't changed and you only have to look at the newspapers today, the same tabloids today to see that, you know? It's strange. As a historian, you notice that a lot, is that even though you feel debates and things have moved on, there's still so much that is, we're doing the same stuff.

Yeah. With so many different areas of life. And when you're dealing with marginalised communities or people fighting for their rights, it is the same debates being had again and again and again and again. Yeah. You only have to look at like abort, like who with a fucking thought? The abortion, like, the Roe versus Wade,

like maybe it's just my naivety, but I would never. ever have predicted that would have happened. I mean, everyone knew America is very conservative. And I guess you knew that there was a lot of anger about it. But no, to sort of end up here, it's just like, oh, my God. And I feel like the same tipping point is happening with a lot of marginalized communities, like obviously the trans community, like the LGBT community in general,

before we came whenever we were talking about the drag bands. You think, it's a drag queen. Get a grip. Like, grow up. Like, what? Like, and you just think, like, things we've taken for granted for so long. And within, like, the last 20 years, I feel like, we're seeing, like, a trick. down effect of these conservative beliefs that are really very much like kind of having leeway and

they're running with it and the kind of sensationalism in the media isn't helping. And if you gave that drag queen in AK-47, then suddenly that would be okay for some reason. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. Right, okay, hang on. Focus, focus, focus. Yeah, April, Ashley, let's go. So you can see many interviews with April on YouTube today. And when she speaks, she has very clipped upper-class accent, very, very,

that kind of like ethereal beauty that if you knew nothing about this person you'd be like, well, that's clearly a very, very posh lady. Just like me, yes. That's exactly what I thought. It's exactly what I thought about you too. But to know that she was born in real poverty in Liverpool, that surprised me a lot

to learn that that was part of her history. Yeah. And I think that's what really resonated with me about her as well as because I was obviously born into that immense level of like post-war poverty where they were literally just living in ruins from the war and you were like scavenging and, you know, rationed and just some really hard life. Just for me, it was like I grew up on free school meals.

I grew up on a council estate. I grew up being bullied by some boys in school because of how much money my parents and stuff. And like, so that was another part about her that really made me identify with her. And like I think it really made me, it's just she was so strong. And like I said, almost with the trans thing of like if she got through this, you can get through it.

Like I applied that to other areas of my life too because transitioning as a working class go is a very different experience to transitioning as Caitlin Jenner. I mean like Caitlin can have 10 hours of surgery in one day and turn the party and be done and then throw the whole community under the bus afterwards. Cheers Caitlin. Yeah, thanks Caitlin. But for me, like it was years and years and years of saving for like surgeries I had to have that like I would want to kill myself if I didn't have, not out of vanity, but out of like sanity. I've never said that. I usually say out of like safety because it was also safety as well. like living in a council estate looking in a rough part of London.

I'd had glass bottles thrown at me. I'd had like eggs thrown at me, obviously, like insults, obviously punches. But like I needed these surgeries to be able to blend in. And having that kind of aspect of her identity, finding out about that was important to me because I really saw myself in her again. And it really did give me the strength. And I think when you're going through is something as hard as early transition and you don't have the strength in yourself.

You need to pull that strength from other people. That's why I always say when I get. DMs from young trans people asking for advice. And I was like, baby, if you don't have the strength in you now, pull that strength from someone else. Like I pulled it from Nadia. I pulled it from April. I pulled it from people like that.

And when you don't have the strength for yourself, you need those role models. It would be nice to think that when April grew up in working class Liverpool, it was like all in together and that there was lots of love and support. And, you know, they were poor, but rich in love. But that wasn't the case for April at all, was it? I know that she had a really hard time even with like her parents. like I said, and another part of her identity I relate with is being Catholic as well. And I'm

actually very lucky that the total opposite of my mum couldn't be a more accepting better mom. But like I know April actually had the opposite and like she was badly abused as a child as well as growing up in poverty. Like it was an abusive household and especially like she just very much wasn't accepted for being an effeminate boy, which I think is in part why she did end up going to the Navy to try and like, I keep making this about myself. But I relate. that also I think a lot of trans people doing that you try and fight this. And I think even gay people like do it as well where like you are bullied and persecute so much by the outside world that you start to hate the things that they bully you about because

you're like, why am I like this? I don't want to fucking be like this. I don't want to be effeminate. Who would want to be like this? So you try and make yourself what you're meant to be. But often putting yourselves in those situations only highlights even more that you are not the person that you quotation marks should be or want to be like the people. people that are around you, like, I can imagine with her the people in the Navy, and it only made her just know even more that she was trans. That's obviously then why she fled to Paris. I can't imagine the trauma that she must have gone through growing up, at a very abusive situation and very rejected and not being able to change or alter the very things about herself

that she's being bullied and picked on an abused for, and then attempting to go into the Navy, like, this will fix it somehow, like some kind of desperate, this will make it okay. And then it's not okay. I think it was just a way out for as well at that point. She just needed to get out. I can see that actually. Yeah. I think that's what a lot of people do as well.

And that's even why you think of survival, sex work that a lot of trans people have to do. It's just a way of getting out and making the money that you need to make and give yourself the safety you need, you know? What was the Navy experience like for April? Did it help? I don't think she expected it to be good.

Like I said, I think it was more of just a way out. But like, it definitely wasn't good. And like I said, it is very much why being around the people you're trying to force yourself to be like, it only highlights even more that you're not like these people. And then that's why she obviously fled to Paris. But then in turn, found the people that she was supposed to be around and found her tribe.

I guess is what I'm trying to say is like she found her people. And those people encouraged her to be herself. And then she found other trans people, you know, yeah, oh my God, can you imagine? That you've been through all of this, this rejection. And of course, like you were saying that there wasn't enough trans debate when you were younger and there wasn't. And like not understanding what's going on with you. Imagine April born in like 1935.

Not even the language. There was no even language. She predates the language for which. I mean, there was obviously trans people existing. Like you said, we can look back at any kind of historical period and there's evidence of trans people existing. But like there definitely wasn't, especially in like working class, poverty stricken post-war Liverpool, especially in the Catholic household. I didn't even have the language for that growing up on my estate. And like I said, my mum is the most accepting mum in the world.

But like she didn't even know what trans was. she didn't understand. That was like 90s, Labrack Grove, do you know what I mean? I just think, like, everything I felt throughout my transition must have been like times 100 for April because of the context she was living in. It's like mind-blowing for me. So I can't even imagine how mind-blown it was for April, you know, to have found people like her and found a word for herself and finally found her place in this world as well.

And other people like her going to the same thing. Mad. And especially at that time as well, because, spoiler alert, like she was one of the kind of first people to ever undergo, like, reassignment surgery. And, like, to me, that's how much she was at the kind of forefront of this, what we were just talking about of that. They're just not being words for things. There wasn't surgeries for things at this point, even.

Do I mean? Like, I just can't. I really can't. I'm not even going to disrespect her by trying to find the words for it. But, like, it's just insane. Because I, like I said, know that feeling just from my life growing up when I did. And it was insane enough. So I can't even imagine how insane it would have been to have been one of the first, you know?

I know. So she gets to Paris and then he's working as a showgirl, which is something that everyone should have said about their lives at some point, I think, of just, you know, they got to Paris and then they made it as a showgirl and then they went on. see the dream. That's the dream, right? But because obviously, Paris has historically always been a lot more cosmopol. I mean, you know, it's had its issues. But even like before the First World War, definitely after the Second World War and then kind of leading up to it, it did have a much more bohemian atmosphere where they did have, I can't even think what they would call it now.

But I suppose cross-dressing shows is what they would have been termed at the time. Drag Queen is what we'd call now, right? Yeah, she like found her way into the upper echelon of society who were, like, she was very much celebrated for everything that she was persecuted for back here in the UK where she grew up. In these spaces, celebrities, like, I think I even remember her saying that Elvis came to the shows and Elvis hit on her once, but didn't actually realize that she was trans, then very politely was like, I'll buy your drink, but I'm not interested sort of thing. But, you know, she had all this baby, she's very much hinted that she got hers, like, she had a good time. And she was just

very much like mingling with the creme de la creme. And, like, she was celebrated. It wasn't like a CD, like, it was like look at these incredible women and people come from all over the world to like watch them perform on stage and do the showgirl routines and stuff and um her like kind of co-stars were pretty much all of her trans women for lack of a better language obviously back then the terms were there wasn't like the terminology we had today but in today's kind of context they would have been seen as trans women and a lot of them did undergo surgeries a lot of them aren't even like amanda lea used to perform there i don't even know if now she even this is a long running thing so i'm not outing her or anything but like Like in April Ashley's autobiography, she very much names Amanda Leera. The trans girl, Amanda Lear. And like, but she was a pop star in the 70s who just wasn't out, which was obviously like a statement of the times. But like there was other people like her, like having surgeries and also just living stealthily as well, where you like would just try and integrate into society.

And that's very much what April and actually just like into a wider context of today, what most trans people want to do, like most kind of binary trans people want to do is just to live a normal life. we just want to blend in. We just, people in the media act like, we're this big nuisance and we're a threat, but also like trying to change the fabric of society and make everyone stop using gendered language and, you know, make everything different.

And it's like, no, I'd really just like to like get married and move to the suburbs and live a quiet life. Can you just leave us alone? That's literally all we want is to be left alone. That's it. I want to live a boring life in the suburbs with my husband. Thank you very much that I don't have yet. So if there's any hot guys listening, DM me.

But point being, that's very much what April wanted for herself. She wanted to live. And in that context of where she grew up, like it was a miracle that she still was alive. She had stardom thrust upon her in the way that she was then mingling in the right crowds and that she kind of found her way into, like I said,

the modelling kind of scene where she was being shot by massive photographers and then she was shot for Vogue eventually, like I said. And she was an it girl on the scene. And then that's how she found, obviously, the guy she married. I don't know if that was intentional, to be honest. Like, I'm sure she loved it. But, like, I think really she just wanted to, be herself. But I think it all happened how it was meant to because like I said, we wouldn't be.

And when I say we, I mean me and every other trans person, we wouldn't be. And as lucky as we are today, like living with the privilege we do live with standing on the shoulders of people like Ashley. I'll be back with Charlie and April after this short break. I'm James Patton Rogers, a war historian, advisor to the UN and NATO and host of the warfare podcast from History Hit. Join me twice a week every week as we look at the conflicts that have defined our past and the one shaping our future. We talked to award-winning journalists. ISIS, this peculiar strain that we all came to know very well in the mid-2010s, really got its start because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. We hear from the people who were actually there.

The Sudanese have been incredible. They have managed to get supplies to people, to individual. who are suffering. And we learn from the remarkable historians shining a light on forgotten histories. For the most part, the millions of people who were taken to those camps were immediately murdered.

Auschwitz combined the functions of death camp and concentration camp and slave labour. Join us on the Warfare podcast from a history hit twice a week, every week, wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about the surgeries that April had. And it's really important that we contextualise. this as gender reassignment surgery was so in its infancy. It was just getting going in Germany

just before the Second World War and then the Nazis came to power and then they Hertzfeld's Magnus officers. They burnt everything. They burnt all the research. They burnt all of the case studies. And they really set back trans surgery and scientific research in this area for decades. And it was just starting to get back going again when April went for the surgery. I just want to like really emphasise that. To say that this was experimental and dangerous is an understatement really. Yes. I mean even in this day and age, there's an element of that where I went for my consultation and they're like, this might go wrong. This is in London in 2020s. But April, like you said, she, I think she was the ninth surgery that this doctor had done in Casablanca.

So she, this girl from fucking working class, Liverpool, had gone all the way to Casablanca to see a doctor who hardly spoke English, who she had to know that he understood what he was doing. And like he, by word of mouth she'd heard he was good and was one of the only doctors who were doing it as well because you got to think about the fact that like this wasn't a widely accepted thing like people obviously weren't that accepting of trans people back then so like he was one the few maybe even the only one I don't actually know but one of the only ones in the world he'd be doing it hence why he'd only done nine and hence why the girls would come all the way to him in Casablanca and I remember like reading the book and him essentially being like you could die from this and she's like well I don't

want to live if if I can't have it I don't want to live and I again not to make this about my But like I remember that feeling with many other my surgeries as well. Like even the simplest things of like facial surgeries I had where like I had such a manly face before. And it was the reason I would literally get abuse all day, every day in the street because I look very much clearly like I have a man face. I remember my doctor's telling me the complication. My friends were like, are you scared? You're going to have your six hours of surgery on your face. And I'm like, I don't want to live if I can't have it. So I can very much relate with what April said. And I think especially within the context of that time as well, there was no other choice for her.

There was no freedom of expression in that you can exist within the lines of man and female be non-binary or be androgynous or be a gay man even. You couldn't even be a fucking gay man back then. So like I can totally relate and thank God the surgery was a success and that she did wake up because, yeah, thank God.

The risks of it and the dangers involved. And I've seen an interview with April where she says very eloquently in that big clipped voice and she's just, well, I would die. if I didn't have it. And that really hit home to me of like, my God. Like this isn't a choice, actually, that she feels she has to do this.

I really feel like that really resonates with this whole debate in the media right now as well. And especially when there's so, so, so much talk about, because it's all really rooted back in this with the kind of conservative idea and the very much Christian idea or religious idea or protect women and kids. And it's very much like,

we shouldn't be letting kids have these surgeries because what if they change their mind? And it's like they're claiming to care for trans kids and not letting them make these big decisions. And when we say kids, I'm talking about 18 year olds because you have to be 18 to have surgery in the UK. And 18 year olds can join the army. They can get married. They can do all these other things.

But God forbid they seek some help to stop themselves feeling suicidal because this is how trans teenagers are feeling. I was that person we're feeling suicidal. We don't want to be here. Saying you're trying to protect us, but like what's worse, a trans child or a dead child? Because that is what you're going to have. If you ban trans affirming health care for 18 year olds, like I said, everyone is competent. enough to make their decisions at 18, apparently trans people aren't. But if you ban that, you don't care for them because they're going to be dead.

And it's very much the same thing with April in that like, it's this or it's death. There's also footage of April talking about when she woke up from the surgery. And let's not pretend that it was a walk in the park, that it was like, oh, now I'm healed, her out and off you go. It was painful. And I think I read that her hair fell out and that there was complications. But she said that the feeling of joy and happiness that she said there is nothing like. She'd never experienced a joy like that to wake up from the surgery and to know that it had been a success.

And then she enters, again, what she refers to as the happiest period in her life in some interviews where she's modelling. She's modelling successfully. She's in London. It's not known that she's trans. She just looks like a very extraordinarily feminine and very elegant and very the clipped voice. And she's described that as the happiest period in her life. Which I think is testament to what I said about how we just want to have a normal life and blend in. Like, the happiest point in her life wasn't a statement. It was a point where she just existed and no one even knew she was trans. And she could just get on with her life.

And that is literally what trans people today still want. We just want to get home with our lives quietly. We don't want to change your lives. And bear in mind, she was a girl at this point. She was so young. Had hustled, hustled, hustled hard to get to the point where she can save up all that money for surgery. And now, like, she was living the dream. Who would have thought this girl from that background would now be in the pages of Vogue, you know?

Yeah. That would be monumental today for a working class person to do that. But back then with the background April came from, it was even more magnificent and more of like a incredible feat, you know? And it would be lovely if we could tell the story and just say, and that was it. And then the end, that was it. April made it as a model. And then she retired and had some cats and it was fine. That happy period doesn't last.

What happened to April? The British press happened. which is what is happening today. She was outed, and then, like, she was kind of blacklisted, as seen as like a freak. Why would people want to work with, like, a trans person? You know, it was like we were saying it wasn't something that was talked about, so people had no understanding of this.

And obviously, the terminology used wasn't that like, oh, she's trans. It was, oh, she's a man. And this man is wearing underwear in vogue, do I mean? And, like, this man has married another man, and God forbid her. And it's like, well, first of all, bitch, the man fucking knew. Thank you very much. man, we've got to preface this, because April

had managed to get married. Arthur Corbett, I think it is. Arthur Corbett. And she married well. He's a cunt with money. Yeah, I mean, yeah, she knew what she was doing. But also, like, I think she actually did, like, from reading the autobiography, like, she did love him as well. Like, she didn't just marry him for his money. Because she could have had Elvis, like, she could have had anyone for their money.

Obviously, she's like a working-class girl who knew that she had to, like, live a safe life. She couldn't just go back and be like, oh, I'm just going to go move back in with my abusive mother on my bomb shelter house, back in Liverpool as like a trans woman. She didn't have that choice. But like, so obviously she knew she would have had to stay in this lifestyle. But like, she could have done it with anyone. She didn't have to do with Arthur.

But Arthur very much pursued her. Obviously, like he knew, but obviously he claimed to not know. Just like drawing parallels between today, that's the defense that's so many men use, especially when they kill us as well, not to be dark and depressing. But like the defense they use is the trans panic, the gay panic, which is still legal in a lot of states in America, which is terrifying, where you just be like, I didn't know. And they were trans, so I killed them.

And it's like, okay, you get a free pass. And it was very much that of this guy, apparently just didn't know, you know? I'm sure he thinks that all vaginas look like that with scars along the side. Do you mean like, you just like, come on. Full title, Arthur Corbett, later on, the third baron, Rowwallon? Stupid name. Eaton, educated son and heir of Lord Rowellon. Yeah, I think they should revise the science lessons in Eaton because apparently they're not very good.

There's never been pussy and eating. Yeah. I love you so much. Oh my God, I adore you. You're my new favorite person for that. We need whoever's listening. Make merch of that immediately. But yeah, very much, very much.

So they got married? Like, they were properly married. Oh, yeah. They were living a blissful marriage as well. Like they were very much happy. Like I said, he was very much the one he pursued her. She wasn't the one like chasing him and trying to fool him. Like, he knew what was that.

He knew her history. He knew where she'd worked and stuff. And that's why he liked her as well. Did I mean? Like, that he was besotted by her, as anyone with a fucking eyes would be, you know? Like, again, parallel to today, like, you just think, a pretty woman is a pretty woman. Does it matter if her chromosomes are a bit different? Unless obviously you're wanting to have kids, but like, what the hell?

Yeah, a weirdo anyway. Bloody weird. And a nasty weirdo as well, we should add. Really nasty. Because when he wanted to separate, he didn't just go down the divorce line. He demanded an unlawful. on the ground that April, and to use the language at the time, was a man. That's what happened.

Can you imagine the blow of that? Not only being like your life literally falling to pieces, that you've got no family, you've lost a career, you've like lost everything you've built from nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean like not even fucking two pennies to rub together from the background you're from. You've lost it all. And now you've lost your marriage with the person you love. But not only have you lost the person you love, they've turned around and just to like save

face so that they don't feel embarrassed in front of their peers and in front of the public, because it was very much like played out in the public eye, has turned around and said, yeah, you're a man, like, not just like, I want to divorce from you, but like, I'm going to really stick the knife in. And after you've gone through this life-threatening surgery where you could have almost died, you went all the way to Casablanca with the money you'd worked so hard to make as a working class person, just to be told, you're still a man. And then essentially be told that by the fucking high court as well, how she didn't combust.

on the spot after everything she's been through in her life, I will never, ever know, because, like, the disrespect. No, even, it's like the biggest slap in the face you could ever give someone. And it's not like they were together, you know, like a bit of a fling. They met in 1960 and then this annulment was finally granted in 1970s. That's 10 years that she's invested in this person that she's married to. And then they drag it through the court. And it's not just a case of, like, dragging it before, like, you know, Judge Judy.

And then Judge Judy's a bit of a bitch. Like, April is subjected to medical examinations. It's brutal. It is absolutely awful. I think something like 10 doctors had to medically examine her vagina and you just think like, fucking hell. Like, Jesus Christ, and then to be told after all that, like, no, you're a man. Publicly, like, it's like being put in the stocks and having tomatoes thrown at you for the whole of the, not just the UK either,

because obviously this was like sensational news, like, and it was very much like upper class. would have spread definitely across, at least to America, but even in Europe and stuff. Like, you were, like, made a mockery of in front of the whole world. You just, like I said, I just don't know how she didn't combust. It's so brutal, the humiliation of it, like newspapers writing about her genitals and about this and about that and this. And you can read what the judge actually said. And it's awful.

It's really, really ugly. That Omrod guy, whatever his name is, Judge Omrod. And I remember, like, I did a documentary when she passed, like, Channel 4 did a documentary and they asked me to be like a talking head on it. and they like played the reenactment obviously because they didn't have audio back then of the judge's full statement. And just please watch it just for my eye roll

because like the eye roll I gave, I've never given such a hard eye roll on my life. It's so disrespectful to April. It was like you're a man and you've received us. It was just like, what the fuck? You just think there's just such a lack of compassion as well, you know? No compassion. He resorted to saying that like marriage should only exist

between a man and a woman. It's only for heterosexuals. only about basically making babies and it was just so, it was just ugly, there's no other word for it. It was ugly. Obviously, I don't think the outcome should have been what it was, but even if they were going to give the outcome of an annulment, like, or a divorce or whatever,

it could have been handled so differently that she wasn't dragged in public and then had tomatoes thrown at her. I just can't imagine. I can't imagine. What happens to April after this? So this is 1970. The swinging 60s haven't swung all that far

and there's still. stigma and I think homosexuality hasn't been long decriminalised. She ended up in Wales eventually. I'm sure that I read that. Was it in Hay as well? I think in the end then she ended up in hay. And she got married again. Yes.

Which is kind of like a nice. And I don't know if that was a happy marriage, but in 1986 she married Jeffrey West and moved to San Diego. And then that divorced. But she had a sort of trajectory that a lot of queer people and people from marginalized communities have, which is that attitudes change. And then suddenly their. kind of welcomed back.

And it's really shit that it took that long, but at least it happened in her lifetime. Because when she came back to the UK, she was allowed to change her birth certificate and be recognised as a woman. I mean, she didn't just get a birth certificate for her as well. She got a bloody MBE. I remember the picture of her with holding the little medal thing.

And you just think the vindication that must have given her to be acknowledged that, like, we did you wrong and we're sorry. Like, that was something special. And at least that happened. in her lifetime because there were too many people from queer history is like we're recovering the history going there was this amazing person they're incredible they're a trailblazer and what happened to them oh they died in poverty yeah and they never got their flowers in their lifetime but towards the end of april's life she definitely definitely got her flowers because i

remember like especially once this trans tipping point happened within early 2010s she was very much brought back into the public consciousness and the conversation and paris lees i remember doing stuff of her obviously i did like and bringing her making sure that people knew about her because it's really important. Kind of we said at the start of this, we keep our own histories alive because mainstream isn't trying to and often they're trying to eradicate our history, if anything, especially when they've done wrongdoing towards us.

They don't want us to remember that they called April Ashley our queen, a man, do I mean, and like, shamed her like that. So like she was very much redeemed in the public eye and that she got her birth certificate, got her honour. And even then she was like kind of celebrated as this kind of pioneer, especially within our own community, like the LGBTQ plus community. Like she is very much seen as the mother modern day over here. Like in the States they have like Marsha P. Johnson, obviously and Silver Rivera.

And obviously the waves, the ripples they made are felt here. And they're very much mother as well. But like April Ashley was very much like I said, kind of like the first modern day kind of British, specifically British figurehead we had here that was pivotal in us getting our rights and in us in our history, in our modern history. Yeah. So she's very much celebrated by our queer community. And like I was actually supposed to say it was really sad actually.

I was really gutted because I never got to meet her. I was just going to ask you if you met her. I was just going to ask that. It's so shit because I, like with my influence and stuff, I was asked to do like Skittles Pride campaign a couple years ago. Basically they were pairing up young activists from like an ology, a be in a tease. And with like an older kind of figurehead from that same like start, I would have been paired with a trans figurehead.

And I was going to be paired with April Ashley and have a chat. And I was like, oh my God. And she basically pulled out. And I was really upset to her. Obviously, they said it's. she's a bit ill at the moment. And I was like, oh, fucking hell. I went with someone else, but she, yeah, she never did it.

And then a few months later she died. And it was like, I'm so glad that I never got to meet her. But like, it's my honour to do things like this and like the Channel Full Documentary and just every chance I get to keep her legacy alive. What would you want it to have said to her if you had got the chance? I mean, like, if you were going to go out for a pint with April. I would have just said, why are you putting on that stupid accent, my darling? Your riff around, my darling, stop thinking you're better than that.

No, I'm joking, no, no. She would even laugh at that if I said, if she heard me say that, I'm going to get cursed today by her ghost. But no, I would just say, it's the same if I ever met Lady Gaga. I just wouldn't have words. I would just say, I've got to you,

and I'd be like, I have so much to say that I have nothing to say, so I'm going to say nothing to you. I just would give a look and I would just be like, I have no words. Because there are no words. Like I said earlier, I'm not going to disrespect her by like,

thank you for fucking throwing your life down on the line for us. And like, thank you for all you did, for our community and there's no words. So there are just no words. I would just give her a look, just like the biggest thank you from the bottom of my soul. Like the biggest thank you

I've ever given anyone, maybe. Charlie, you have been amazing to talk to about this. You're amazing to talk to about this. You're such a good host and you're very pretty as well. No, I've been admiring you freckles the whole way through.

I'm loving them. But honestly, thank you so much for doing this and thank you for having me on, but also just thank you for keeping April's memory alive. It's so, so important. It's so, so, so important.

Pleasure. If people want to know more about you and the work that you're doing, where can they find you? They can find me on Bumble, Tinder, Hinge. No, they can find me on any social media at Charlie underscore Craggs. But don't look up me, look up April Ashley or like a pride icon that needs remembering that often isn't remembered. Charlie, thank you so much for talking to me today. You've been an absolute treat. You have to, Kate. Thank you so, so much for having me. Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Charlie for. joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and subscribe wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you want us to explore a subject, or if you just

want to say hello, and actually we really do like reading the emails where you just say hello, you can now email us at betwixt at history hit.com. We have got episodes on everything from Victorian baby farming to Mozart's sex life all coming your way. This podcast was produced by Stuart Beckworth and edited by Tom Delagie. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again betwixt the sheets The History of Sex Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit.

This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.