The Case of Sir Ewan Forbes

Bramblethorn

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Interesting reading here:

https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads...-ago-robbed-transgender-people-rights-1291857

...[Zoe Playdon], Emeritus Professor of Medical Humanities at the University of London has unearthed a legal case that 50 years ago changed everything for trans people, but which has been kept secret at the highest levels ever since.

The purpose, it seems, of this blackout was to uphold the patriarchal structure underpinning the monarchy, aristocracy, and hereditary peerages – the right of inheritance by the firstborn son. Or, to use the formal term, male primogeniture. The effect was to remove the human rights of transgender people that had previously existed – and in silence.

...

Playdon hoped that after the Succession to the Crown Act in 2013, which removed male primogeniture from the monarchy, something would shift. But after the Act, several attempts to end the same among hereditary peers unexpectedly didn’t pass, and certain trans rights cases stalled. By then, Playdon had retired so was able to devote five years of digging to find out what happened, and why.

“I knew that in the past, trans people had corrected their birth certificates,” she says. “All the way through up to 1970, the path was: self-identify, get affirmative medical care, correct your birth certificate, and live equally. After 1970, that’s gone.”

The reason, she discovered, lay with the case of Ewan Forbes.

Ewan was the youngest of three children in an aristocratic family, assigned female at birth, but determined to live as a boy from an early age. He obtained testosterone treatment, had his birth certificate changed to identify him as male, and married a woman. Looks like nobody made a fuss about this until his father and older brother died, and a cousin contested his inheritance of the title.
 
Oh yea... "Let cousin Claude or Fontleroy be a little bit queer so long as there's no fuss" but as soon as money and property gets involved then it's pistols at dawn. Plus ca change, except in this case, it did. One way or another push-back was inevitable, but it's Trans awareness week so fuck 'em.

To lighten the mood here's Cyndi with Money changes Everything Mum and I share a deep love for her :rose: Gotta say she looks bloody good for her age her!!

Good article too.

I've been reading a bit more about the UK's archane laws both in respect to wealth/estate inheritance and titles. The original primogeniture law covering intestate inheritance was abolished in 1925 ie it didn't all go to the eldest male child, but shared equally - but that only covered that particular situation.
Currently a group of women peers are challenging law that covers inherited titles allowing them access to the house of lords. The Royal Family apparently sorted out the problem in 2013.

None of this has any bearing on trans rights of course, because we're not monied or titled.
 
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