The Transgender Trial that Threatened to Upend the British Establishment
Ewan Forbes was born Elizabeth Forbes to a wealthy landowning family in 1912. It quickly became clear that the gender applied to him at birth was not correct. With the financial means of procuring synthetic hormones, Ewan was able both to live as a man and correct the sex on his birth certificate in order to marry. In 1965, on the death of his older brother, Ewan was set to inherit the family baronetcy, but his cousin contested the inheritance and Ewan was forced to defend his male status in an extraordinary court case, testing the legal system of the time to the limits of its understanding. The records of which were considered so threatening they were removed from history.