The first transsexual in Australia lived in the XIX century and was married three times
Recently discovered chronicles told about the life of the first transsexual in Australia and about the unusual circumstances under which the "secret" was revealed. Edward de Lacey Evans was a labourer, miner, blacksmith and ploughman in Victoria's Blackwood, Bendigo and Stawell counties. For more than 20 years he lived as a man and was married three times. According to the Herald Sun newspaper, at least one of his wives said she did not know about Evans' biological gender.
Evans' identity was established when he entered the Kew Psychiatric Hospital in Melbourne in 1897 with a diagnosis of depression — his third wife Julia Markand gave birth to a child, and Edward was recorded by his father. When the hospital staff tried to wash Evans, he resisted. Then they grabbed him, forced him to undress and discovered that it was actually a woman dressed up as a man.
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According to records kept in the State Library of Victoria, Evans' name was Ellen Tremaine and he immigrated to Australia in June 1856, arriving on the ship Ocean Monarch. Evans was wearing a woman's dress, under which were men's trousers and a shirt, and was carrying a suitcase signed "Edward de Lacey Evans".
Evans, who met his first wife Mary Delahunty on the ship, introduced himself as a woman when he first arrived in Australia and worked as a hotel maid. Then he quit, started wearing men's clothes all the time and met Miss Delahunty again, whom he married in Melbourne.
When the first marriage broke up, he married twice more — to Sarah Moore and Julia Markand. When it turned out that he was a woman, Evans attracted huge media attention in Australia and abroad. In 1879, The Argus newspaper reported that "a curious incident occurred at Kew Psychiatric Hospital on Monday." The journalist, who was allowed to talk to Evans in the hospital, concluded that he was crazy.
"Evans is about forty years old, his face looks absolutely masculine. If not for the absence of a beard, he could have been mistaken for a male person," the newspaper wrote. The note also described Evans' developed musculature and chest resembling a man's. Evans' treatment at the hospital was described as brutal, and one internal examination was particularly brutal.
When Evans was released from the hospital in 1879, he became part of the Panorama Showmen in Geelong and Stowell and performed in Melbourne in 1880 under the banner "The Amazing Imitator of Men". But his stage career did not last long, and Evans died in a Melbourne migrant home in August 1901.
Keywords: XIX century | Australia | Transsexuals