"They would tell me they didn’t need me, but then advertise for someone else" A trailblazing model not only paved the way for thousands in Liverpool but also for the global LGBTQ+ community. Many will already be familiar with the remarkable life of April Ashley - one of the first individuals globally to undergo gender reassignment surgery. However, as we mark Transgender Day of Remembrance, the ECHO has revisited how this Liverpool-born activist became an icon for many.
Every year on November 20, trans and gender-diverse individuals gather as a community to mourn and remember lost siblings. Despite being in its 25th year, organisers say the issues facing trans people, including marginalisation and violence, have not lessened. The life of April Ashley April was born in the Liverpool maternity hospital on Oxford Street in 1935.
She spent her childhood on Pitt Street, L1, and then Teynham Crescent, L11, before joining the Merchant Navy and eventually living in London, Hay on Wye, Paris, and California. April was only the ninth patient of Dr Georges Burou, a pioneer of gender reassignment surgery. She began living as April during her time in Paris when she saved up £3,000 - the equivalent of over £86,000 in 2024 - for Burou's seven-hour surgery by working at a drag club called Le Carrousel.
Just as her career as an actor and Vogue model was taking off back in Britain after surgery, the Sunday People revealed April as transgender in 1961. In a heart-wrenching interview with th.
