April Ashley – the courage to be herself

April Ashley, model, actress, writer and an early transgender woman who had sex reassignment surgery in Casablanca in 1960, has died. She was probably inter-sex and had an unhappy childhood with an abusive mother, joined the navy, attempted suicide and eventually ended up in Paris performing in a drag nightclub which allowed her to save for her Moroccan surgeon. She came back to a successful modelling career until a Sunday tabloid exposed her story courtesy of a snitching friend and cut short he