More Transgender Pioneers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Israel

Sharon Cohen was born in Tel Aviv in 1972 and her birth name was Yaron. Cohen came out as transgender while she was still a teenager and underwent gender reassignment surgery shortly after. She is one of Israel's best-known pop stars internationally, largely due to her memorable Eurovision performance of Israel's competition entry 'Diva' which won the 1998 contest.

Answer: Paris Lees

Paris Lees has achieved a surprising amount in her relatively short media career, becoming a powerful spokesperson for LGBT youth and campaigning on a number of social issues. She has written columns for both "Gay Times" and the lesbian magazine Diva (for which she became the first transgender cover girl) and has also written for more mainstream media outlets such as the "Guardian", the "Telegraph" and the "Sun". Lees became the first trans woman to present shows on both BBC Radio 1 and Channel 4.

In 2013 she also became the first openly transgender person to appear as a panelist on the flagship BBC political debate show 'Question Time'. Lees has worked with a number of media outlets, including Channel 4 and the Daily Mail as an advisor on their coverage of trans issues and has been credited with helping bring about a sea change in the treatment of transgender people in the media generally.

Answer: Duathlon

Mosier began his career as a triathlete in 2009 though at that point he was participating in the women's competition. A year later he publicly came out as a trans man and began competing in men's triathlon events shortly afterwards. In 2015 he challenged the IOC's rules on the participation of transgender athletes in Olympic events, which had been drawn up some eleven years earlier, and was successful in persuading them to change their guidelines on the subject. Mosier is the founder of an organisation whose aim is to support, encourage and inform transgender athletes and is an outspoken advocate for the rights of transgender people to have the right to participate in international sporting competitions under the correct gender specification. Mosier was also the first transgender athlete to appear in an edition of the magazine "ESPN".

Answer: UKIP

Nikki Sinclaire had undergone gender reassignment surgery at the age of twenty-three, some years before her political career began, although she did not publicly discuss her transition in the British press until 2013. Sinclaire's election as MEP for the West Midlands also made her the first openly lesbian UK delegate to the European Parliament. UKIP, which is an acronym for the United Kingdom Independence Party, is a right-wing political party who have gained popularity in recent years due to their hard-line eurosceptic stance.

However, the party has been dogged by numerous accusations of racism, homophobia and misogyny. Nikki Sinclaire later clashed with UKIP and left the party, and sat as an independent.

Answer: Wayne County and the Electric Chairs

Born Wayne Rogers in 1947, Jayne originally performed under the stage name Wayne County prior to her transition. She was a seminal figure of the early 1970s proto-punk scene in New York and, while her own music never enjoyed widespread commercial success, she is credited with being a significant influence on artists such as Talking Heads, David Bowie, The Ramones and Patti Smith.

In 1977 County moved to London, attracted by the burgeoning punk scene, where she formed Wayne County and the Electric Chairs.

In 1979 she relocated to Berlin where she began publicly identifying as a woman, making her one of rock's earliest openly transgender performers.

Answer: EastEnders

Millington's casting was greeted with widespread praise from commentators with the "Independent" newspaper placing him at number one on their 2015 'Rainbow List', an annual chart which celebrates and highlights the work of LGBT individuals in a range of fields. Cultural commentator and transgender activist Paris Lees referred to Millington's screen debut as "the biggest thing to happen for the transgender community in Britain this decade."

Answer: Arquette

Alexis Arquette was born in 1969 and her birth name was Robert. Although she has mainly appeared in independent and low-budget movies, she had a small role in the hit film 'The Wedding Singer'. Alexis has also made appearances in the television shows 'Friends' and 'Xena: Warrior Princess'. Arquette's transition was documented in the 2007 film 'Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother'.

Answer: April Ashley

After a brief army career April Ashley, who was born George Jamieson in 1935, moved to Paris where she became a cabaret performer. She saved up enough money in Paris to travel to Casablanca where she underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1960. She is believed to be one of the earliest British people to surgically alter their gender. Shortly after her successful transition April Ashley returned to England where she commenced her career as a sought-after fashion model, appearing in such publications as Vogue.

She also made a small appearance in the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope movie 'The Road to Hong Kong' around this time. Unfortunately, Ashley was soon to find herself at the centre of a scandal when a former friend sold the details of her gender reassignment to the "Sunday People" newspaper which ran a sensationalised version of the story.

This caused Ashley to be the subject of some short-lived media attention but the notoriety and the widespread transphobia that was so prevalent at the time effectively scuppered her naissant modelling and acting careers. Ashley has written a number of books and articles including her autobiography 'First Lady' and has given a number of public appearances in which she has discussed her life and work.

Although she had transitioned in 1960 it would be forty-five years before she would be officially legally recognised as a woman thanks to the passing of the UK's 'Gender Recognition Act. This legal recognition allowed transgender people to officially change the name on their birth certificate which Ashley did with the assistance of then Home Secretary John Prescott whom she had first met in the 1950s when they were both serving in the armed forces. As a measure of how far attitudes had changed since her public humiliation at the hands of the press in 1961, April Ashley was honoured in the Queen's birthday list in 2012 when she was appointed an MBE for her services to transgender equality.

Answer: Billy Tipton

Tipton was born in Oklahoma City in 1914 and was given the birth name Dorothy. He first became interested in music while at school where he joined the school band. Shortly after leaving high school he adopted the name Billy and began passing as a man during his professional engagements, shortly afterwards he began living as a man permanently. Tipton became a successful band leader, touring the USA with his eponymous jazz band and even releasing three albums of jazz standards for Tops Records before giving up touring in order to focus on becoming a talent broker. Having moved away from his home town the only people who knew about Tipton's birth gender were two female cousins with whom he kept up a sporadic correspondence. Tipton had romantic relationships with numerous women throughout his life and, while he never legally married, several of his girlfriends were known to have taken his surname. Tipton's most significant relationship was with cabaret performer Kitty Kelly with whom he adopted three sons. Tipton's family only discovered that their father was a transgender man when he became acutely ill and died of a ruptured ulcer and the coroner made the discovery.

Answer: The Danish Girl

Born Einar Magnus Andreas Wegenerin Vejle in Denmark in 1982, Elbe attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where she met her future wife, fellow artist Gerda Gottlieb. Elbe specialised in landscape paintings while Gottlieb was a book and magazine illustrator. Lili began identifying as a woman a few years into her marriage to Gottlieb, frequently posing as a model for the latter's paintings while wearing women's clothing.

In 1912 the couple moved to Paris where Elbe could begin openly living as a woman full-time.

In 1930 Elbe travelled to Germany where a team of pioneering surgeons had begun experimenting with gender reassignment surgery. Elbe underwent the first of her surgeries in 1930 and her case became something of a sensation in Germany and her native Denmark, with media reporting extensively on her transition.

The Danish government invalidated Elbe and Gottlieb's marriage on the grounds that they were no longer 'man and wife'. This court decision did have one positive effect in that it officially established Elbe as a woman allowing her to legally change her name and sex on all official documentation.

Although Elbe's first few procedures were apparently successful she died in 1931 due to complications following an attempted uterus transplant. Elbe's autobiography 'Man Into Woman' was published posthumously in 1933 and in 2000 David Ebershoff wrote a best-selling fictional account of her life which was entitled 'The Danish Girl' and which was the basis for the 2015 movie of the same name.