The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes

A fascinating and timely biography of a member of a Scottish landowning family who was assigned female at birth but lived life as a man and even had his birth certificate changed to reflect this. When he was forced to ‘prove' his gender in court to prevent his cousin from inheriting, this had implications that would affect trans people to this day.
Professor Playdon has obviously done a great deal of research about Ewan's life, despite the Hidden nature of the case which was kept intirely private behind court orders. There is also a wealth of history regarding how society's attitudes have changed towards LGTBQI+ people, I found it particularly fascinating how it was previously not that big a deal to change gender on your birth certificate, yet partially as a result of this case and through changing societal attitudes, this became an issue mainly to do with fear that the male priomogenitive line would survive and exclude anybody considered to be female. Ewan Forbes's treatment at the hands of the medical establishment he was a part of and by the courts is shockingly cruel at times, even how the tabloid newspapers reported on people who changed genders, yet Playdon shows the reader that the fight to live in dignity and privacy is far from over for many people.