My featured person for Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31st) 2024 - Jan Morris

Welsh historian and writer Catharine Jan Morris was given the name “James Humphry Morris” at her birth on October 2, 1926. She published under this name until 1972. This was the year she received her gender confirmation surgery - transitioning completely from male to female. From then on, she published as “Jan Morris.”

Morris was a decorated soldier of World War Two, serving in the elite 9th Queen's Royal Lancers. She was also a skilled mountaineer and a member of Sir Edmund Hillary’s 1953 Mount Everest Climbing Team, which made the first ever confirmed ascent of the mountain. She was the only journalist to accompany the expedition. 

Morris began her transition to life as a woman in 1964. one of the first public figures to ever do so. She documented her transition story in her book Conundrum, published in 1974. Her 1972 surgery was performed in Morocco because she was unable to get the surgery in Britain, at the time. This was because doctors there refused to perform the surgery unless she divorced her wife Elizabeth. This was something they were both unwilling to do. They did eventually divorce later, but remained together, until they were legally able to recognize their union in 2008. They stayed together until Jan Morris died in 2020 at the age of 94. 

Jan Morris authored dozens of books and countless articles, most of these were essays about her travel experiences and British Isles history. Her books were often very humorous and were frequently best sellers. She was honored repeatedly for her writing. 

Fiercely outspoken on many issues, Jan was an ambassador to the world for her beloved Wales, and was productive right up until the time of her death. She lamented the teetering decline of the western world into totalitarianism and was proud of her work to defeat Nazis. In her published diaries, she often declared herself an agnostic, but said that if she were to proclaim a religion it would reflect the tenets of Christianity, and all great religions, in that kindness should rule over all.