Della Aleksander (1923–2001) was a teacher and campaigner for trans rights.[1][2] She was a co-producer of an episode of the current affairs programme Open Door, which was the first to feature trans women. She was a member of fascist organisations, such as the League of St George.
Biography
Born in 1923,[3] in 1970 she went to Casablanca for gender alignment surgery.[4] She described how it wasn't until she took hormone therapy that she felt herself to be transexual.[5] In 1971 she established Gender Research Association International Liaison (GRAIL).[4]
Aleksander launched a magazine entitled Two for One, which addressed trans issues.[6] She was a member of the Transsexual Liberation Group (TLG).[2] In 1973 she co-produced and co-presented an episode of the current affairs programme Open Door, which gave four trans women from the TLG a platform to discuss NHS care and societal attitudes to trans issues.[2][4][7][8] The programme was first broadcast on 2 June 1973.[8] The other women on the programme were Rachel Bowen, Jan Ford and Laura Palet.[9] Aleksander wrote a comment piece for Gay News after the programme, myth-busting some trans issues.[10] In 1974 she spoke at The First National TV TS Conference held at the University of Leeds.[11]
Aleksander was associated with far right politics, and in 1995 Searchlight described her as "one of postwar Britain's best-known Mosleyites".[1] She was a pupil of Roger Scruton's at Birkbeck College and was a member of the League of St George.[12] As a member of the league she met with white supremacist David Duke in 1978 in Belgium, along with other British fascists.[13] She died in 2001.[3]
^ ab"England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVZF-5GFK : 27 October 2021), Della Joan S Aleksander, 2001.