Radical Women's History Project

As part of RWHP’s US Women’s History Month mission, we’ll be featuring a photo and profile of an individual radical woman of history each day of the month.

Lucy Hicks Anderson was born in Waddy, Kentucky, USA in 1886.  When she entered school, she insisted on wearing dresses and calling herself Lucy.  Since the term transgender hadn’t been invented yet, when Lucy’s mother took her to the doctor for an explanation of her strange behavior, the physician encouraged her to raise Lucy as a girl and not a boy. 

Lucy left school when she was 15 to be a maid.  In 1944 she married a soldier in California, which led to troubles.  When the government found out that Lucy had been born male, she was prosecuted for receiving checks as a wife of a US Army soldier. 

“I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman,” Anderson told reporters in the midst of her trial. “I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.”

Both Lucy and her husband were sent to prison.  Once free, Lucy moved to Los Angeles where she lived until she died in 1954.

Source: TransGriot