The Life of Roberta Cowell
- Rami
- Feb 1, 2021
- 12 min read
Spitfire pilot, prisoner of war, racing driver and first British woman to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Roberta Cowell - the woman who changed it all.
In this blog, I'm going to try to tell the story of Roberta Cowell - thank you to @mclarenlmao (Leah) for requesting this blog! This is a story that deserves to be told and I will try my best. Also, a disclaimer, I am not transgender and therefore am willing to be held accountable for anything in this blog that you deem insensitive or wrong - please let me know and I will change it. Thank you.
Most of my information comes from Roberta's autobiography and I really strongly recommend you pick up and read this book.
Just really quickly, this blog will be set out differently, firstly, I am mainly going to be talking about Roberta's life and It will likely be a longer read, please bear with me.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: TRANSPHOBIA*, TALKS OF WAR, EXPLICIT MENTION OF GUNS, TALKS OF DEPRESSION
*this part will be at the end of the post, please do not read further than the 'after the war' section if reading about this topic will upset you.
Family
Roberta Cowell was born in Croyden, England to Dorothy Cowell and Major-General Sir Ernest Marshall Cowell in 1918. Her father was a prominent surgeon who served in the First World War and again in the Second World War. In 1944, Sir Ernest became honorary surgeon to King George VI and post-war he was made a Public Medical Officer for the Allied High Commission.
Schooling
Roberta took up boxing in preparatory school and claims to have only won by crying less, and also claimed that she was very good at maths, though not good at getting the steps to the answers and was bottom of all her other classes.
When going to public school, Roberta went to an all-boys-school in which she was bullied for her weight (her nickname at the time was 'circumference') though she states to have slimmed down by 15. She was also a member of the tennis and fencing clubs, but was always uncomfortable in the communal baths afterwards and this lead to her constantly seeking out being alone. Roberta had many more female friends than male friends, as she found them much easier to understand
Roberta was also very into photography and filmmaking - even mentioning in her book that her friend borrowed a 'realistic looking revolver' from their dad, which turned out to be a real gun and they were very lucky that they only shot through a boys hat and Roberta got angry that it had been missed on film.
Roberta also found a love for all things mechanical. She went to engineering workshops, became a member of her Motor Club at school and developed a want to fly aircraft. Along with this, she went on to join the Officer's Training Corps where she claimed to be able to drink beer 'without making a face' but also where men became 'animals'.
Roberta goes on to explain that she went to Germany one summer and actually got arrested for filming Nazi drilling on a cine-camera but was released on the promise she deleted the videos, but she never did and she stated that the videos actually turned out pretty good.
The summer after schooling, Roberta played at the Tennis Opens and was beaten by a guy who suggested that they should team up in later games for pair matches and asked to go to tea with Roberta. The tea was at the guy's hotel room and it became clear to Roberta that this man had other intentions. Roberta claims that from this moment, she tried to appear more masculine and even went on to buy a pipe and pipe refills even though she detested smoking. She also explains that due to this masculinity she thought she had to adopt, she dressed scruffily and tried to focus more on engineering.
As soon as Roberta was old enough to drive legally, she began doing competitions including the London-Land's End Trail, which she believed to be 'the first rung on the ladder', after which, she joined the RAF.
RAF
Roberta joined the RAF (Royal Air Force) in 1935 as a pupil pilot and became the youngest officer in the service at that time, although, very quickly afterwards, it was found that Roberta actually got extremely air-sick and was sent to the medical board whom decided that she was too-ill to work in the RAF and wasn't deemed fit to fly - however Roberta didn't seem to mind, as motor racing was more to her taste.
Motor Racing
From leaving the RAF until the war, Roberta focussed on her racing and engineering, entering more competitions.
She states that there were times when she was keeping 3 cars under her care whilst driving every weekend in different places and it would often get really tiring but it proved to be her passion and she refused to give it up. Her book provides details of these events - such as the Nine-thirty-nine season.
She also goes on to explain that during this time period Roberta got her first girlfriend , whom she actually took up in the air on a two seater plane and did all sorts of acrobatics until Roberta was sick and then went to the pits to show her off to Roberta's friends, however, when the girl said she hated the smell of the car, Roberta seemed immediately repulsed by the girl and left her right there and then, knowing that she did not want to be with anyone who did not appreciate her passion as much as she.
The War
Roberta kept trying to be accepted as a fighter pilot when war broke out, but was constantly refused due to her poor medical history. Phone calls and meetings would all end in negative answers as she had been deemed 'permanently unfit' and they weren't desperate enough. However, she found a way to get around this and rather joined the Royal Army Service Corps and decided that climbing through the ranks would be the best way to get there.
Roberta goes on to speak in detail about the ins-and-outs of life in the army and if you are particularly interested in this aspect, please do read her book, it is incredible and the anecdotes are really quite something.
In 1941, Roberta was placed in Cambridgeshire with the rank of captain of mobile workshops and in May of the same year, Roberta married a woman named Diana Carpenter, a woman with a degree in engineering. They had both decided that their marriage was not going to be the happiest but two weeks later, Roberta was sent to Iceland to be Officer Commanding Heavy Repair Shops. Though, Roberta found this boring and was placed in administrative jobs, where she couldn't prove herself good at what she loved. She was also still desperate to become a fighter pilot still so after a few months, she sailed home.
After returning home, Roberta appeared before the board again, this time with training and they accepted her and she was sent to a training school, in which she was tasked with doing acrobatics in the air to test her air-sickness. She passed as she closed her eyes, and when she opened them, her instructor was apparently worse-off than her and looked more ill. she was then a registered pilot for the RAF.
Roberta reports on many stories of being a pilot, one of the most notable being that she failed the altitude test due to bubbles in her oxygen at higher altitudes, but her failure on the test never seemed to be reported. One day, she was flying at around 40,000 feet along the Belgian coastline and then suddenly realised that she had no recollection of where she was or what had happened in the time that had passed and her squadron had to guide her back with their speech as she could not read her compass, as it turns out, Roberta had suffered from lack of oxygen and many were impressed she had made it back safely.
It is also extremely important to note that Roberta became a prisoner of war. She lost control of her plane, and although only sustained very minor injuries, was taken as prisoner by Germans into a farmhouse, though Roberta does mention that they behaved rather well. She even states that one of her captors was an Austrian man who snuck her food and told her of the jazz band he played in. Roberta did try to escape when being moved from the farmhouse, through a tunnel, although it didn't go the way she had planned and was caught. She was taken to an interrogation centre, where she was put in self-isolation for 3 weeks, in which she recalled asking herself 'Who am I?' and goes on to say that she never found her answer. After this, she was told she was now a prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention and was not to be interrogated any longer. Roberta talks of her time in her prison camp and taught a class of 80 pupils on engineering. She also mentions how her outward masculinity was important to her and she turned down a role in a theatre production in the camp as she didn't want to appear homosexual, she claimed that she was masculine in all ways that mattered. Roberta was saved from this camp when Russians came and invaded, and flew home to England, stating she lost 49 pounds whilst being held there.
After the War
When the war was over, Roberta tried many business ideas. She tried setting up a mechanics shop with a partner, but faced many obstacles and couldn't keep it up. She also decided to buy a not-very-nice-home cheap and then remade it and sold it for high profit. Though, it was in 1946 that motor racing started again and Roberta jumped right in. She founded her own team and lead a very fast-paced life from there - but she claimed it was extremely hard and experienced flashbacks from the war during this time period. Roberta also fell into a very deep depression round this time.
Roberta's marriage was an unhappy one, and they decided to divorce, despite having two children. The divorce was in 1948 but wasn't definite until 1952. Roberta claimed that although she was out of this very unhappy marriage, she was still in a deep depression.
Due to this, she sought out a Freudian Psychologist for help, although this provided very little solace. She began being able to recall memories she thought had forgotten, but her psychiatrist didn't seem to be helping her for the long run, and so Roberta never went back. After this disappointment, Roberta met with a Scottish man who carried out a series of other tests on her, and found out that Roberta was very unconsciously feminine. She learned that the part of herself that she had deeply repressed was at the root of her very being. She found out through these sessions that she was 'psychologically a woman' - this is a direct quote from her book that Roberta uses herself, this is not me invalidating her - I know that she is a woman in all senses of the word, not just psychologically.
Though, this discovery did not release her from her depression and even decided after a long while, that if she couldn't make herself happier within a year, she would end her life. She found that alcohol was no help and the only thing that seemed to help was music, and playing the piano.
Roberta notes that whilst meeting with a friend, they joked that she should be wearing a 'brassiere' and then Roberta decided to consult a 'sexologist'. The sexologist stated that Roberta was very outwardly feminine too, with no Adam's apple and wide hips. There was also some suggestion that some of her internal organs may have been female also. These realisations caused Roberta to feel slightly more comfortable in her body, and began allowing herself to be more outwardly feminine, knowing now that there was somewhat a physical basis of her femininity. She states in her book that at this point, she decided she needed a new start - an occupation and life she felt comfortable expressing her femininity. Roberta never lost her adoration for cars but did decide to get into dress-making but found it very exasperating.
Roberta went to see many doctors about what to do with her body, and soon found that it would be possible for her to change to be outwardly feminine, if she decided. She also stated that her hatred for the male body, her constant repression of her femininity and her feelings of safeness around women could now be explained. There was an offer for Roberta to take male hormones and get plastic surgery on her somewhat feminine chest, but stated that this would just mean a female hiding in a man's body - and decided against it.
Roberta explains in her book that there would be so many hardships and worries whilst undergoing treatment to become outwardly female, but she expressed that she would do it anyways. She was scared about money, about what society thought, about future work experiences but she soon decided that if the war had taught her anything, it was that she learned not to be worried.
I urge you with my whole heart to read chapter 6 of Roberta's book if you only read one. This chapter talks in depth about her physical and mental changes and honestly it is incredible to read. This chapter just is so eye-opening and interesting and it really helped me to gain an understanding of how important it is that people get to feel/look the way they have always felt, for themselves.
Going through transition, Roberta kept up with her fashion business and found herself learning more and more about herself.
As she states, 'I became legally a woman at the beginning of 1951.' Roberta talks so expertly on her operations at this time and her experiences. One thing she notes is that her friend Lisa, who was the only person who knew of Roberta's operations kept everything quiet. Roberta always wore trousers in public before her surgeries and would try to wear skirts and makeup and home (she and Lisa moved in together) and Lisa never once called her by the wrong pronouns (Roberta makes a point to say she went by 'he' in trousers and 'she' in skirts in her book).
Roberta states the ins and outs of living her 'double life' (as she states) and even speaks of her plastic surgery and how it felt to feel how she wanted to. She even goes on to talk about herself learning about being a woman and what that meant to her personally and physically.
After Transition
Roberta's fashion career and motorsport career had died down after her transition, however in March 1954, news of her transition leaked and people began speaking about her all over the world, she was in news stories which earned her £220,000 (using inflation stats from 2019) and her book earned her an extra £40,000.
After this, she got back into motorsport racing and even won 1957 Shelsley Walsh Hill Speed Climb. Though after this, she tried to initiate a project to fly over Africa which made her bankrupt. She soon then dropped from the public eye but continued to participate in Motorsport.
In an interview, Roberta spoke about her transition as crucial due to her bring intersex and having female physiology within her - and used this to justify her transition. Despite this, she spoke very horribly about those who decided to transition without having a similar experience - she stated in an interview that:
"The people who have followed me have often been those with male chromosomes, XY. So they've been normal people who've turned themselves into freaks by means of the operation."
(TAKEN FROM ROBERTA COWELL WIKIPEDIA)
Due to these derogatory comments Roberta made, her influence in the transgender community has been disputed. Roberta's transition came about at a time when any deviation from societal norms of being heterosexual and cis-gendered would result in prison time and public shame - so her views mentioned above are likely to be contextually influenced, although, the comments were still transphobic. These comments will not go ignored by any means, but I believe Roberta's story is one worth sharing as despite societal norms and pressures, she did what she felt right for herself to be comfortable and happy - I think this is an important message to take from Roberta's story - that people should have every right to transition to fit their true gender, should they want to.
Society is ever changing and I hope those who are apart of the trans community feel more widely loved and accepted, knowing they are free to identify as who they really are - although I know there are some limitations to this such as parental/carer/friend figures being outwardly unsupportive and therefore I know that not everyone is safe or comfortable to be themselves, but I hope for their sake, that they find themselves in a healthier and happier situation soon.
Roberta Cowell is recognised as a transgender pioneer* and, to many, proves that not only can women drive in motorsport, but also win. Roberta was an intelligent and talented engineer too, providing another inspiration to young women who wish to study STEM subjects. Though, it is important to note that she may be seen as an idol to many but her words to the transgender community in the interview are not words to be taken lightly.
To the trans community reading this, I know that I will never understand the hardships that you face daily, but I wanted to let you know that you have all of my respect in your journeys and I hope that you find yourself in a place in which you are happy, safe and free to identify as who you are - I know this isn't possible for you all yet, but know that there are many who do accept and appreciate you every day. I am so immensely overjoyed that you are standing up/believing in yourself to be who you truly are. You are valid, strong, and loved.
* - https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/lgbtq-heritage-project/trans-and-gender-nonconforming-histories/trans-pioneers/
Thank you for reading this blog and I wanted to end it on the note that, just because Roberta was the first trans woman to explore motorsport, that doesn't mean that there isn't still more to be explored. Just because she did it, doesn't mean we need to stop calling for the diversity this sport is so severely lacking. And a gentle reminder: do not take her interviewed words as fact. They are not. They were her outdated opinion and she doesn't define you.
Thank you for reading and thank you to those who read through and helped edit parts of the bog.
- Rami
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