In 1968, a new name was placed on the United Kingdom’s Official Roll of the Baronetage: Sir Ewan Forbes, the 11th Baronet Forbes of Craigievar. A quintessential Scottish gentleman, Ewan was a perfect fit for his new role. He was a caring country doctor, a doting husband, a sportsman who excelled in riding, shooting, fishing, and Scottish dance, and whose ancient, rather eccentric aristocratic clan had deep ties to the British royal family.
“His grandfather had been an intimate friend of Queen Victoria; his mother was a close friend of Queen Mary; his father was aide-de-camp to King George V. And their castle, Craigievar Castle (now owned by the National Trust for Scotland), is only 30 miles away from Balmoral,” says Zoë Playdon, emeritus professor of medical humanities at the University of London and author of The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience.
According to Playdon, evidence points to the fact that Ewan himself entertained the royal family, who shared his deep love of horses and the country.
But despite his deep privilege, Ewan’s journey was not an easy one. “Like most trans people, Ewan learned from an early age to be resilient, imaginative, and courageous in facing the challenges that the world threw at him. He’s really very inspirational,” Playdon tells Vanity Fair via email. Ewan’s biggest battle would lead to an invasive court case which led to his ascendence as Baronet Forbes of Craigievar. The case would be shrouded in secrecy for years, and Playdon believes its implications set trans rights back decades.
Ewan was born on September 6, 1912, and christened Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill. Elizabeth was the third child and second daughter of John Forbes-Sempill, 18th Lord Sempill and 9th Baronet of Craigievar, and Gwendolen, Lady Sempill. From an early age, the compassionate, open-minded Gwendolen knew that her third child, who she called Benjie, was different. Ewan eschewed stereotypically girlish pursuits and clothing, loved tramping through the Highlands at Craigievar Castle, and worshipped his elder brother, William, an aviation pioneer. She had Ewan homeschooled and let him live as his authentic self on the family’s massive estates.
“Gwendolen, the Lady Sempill, was remarkable for her time, and I think a real inspiration to parents today with trans children,” says Playdon. “Like them, she recognized the insistence, persistence, and consistence of Ewan’s understanding of himself as a boy, in spite of his birth-assigned sex. She supported his social transition…and she found him affirmative medical support as soon as it became available.”
In an intolerant time, options were limited. “Everyone realized my difficulties,” Ewan once recalled, per The Daily Telegraph. “But it was hard in those days to know what to do.”
But Gwendolen would not be deterred. According to Playdon, Gwendolen took a teenage Ewan to visit experts across Europe, disguising their adventures as a grand tour. Ewan was given treatments, almost certainly including testosterone. “I found it necessary to shave,” Ewan recalled, “because I had quite a lusty growth of hair on my chin and cheeks.”
There is no doubt these visits to doctors working with intersex and transgender patients were not only a result of Gwendolen’s tireless efforts, but also the family’s immense privilege. “Ewan’s family had the wealth and connections required to access the new affirmative trans medical support that was being developed in Europe in the 1920s,” Playdon shares.
However, the family’s illustrious connections and high profile also had downsides.
“His father was a stickler for social form, so that whenever they were in the public eye, Ewan was obliged to dress up as a girl for society photographs—including being required, as a matter of family honor, to dress up as a debutante to be presented to the queen,” Playdon notes. “This must have been horribly embarrassing for him, but he saw it as his duty and somehow got through it.”
Indeed, Ewan later recalled these events as making him feel “like a bird that had had its wings clipped.” After being presented to his mother’s good friend Queen Mary in 1930, he went to London debutante balls “under protest and duress.” Afterwards, he recalled, “I made my escape and I never went back.”
Instead, Ewan threw himself into Scottish culture, forming the popular “Dancers of Don” dance troupe, in which he often took the male leads. After his father died in 1934, Ewan almost exclusively wore the male Scottish kilt and worked the family’s extensive estates. In 1939, he started medical school at the University of Aberdeen. A year after his beloved mother died in 1944, he began work as a family doctor in the Scottish village of Alford, near the family seat of Craigievar Castle.
