From the archive, 15 February 1986: Transsexual magician challenges men-only ru

[Shana A]

From the archive, 15 February 1986: Transsexual magician challenges men-only rule

Fay Presto finds herself outside the Magic Circle and it will take more than a wave of the wand to get her back in again

    Nicholas de Jongh   
    guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 February 2013 02.00 EST   

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2013/feb/15/transgender-magician-1986-archive

It's a man's world in the Magic Circle. Let any spellbinding magicienne, as the female exponents of the art call themselves, try for admission and they'll be quickly asked to disappear.

For the Circle, founded in 1905, now numbering more than a thousand members and with a rule discouraging the 'disclosure of magical secrets to the public' is a Men Only organisation.

This is causing some annoyance to Oliver Winter, who three years ago was just an ordinary chap, an associate member of the Circle, with an amateur interest in slicing girls in half and doing the usual with rabbits.

Today, things are very different, having been involved in a bit of medical magic himself - he changed his sex to female and his name to Fay Presto - he has become Britain's first professional transsexual magician.

She finds herself outside the Magic Circle and it will take more than a wave of the wand to get her back in again.