Morris, Jan

Born on October 2, 1926, in Clevedon, England, Jan Morris was a historian, journalist, and writer. A trans woman, Morris published under her birth name, James Morris, until 1972, when she transitioned from male to female. After a lengthy career working as a journalist, Morris established a reputation as a travel writer with her vivid portraits of cities and achieved acclaim for writing extensive histories of the British Empire. In 1974, Morris published Conundrum, one of the first best-selling autobiographies by a trans person, in which she describes her journey from feeling that she was female from her earliest memories to having gender-affirming surgery in the 1970s. The powerful and beautifully written memoir inspired countless trans people and gave visibility to the trans community at ...