Della Aleksander

Della Aleksander (1923 - 2001) was a teacher and campaigner for trans rights. She was a co-producer of an episode of the current affairs programme Open Door, which was the first to feature trans women. She was a member of fascist organisations, such as the League of St George.

Biography
Born in 1923, in 1970 she went to Casablanca for gender alignment surgery. She described how it wasn't until she took hormone therapy that she felt herself to be transexual. In 1971 she established Gender Research Association International Liaison (GRAIL). Aleksander launched a magazine entitled Two for One, which addressed trans issues. She was a member of the Transsexual Liberation Group (TLG). In 1973 she co-produced and co-presented an episode of the current affairs programme Open Door, which gave four trans women from the TLG a platform to discuss NHS care and societal attitudes to trans issues. The programme was first broadcast on 2 June 1973. The other women on the programme were Rachel Bowen, Jan Ford and Laura Palet. Aleksander wrote a comment piece for Gay News after the programme, myth-busting some trans issues. In 1974 she spoke at The First National TV TS Conference held at the University of Leeds.

Aleksander was associated with far right politics, and in 1995 Searchlight described her as "one of postwar Britain's best-known Mosleyites". She was a pupil of Roger Scruton's at Birkbeck College and was a member of the League of St George. As a member of the league she met with white supremacist David Duke in 1978 in Belgium, along with other British fascists. She died in 2001.