Beatrice the Sixteenth

Irene Clyde (1869 - 1954) was a pioneering transgender author and lawyer. Orphaned at a young age, Clyde—who also went by their birth name, Thomas Baty—was an exceptionally bright student whose merits allowed them entry to The Queen’s College in Oxford. Earning degrees from Trinity College, Oxford and the aforementioned Queen’s College, they became an expert in the field of international law. Starting out simply teaching law at a multitude of British universities, Clyde would begin their writing career publishing books on international law. Becoming more interested in publicly addressing their views on sexuality and gender, Clyde would publish Beatrice the Sixteenth: Being the Personal Narrative of Mary Hatherley, M.B., Explorer and Geographer in 1909. Though largely overlooked in its time, the novel is an early work of feminist science fiction and one of the first to be published by a transgender author. Several years after this, Clyde would work with a small group of editors to put out a privately circulated feminist gender studies journal entitled, Urania. In 1915, Clyde would leave for Japan and growing to love the country, would spend their remaining years serving the Japanese government as a foreign legal adviser. Known in their lifetime as a radical feminst and pacifist, Clyde presented themselves outside of gender-conforming norms and would be considered today to be either non-binary or transgender.