East Lancashire transgender pioneer dies in accident on farm

Born Keith Hull, she was one of the first people in the UK to openly acknowledge changing sex.

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She was living in Ashleigh Street, Darwen, when she left work as Keith for the Christmas holidays in 1983 before returning on January 2 as Stephanie.

She had undergone almost three years of gender reassignment including a nine hour operation at Charing Cross Hospital in London in 1983.

Leading Darwen councillor David Foster last night praised Stephanie for her bravery and pioneering role on behalf of transgender people.

The former member of Darwen Round Table went on to build a string of businesses in North-West England and North Wales.

In 2008/9, Stephanie starred in a BBC Wales reality television series ‘Hotel Stephanie’.

She founded the ‘Transformation’ chain of shops for transvestites, the Albany Clinic to provide specialist medical advice and guidance services for transsexuals and in 1991 published her memoirs ‘ Stephanie: A Girl in a Million’.

In 1986, she married David Booth in Sri Lanka and they took their vows again in 2006 at one of the North Wales hotels they owned.

In the 1990s, they moved to a smallholding near Corwen in Denbighshire where they took in rescue animals.

In 2002 they bought the Bodidris Hall hotel which grew into Llangollen Hotels, a chain catering for “transsexual getaways” and weddings for gay couples.

Stephanie died earlier this month following a tractor accident at her family farm.

Her 72-year-old husband found her when he went looking after she failed to return from their fields.

Whitehall Liberal Democrat Cllr Foster said: “Stephanie was brave pioneer for transgender people, one of the first in the UK.

“When she made the change it was a rare thing not just in East Lancashire but nationally and internationally.

“It is tragic she died in such an unfortunate way.”

She is survived by her husband, an adopted child, two stepchildren and the children of her first marriage.