Marie Madeleine Lefort (1799-1864) was raised as a girl. At the age of sixteen, she developed a moustache and whiskers, and she decided to dress as a man.
The same year, 1815, Lefort was presented at the Paris Faculté de Medicine, and examined by several renowned doctors. A commission was appointed to determine her sex. Two experts, François Chaussier, obstetrician, and Philippe Petit-Radel, surgeon, declared that she was a malformed male, but Pierre Béclard, professor of anatomy, insisted that he was a female but with a hypertrophied clitoris, a strong voice and a beard.
At the age of nineteen, Lefort decided that psychologically he was a man. He then avoided the attentions of authorities and journalists despite seeking medical attention a few times, until 1864 when as a man with a long grey beard he was admitted as a patient to the Hotel Dieu de Paris. He was treated for pleurisy, but died shortly from the disease. An autopsy revealed that he had all the 'essential organs of a woman'
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