Dianna Boileau

Dianna Boileau ( – 2014) was a Canadian transgender woman, and among the first Canadians to undergo gender-affirming surgery. Boileau began living as a woman in her late teens. She first came to public attention after her involvement in a fatal 1962 car accident which resulted in sensational press coverage outing her as an ostensible cross-dresser. She then anonymously returned to the public eye in 1970 when she underwent gender-affirming surgery. In 1972, she published a memoir, Behold, I Am a Woman, and lived the remainder of her life in private.

Early life Boileau was born in Manitoba, in 1929 or 1930. During this time, a local doctor, Harold Challis, diagnosed Boileau as a transsexual, a diagnosis which she initially kept private. being noted in the press, though she was not identified by name. A story in the Globe and Mail on April 23, 1970, used the headline "Identity concealed: Sex change surgery is first for Canada." This claim has been repeated widely in the media, and by Boileau herself in her memoir,