Iraqi-English businesswoman and barrister Samantha Kane, self-styled as Lady Carbisdale, was born in January 1960. Born in Baghdad into the Hashimi family, the deposed Iraqi branch of the Jordanian royal dynasty, she was assigned male at birth and began identifying as female from early childhood. Educated at private schools in England, she studied at Cardiff University and Northumbria University, marrying a woman in 1984 with whom she had two children. After graduating, she established a property investment firm for Saudi Arabian clients, investing in luxury hotels. In 1990, she rose to public attention as her company made an unsuccessful takeover bid for the Sheffield United Football Club, prompting xenophobic criticism in the British tabloid press. After separating from her wife in 1996, Kane underwent gender reassignment surgery, naming herself Samantha Kane and publishing a bestselling memoir about her transition. As her public profile increased, she resigned from the investment firm, moving to Newcastle in 2003 to train as a barrister. In 2004, after the collapse of her engagement to a cis-gendered man, Kane adopted a male gender identity, renaming herself Charles and undergoing surgery to reverse her previous gender reassignment. Her second gender transition twas chronicled in the television documentary One Life: Make Me a Man Again. Kane made a complaint against Russell Reid, the psychiatrist who supervised her male-to-female transition; in 2007, the British General Medical held that Reid was guilty of serious professional misconduct. Kane came out as a transgender woman in 2017, reverting to the name Samantha Kane. After attempting unsuccessfully to obtain gender reassignment treatment in the United Kingdom, she travelled to Serbia where she underwent what she later described as a “botched” surgical procedure. In 2022, she purchased Carbisdale Castle in the Scottish Highlands, styling herself as Lady Carbisdale. Her attempts to renovate the castle into a luxury hotel caused controversy in the area. In 2024, Kane listed the estate for sale, after experiencing what she described as a campaign of transphobic abuse. As of 2025, Kane continues to live at Carbisdale and is a practising barrister.