English performer Frederick William Park was BOTD in 1846. Born in London to an upper-middle-class family, his mother died when he was three, and he was raised and educated by governesses. In 1857, his elder brother Harry was arrested for gross indecency after being blackmailed by his Italian lover, though was acquitted after giving testimony in court. Harry was arrested again in 1862 after attempting to have sex with a plainclothes policeman, and sentenced to a year in prison. Despite Park’s dreams of going on the stage, his father insisted on him training as a solicitor. He worked briefly as a clerk in a London bank, resigning in 1867 after frequent absenteeism. He became a regular cross-dresser around central London, typically accompanied by his friend and roommate Thomas Ernest Boulton. Nicknamed “Fanny” and “Stella”, they became well-known in London society, performing in a travelling theatrical troupe with Boulton’s then-boyfriend Lord Arthur Clinton and attending the 1869 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. Historians have also speculated that they may have been sex workers, though little evidence exists to support this. Placed under surveillance by the London police force, Park and Boulton were arrested in 1870 and charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy. Both were remanded in prison for two months and subjected to intrusive physical examinations by doctors. Their trial became a media sensation, generating significant publicity about the then-unknown queer underworld of London. Both were acquitted of sodomy, though pled guilty to the lesser charge of offending public morals. The trial judge was highly critical of the police investigation and Boulton and Park’s abusive treatment by the police surgeon. After their release, they returned to the stage, travelling to New York in 1874 where they appeared at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, both presenting as men. Park died in 1881, aged 33, probably of tertiary syphilis. Boulton and Park’s trial was key to the establishment of a “homosexual identity” in 19th century Britain, and was the first recorded use of the word “drag” to refer to cross-dressing. Their acquittal exposed the failures in the current criminal law to prosecute homosexual activity, prompting the 1885 Labouchère Amendment, introducing the more wide-reaching offence of “gross indecency”. They became cult figures in Victorian society, inspiring the cross-dressing sex workers “Laura” and “Selina” in the erotic novel The Sins of the Cities of the Plain (a text attributed to celebrity rent boy Jack Saul but probably written by Simeon Solomon) and several popular stories and limericks. Their lives and legacy have been extensively analysed by historians, inspiring biographies and critical studies by H. Montgomery Hyde, Jeffrey Weeks, Neil Bartlett, Neil McKenna and Matt Cook. In recent years, they have been reappraised as early examples of transgender identity.