Janine Wegman - Wikiwand

Career

Wegman started her career as the magician ‘Rinus’, and later had success with her first wife with the act 'Marinio en Janine',^[1]^[2] and appeared on national television in 1949.^[3]^[4] She worked at the volunteer fire service.^[5] Later in life she became a Hammond-organist. She regularly performed in Rotterdam, and in the early 1970s she played on Wednesday and Saturday afternoon on the Schouwburgplein.^[6]

Personal life

Wegman was born in Rotterdam. She has been married twice and had two children.^[7] She chose the name Janine after the first name of her first wife.^[5] In 1978 she put a personal ad in the newspaper with the text 'Which man or woman will take a woman with a small mistake on a holiday for free?' Jan van Vriesland responded and took her on her first foreign trip to Spain.^[8] The couple married during this trip in Barcelona, but this marriage was not officially recognized in the Netherlands.^[9] In 1992 she appeared in the television program Paradijsvogels [nl].

Transgender-emancipation

Summarize

Perspective

Wegman was born as an androgynous person,^[5] and felt like a woman since 1960.^[10] Janine was known as the first transsexual person in Rotterdam to present in public as a woman in the late 1950s. Together with trans pioneers such as Aaïcha Bergamin,^[11] she was one of the first people in the Netherlands to openly manifest herself as transsexual.^[12] She was being treated by Dr Otto de Vaal^[13] and received hormone tablets.^[14]

Since 1959 there was a General Police Regulation in Rotterdam in which Article 56, “Walking in disguise or masked”, was used to prevent transvestism. Section 1 read: "It is forbidden to show oneself on the road in the clothing of the sex to which one does not belong."^[15] Wegman was regularly arrested by the police for walking down the street in women's clothing. She had a run-in with the police after hitting a police officer in the face in the Benthuizerstraat, after which six police officers beat her up until she bled.^[16]^[5]

She had to try for several years before she could become a member of the COC, a Dutch organisation for LGBT people.^[7]

In 1978 Wegman managed to change the name in her passport to Johanna Maria Wegman through a lawsuit. In an attempt to get the V for Female in her passport, she showed her breasts several times at City Hall. After the first action in 1978, a civil registry officer scratched the V for Female in her passport, but this was not a legally valid change. After her second action in 1995, the registry office stated that there were no valid documents of gender reassignment,^[17] which was a prerequisite for gender reassignment on ID cards between 1985 and 2014. In 1996, after being castrated, and again appearing bare-chested at the counter and threatening with suicide, Janine Wegman was finally allowed to register as a woman at the registry office.^[18]

References