"Lucy Hicks Anderson" (1886-1954)

Lucy Anderson Hicks lived life as a woman in Oxnard,California from 1920 until 1945,when it

was discovered that she was biologically male.Tobias Lawson was born in Waddy,Kentucky.When Lucy entered school she insisted on wearing dresses and began calling herself Lucy.Her mother took her to a doctor,and the doctor advised her mother to rear Lucy as a girl.Lucy left school at the age of fifteen to work as a domestic.When she was in her twenties,she moved west,setting in Pecos,Texas,where she worked in a hotel for a decade.In 1920 Lucy married Clarence Hicks in Silver City,New Mexico,and then moved to California.In Oxnard she continue to work as a domestic,but she also saved her money,purchased property near the center of town, and operated a brothel. Lucy divorced Clarence in 1929.In 1944 she married Reuben Anderson,a solider stationed at Mitchel Field on Long Island,New York.When it was discovered that Lucy was biologically male,the Ventura County district attorney decided to try her for perjury.According to to the district attorney,she had commited perjury when she signed the application for marriage license,swearing that there were "no legal objections to the marriage."Lucy challenged the authority of physicians who insisted that she was male."I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman,"She told reporters in midst of of her perjury trial."I have lived,dressed,acted just what I am, a woman."A jury convicted her, but the judge placed her on probation for ten years rather than send her to prison.Lucy had received allotment checks as the wife of a member of the U.S. Army.The federal government prosecuted both Reuben and Lucy for fraud in 1946.Both were found guilty and sentenced to prison.After her release from prison,Lucy tried to return Oxnard,but the local police chief told her to leave town or risk prosecution.She lived the remainder of her life in Los Angeles.