Stephanie Booth

Stephanie Anne Booth (25 May 1946 – 18 September 2016), also known as Stephanie Anne Lloyd, was a British transsexual business owner and hotelier, based in Llangollen.^[1]

She starred in the reality television series about her businesses Hotel Stephanie for BBC Wales in 2008 and 2009.^[2]

Early life

Booth was born on 25 May 1946,^[3] in St Albans, Hertfordshire.^[4] Her parents later became Jehovah Witnesses.^[1] In a 1988 interview with Ruby Wax she stated that "I was naturally born with a chromosome disorder, which meant that I was partly female anyway."^[5]

Adult life

After finishing secondary school, Booth worked as a laboratory technician, cinema manager, costing clerk and retail chain manager. In 1968 she got married and fathered three children. In the early 1980s, while living in northwest England, she separated from the family and began gender reassignment through a specialist psychologist at Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, followed by surgery in September 1983 at Charing Cross Hospital, London.^[1] Following this, Booth adopted the name Stephanie Anne Lloyd. Divorce followed. Due to publicity by tabloid newspapers Booth lost her managerial job and was unable to find a new one.^[6]

In 1984, Booth started Transformation, a business catering to the transgender and transvestite community. She was persuaded that a massage service that offered prostitution services was both legal, and could quickly solve her financial difficulties. She was later arrested for running a bawdy house, and pleaded guilty.^[7] In 1985, she moved in with David Booth, her business partner. They married in February 1986 in Sri Lanka, but British law at this time didn't recognise such marriages.

Later business ventures included a transgender mail order catalogue and a contact magazine. This was followed by a transgender hotel in Manchester and a second shop in London.^[8]

Unable to open a shop in Scotland due to Scottish law, the company opened a site in Newcastle upon Tyne. They also expanded their mail order business to cover mainland Europe and the United States.^[1] In 1992, Booth founded the Albany Gender Identity Clinic as a centre for transsexuals to seek specialist medical advice and guidance on their condition.^[9]

Hotel Stephanie

In 2008, Mentorn Cymru began production of reality television series Hotel Stephanie for BBC Wales.^[10] The series focused on Booth and her running of her hotel chain, based mainly on activities around Llangollen. The programme was commissioned for a second series in 2009, which focused on the couples' takeover and refurbishment of The Wynnstay Arms hotel in Wrexham.^[11]

On 7 July 2011, Booth's hotels went into financial administration.^[12] Administrators closed the Wynnstay Arms, The Anchor in Ruthin, and The Bridge Hotel in Chester with immediate effect, set well as the funhouses in Mold, Wrexham, and Oswestry, as these premises were rented and defaulting on rent payment could not be avoided.^[13] All four hotels, which had been trading well, were put up for sale.^[14]

Wrexham F.C.

In 2011, Booth announced her intention to take over Wrexham A.F.C. with an interest-free loan to save the club from entering financial administration, along with anplan to raise £5 million to purchase the club through a community-based venture.^[15][16]

Death

On the evening of 18 September 2016, Booth was killed in a tractor accident at her smallholding farm on the outskirts of Corwen, Denbighshire. She was aged 70 and survived by her husband, David,^[2] along with his childrenLisa and Dawn and her grandchildren: Andrew, Mathew, Grace, Rachel and Joseph.

Autobiographies

Booth's first short autobiography, The official autobiography of Sex-Change Stephanie Anne Lloyd, was published in 1990 by TMC Publishing Ltd.^[17]

Her second autobiography, Stephanie: A Girl in a Million, co-written with Sandra Sedgbeer, was published in 1991 by Ebury Press.^[18] The Dutch translation was released in 1993,^[19] and the Czech translation followed in 1994.^[20]