S.C. (Sydney, Syd, or Stephanie) Heal

Image source
Works by S.C. (Sydney, Syd, or Stephanie) Heal:

From BC Review by Alan Twigg, "was a navy officer in WW II and had a lifetime career associated with shipping. He immigrated to B.C. in 1952. As well as being a naval officer, Heal worked as a marine insurance underwriter, ship owner and real estate developer.

Since publishing the memories of towboat master James ‘Ted’ Wilson in Full Line, Full Away in 1991, Heal operated his Cordillera Books imprint to specialize in maritime titles. Between 1941 and 1945, some 402 Canadian merchant ships were built to support the war effort. These mostly 10,000-ton ships were launched from seven shipyards on the West Coast and eight in the east. The era was documented by Heal in A Great Fleet of Ships: The Canadian Forts & Parks (Vanwell $45), a hardcover tribute that provides concise details of the ships’ builders, their name changes, ownership changes and fates. . . . Married twice, with two adult children, S.C. Heal had an alternate life as a transexual resulting in various books pertaining to gender studies. For this work he/she wrote under the name Stephanie Castle. He/she underwent a sex change relatively late in life and served as an advocate for gender conflicted people in human rights cases, pertaining to government issues, and on hospital boards. The intimate memoir of the difficulties faced in order to achieve a transformation of this kind are the subject of her book Feelings. While changing gender, he/she founded the Zenith Foundation and edited its house magazine, Zenith Digest. She also acted as a counsellor and human rights advocate to, and on behalf of, transgendered people regarding prison reform. In 1994, she formed Perceptions Press. This imprint was sold to Vibrant Publishing in 2005. Stephanie Castle wrote and published a number of titles about transsexualism and its related social, family, economic, political and employment issues."