Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

The council meeting of the Magic Circle on 9 October 1991 was a historic occasion, marking the moment when the first cohort of women, including Debbie McGee and Fay Presto, were admitted to its previously male-only ranks of magicians.

But the meeting was also memorable for another, lesser known, reason. The council voted to expel a member named Raymond Lloyd, who was in fact a woman named Sophie Lloyd, who had been “masquerading as a male” in order to gain access to the society.

She had been admitted 18 months earlier after donning her disguise, and decided to reveal herself when the organisation voted to admit women in 1991. Despite the new policy, Lloyd was rapidly expelled by members angry at her “deliberate deception”, the meeting notes state.

Now the Magic Circle is trying to track Lloyd down to apologise for what happened to her and admit her back into the society. Perhaps characteristically, after tricking the world’s most famous society of magicians, she now appears to have disappeared.

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