Estelle Asmodelle (22 April 1964 – 18 April 2026), formerly known as Estelle Maria Croot, was an Australian polymath and transgender activist.Inventors Weekly (NSW, Australia) Monthly magazine Friday, April 1987 Asmodelle also worked as a model, actress, belly dancer, musician, abstract artist, and physicist.Ronald Russell, Alex Medvedev, 2017,'Estelle Asmodelle Biography' Spinifex Press, .
Asmodelle was the first Australian trans person to receive a passport with a revised gender marker.NSW Government NSW LGBTIQ+ Health Strategy 2022-2027, https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/lgbtiq-health/Publications/lgbtiq-health-strategy.pdf In 1986, she was referred to as "Australia’s First Sex-Change Pin-up Girl".Australian Playgirl Magazine for men, Number 50, Feb 1986Riseman, N., 2023,'Transgender Australia A History Since 1910' Melbourne University Publishing, .Majumder, A. and Tarafder, R., 2007,'A Scientific Aspect of Transgenders' Notion Press, .Biber K., Luker T., Vaughan P.D., 2022,'Law's Documents 1st Edition' Taylor & Francis, .Rowland, R., 2007,'Living Laboratories : Women and Reproductive Technologies' Spinifex Press, . On 13 October 1987, Asmodelle became the first legal transgender person in Australia to be recognised by the Births, Deaths and Marriages Department of New South Wales.Vaughan P., 2021,'Law's Documents - Authority, Materiality, Aesthetics' Taylor & Francis, .The Daily Mirror (Australia) Newspaper 13 October 1987
Early life Estelle Asmodelle was the first-born child of Silvia and Barry Croot. Her father's side of the family was Latvian and her mother's side was English. Asmodelle has one sibling. Asmodelle grew up in Berrima, New South Wales. She attended St Paul's Primary School in Moss Vale and Chevalier College.Highlands Post (Australia) newspaper Friday, 10 January 1986
After briefly working in Sydney, Asmodelle moved to Wollongong to attend the University of Wollongong, where she pursued degrees in theoretical physics and computing science, hoping to become a research scientist. She also participated in music ensembles, composing and performing experimental avant-garde music.Australian Illawarra Mercury Newspaper, 15 May 1982Priest G., 1988,'Experimental Music: Audio Explorations in Australia' University of New South Wales Press, At university, she experienced transphobic discrimination from members of the academic staff.Highlands Post (Australia) newspaper Friday, 21 October 1987 As a result, Asmodelle left the university to focus on art and music.Nature & Health magazine (Australia) November Issue 1997
Activism While touring in Singapore, Asmodelle was detained and placed under house arrest due to her passport designating her as male.Dehm, Sara. "Passport struggles: Lawful documents and the politics of recognition and refusal." Law's Documents: Authority, Materiality, Aesthetics (2021) This and other travel-related challenges led her to advocate for legal reforms in Australia.New Idea Magazine, March 1986) At the time, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not issue female passports to trans women.
Asmodelle persistently petitioned the Attorney-General's office. In 1987, she was invited by the Attorney General of New South Wales to be the first trans person to have her birth certificate amended, making her the first legally recognized trans woman in Australia. Months later, her passport sex designation was also amended. The following year, she lobbied for changes to anti-discrimination laws and for state hospital ethics boards to permit research into pregnancy for trans women.Australian Daily Mirror Newspaper 9 October 1987Downie S., 1988,'Babymaking - The Technology and Ethics' The Bodley Head, Rowland R., 1988,'Woman Herself - A Transdisciplinary Perspective on Women's Identity' Oxford University Press, Smith, George P. "Parthenogenesis: New Conflicts and Opportunities for Fecundity and Reproductive Freedom." Available at SSRN 3774284 (2021)Rowland, Robyn. "Choice, control and issues of informed consent: The new reproductive and pre-birth technologies." Medicine, Science and the Law: Informed Consent, 102-120, (1986)
Throughout her life, Asmodelle continued to advocate for the trans community and spoke out against anti-transgender hate groups.
Creative work After leaving Wollongong University, Asmodelle worked as an assistant photographer while taking dance classes at the Sydney Dance Company and with a private instructor. Asmodelle performed in large female revue shows across Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan.Australian Post Magazine, 3 December 1988 During this time, she also worked part-time as a photographic model. She later ended her touring career and returned to Australia to perform as a solo belly dancer.Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Newspaper May 1986
Asmodelle worked as a photographic model in Japan from 1988 to 1992.Penthouse Forum (magazine)|Forum Vol:2, No:1, 1991 During this time, she had a small role in the 1989 film 24 Hour Playboy (Ai to Heisei no Iro - Otoko). After leaving Japan, she appeared in several Australian films, including the belly dancing documentary The Enchanted Dance.Star Observer newspaper (Australia), 12 July 1996
In 1986, she became known as "Australia's First Transsexual Pin-up"Australian Truth Newspaper, 30 November 1991 by appearing nude in Australian Playgirl. It was the first time a trans woman had appeared nude in a mainstream magazine in Australia.She magazine (Australia), 13 June 1996
Asmodelle created abstract art from childhood and began working on large canvases while studying at Wollongong University. Her art has been displayed in Tokyo, Los Angeles, and throughout Australia. In 2010, she published her first art book, Transience.Asmodelle, E, 2010, 'Transience: The Art of Estelle Asmodelle'Lulu press, .
Asmodelle's work has been featured in numerous publications. She won several art awards.
Asmodelle wrote screenplays and two books. Anaesthetic Dream is an autobiography about her gender transition and struggle to be recognised as the first legal transgender person in Australia.
From 2005, Asmodelle composed electronic music. She released seven albums and records under the name Asmodelle.
Professional and academic work Asmodelle worked as a technical consultant in Japan and Australia. She developed several technological patents.Eternal Machines by Estelle Croot, Australian Inventors Weekly, NSW Inventors Association, Vol. 3, (April 1987) Asmodelle's designs have been cited in the engineering field.Sawsan Ahmed Elhouri Ahmed, Nuha Abdallah Mohammed Babker & Mohamed Toum Fadel, "A Study on Classes of Magnetism," IJISET - International Journal of Innovative Science, Engineering & Technology, Vol. 6 Issue 4, 2348 – 7968, (2019).
In 1998, she founded the internet company Ellenet Pty. Limited.Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Newspaper 26 February 2008 In 2016, Ellenet Pty. Limited was sold to Sandgate Solutions.
In 2008, she returned to academia, studying astronomy at the University of Central Lancashire.
Academia Asmodelle's areas of research interest were special and general relativity and its relationship to cosmology and time, and astronomy in general and theoretical physics. She published multiple papers in scientific journals, including the Journal of the Institute of Science and Technology and the Asian Journal of Physics. She contributed six articles on physics and space to Cosmos magazine in 2010 and 2011. Several authors have cited her works.Gribbin J., 'Einstein's Masterwork' Icon Books, Richard Gaughan, 'Wormholes Explained' Enslow Pub Inc, Fodor J., 2018,'Unreasonable Faith: How William Lane Craig Overstates the Case for Christianity' Hypatia Press,
In May 2013, Asmodelle was featured in the Express Advocate for an introductory cosmology course she conducted at Central Coast Community College.
In January 2018, Asmodelle started a PhD, on a full scholarship, at the Centre for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, working in the field of quantum mechanics and relativity. Afterwards the results of her PhD were published in Nature.
Death Asmodelle died on 18 April 2026 from an undisclosed medical condition. Her family announced her death four days later on her personal Facebook page.
References
External links
Autobiography: Anaesthetic Dream Astronomy & Cosmology Blog Music portal with Asmodelle's Music Asmodelle's Art Website