I have heard of it before and that is why I think blanket condemnation of transsexuals is not fair. The majority of people out there just want to fit in, to be in a place where they feel they should be.
That's very true; I'm sure given the imperfection of humans, there's not a single person around who's either 100% pure female or 100% pure male. It probably varies a little tiny bit to one degree or another, but in the cases cited, Elizabeth I and the Duchess of Windsor, the variation was somewhat more than that (although not physically obvious).
As MrsSmith said, though, in today's society, such variations are considered "correctable," and nature tampered with, usually always with disastrous results. Best to remain as God and nature made one, and to adapt.....as quite obviously, Elizabeth I and Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson did. One would hesitate to call either one of them unsuccessful.
One need only look at Elizabeth I's older sister and younger brother, about whom there is no knowledge of any confusion in the chromosomes, comparing their fates with hers.
Edward VI, 1537-1553 (r. 1547-1553), who was always frail and sickly; died of bronchopneumonia and tuberculosis at the age of 16 years.
Mary I, 1516-1558 (r. 1553-1558), who died of ovarian cancer at the age of 42 years; I dunno where I read it, but I guess ovarian cancer is the worst cancer for one to have.
Elizabeth I, 1533-1603 (r. 1558-1603), of course died of simple old age (the Duchess of Windsor died at the age of 90, in 1986, so one assumes it was just old age in her case too).
Now, vesta brought up the usual vestastuff; there is a significant difference between physically, having male characteristics, and those characteristics evolving from one's environment. My mother was the oldest of six girls in her family. Her father wanted a son, very badly. (He did get one, in the end, but that was a long time coming.)
But given daughters, he made the best of what he considered a bad situation; they were girls raised as if boys. Because of the practices and manners of the time, they did the girl things too, but they also did many of the boy things. Every single one of them ended up with a healthy sense of self, enjoying nothing but the most amiable of relations with members of both sexes, happily and for life married, and "liberated" long before the women's-libbers came around.
But that was probably environmental; and this is where I appear to have always made a mistake when assessing Elizabeth I and the Duchess of Windsor--in those cases there appeared to be an actual mild confusion in the chromosomes.