Michael Semeniuk (18??-1909) head-waiter.

Michael Semeniuk was head waiter at one of the most prestigious restaurants in Czernowitz in Austria-Hungary (Cernăuți in Romania after 1918, and Chernivtsi (map) in the Ukraine since 1944). He was well-regarded and popular.

In 1909 he fell ill. Neighbours summoned a doctor, but he met with such resistance when he attempted an examination that he had to leave without making a diagnosis. Michael poisoned himself overnight. Examination of the body disclosed that he was female-bodied.

• Arthur Koestler & Norman Haire based on the work of Magnus Hirschfeld. Sexual Anomalies and Perversions Physical and Psychological Development, Diagnosis and Treatment : a Summary of the Works of the Late Professor Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. London: Encyclopaedic Press, 1952: 223.