Estelle Asmodelle

Estelle Asmodelle (born April 22, 1964), previously commonly known as Estelle Maria Croot, is an Australian model, belly dancer, writer, musician and actress. She is known as Australia's first legal transsexual with the Births, Deaths and Marriages Department of New South Wales.

Estelle is an Australian post-op transsexual transsexual who was instrumental in gaining recognition for transsexual and transgender people through her solo campaign to gain rights for transsexuals. Her activist career began in early 1983.

In 1986, she was labelled "Australia’s First Sex-Change Pin-up Girl". She is said to be the most photographed transsexual in Australia today.

Early life
Born in Bowral NSW and lived in Berrima NSW, Estelle is the first child to Barry and Sylvia Croot, and she has one sibling, a sister named Belinda. A strong student and gifted at science and art she attended Chevalier College (then a boys only school) and Moss Vale High School, where she frequently won first place in those subjects.

When she was 16 years old Estelle became seriously ill with Spinal Meningitis (Meningitis) and spent almost 1 year in hospital. She was bound to a wheelchair for some months and made a complete recovery.

After working briefly in Sydney, she moved to Wollongong, and attended Wollongong University where she studied towards two degrees, a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Mathematics, with the hope of becoming a research scientist. As a student she also worked in music ensembles, such as N-letts and Miscellaneous Music composing and played experimental and sometimes avante garde musical art.

During the university period she experienced discrimination by members of the academic staff because of her transsexuality. For this reason, she left the University to focus on art and music. She became a dancer, believing that dance was the true artistic synthesis of art and music.

Dance career
After working briefly in Sydney as an assistant photographer, she attended dance classes at Sydney Dance Company and also with an Authentic Egyptian Dance instructor. Six weeks after starting belly dance classes she gained work as a dancer.

As time passed she worked in many shows both in Australia and Asia. She was typically featured as the variety act for such shows as Esma Duo, Paris by Night, Las Vegas Under Lights and Les Girls. She returned to Australia and worked as a solo belly dancer.

Her campaign
During Estelle's dance career she travelled to Asian countries and experienced many legal difficulties, especially in Singapore where she was detained, because her passport denoted an M for male. She suffered serious problems with various customs officials and so she became determined to change the laws in Australia so as she could live as a normal woman. Given that the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's policy was to issue passports bearing the gender designation F to transsexuals who could demonstrate that they had completed sex reassignment surgery, it is difficult to understand why Estelle had to travel with a male passport.

Estelle continually sent letters and requests to the Attorney's General's Department of the Australian Government and eventually receive confirmation that her requests were answered. Others had also been lobbying for changes; Roberta Perkins and Vivian Sharman, were two such transsexuals, and had been lobbying the New South Wales government, especially the Attorney-General of N.S.W., for the right to amend birth certificates. Estelle was asked to go to the NSW Department of Births Deaths and Marriages and have her birth certificate amended. It was the first such amendment, making Estelle Asmodelle the first Legal Transsexual by recognition of the new name in the new gender. Months later, as a result of this action, passport sex designation was allowed to be amended as well.

A year later Estelle lobbied for anti-discrimination laws to be amended and also for the state hospitals ethics boards to allow research into ectopic pregnancy for sex-change women. This issue was considered far too controversial and as a result many newspaper and television interviews were somewhat negative.

After a media storm over that period Estelle decided to focus on her career. However her appearances were very extensive including: hundreds of newspapers articles, and hundreds of magazine articles, in magazines the most notable were;
 * CLEO (May 1987)
 * PEOPLE (Nov 1985 & 1993)
 * POST (Dec 1988 Sep 1992)
 * PENTHOUSE FORUM (1986 & 1991)
 * NEW IDEA (March 1986)
 * SHE(July '96)
 * NEW WOMAN (June 1992 & 1998)
 * NAUGHTY SYDNEY (Cover - Nov 1991)
 * TOMADACHI (June 1991)
 * WELLBEING (MAY 1989 & 1993)
 * NATURE & HEALTH (Nov 1997)

and over 100 radio interviews and dozens of television appearances in Australia and Japan, most notable were namely:
 * WHERE ARE THEY NOW?(Channel 7)
 * SEX/LIFE (Channel 10 TEN)
 * MIDDAY SHOW with KERRI ANNE (Channel 9)
 * WORLD VIEW (NHK Japan)
 * BEAT TAKEASHI (NHK Japan)
 * GOOD MORNING AUSTRALIA (Channel 10)
 * DAY BY DAY (Channel 9)
 * VOX POPULI (SBS)
 * A CURRENT AFFAIR (Channel 10)
 * MIDDAY SHOW with RAY MARTIN (Channel 9)
 * TERRY WILLISEE TONIGHT (Channel 9).

Film Work
After the media attention Estelle was a well known face in Australia but strangely decided to live in Japan for a couple of years. It was there that she appeared in her film debut, a walk in and walk out part, in Japanese Director Yoshimitsu Morita film. It was made for the local Japanese market and never made it out of Japan. However it was enough to get Estelle hooked on the idea of acting.

On returning to Australia she made two films, which she produced, wrote, directed and starred in.

The next film was, The Enchanted Dance a documentary film about Authentic Belly Dance. It sold international on video but was not release on DVD.

Filmography
Previous films:
 * 1989 - ''Ai to heisei no iro - Otoko
 * 1992 - Secret Fantasies
 * 1994 - The Enchanted Dance

Current Productions
 * 2008 - The Edge of Fear
 * 2010 - Pleasure Girl

Modeling
Her modeling began as a means of promoting her dancing, but after a while became more important than her dancing career and was photographed by dozens of photographers, in Australia, Japan and the United States. Names such as; Justice Howard, Nigel Dadswell, Uta Ville, Lucas Matesec, Jasmine Davis and Daniel Linnet, to name a few.

Earlier on in her modeling career she became "Australia First Transsexual Pin-up" by appearing nude in Australian Playgirl, unlike the US version of the magazine it was the first time a transsexual had appeared in a mainstream magazine in Australia being nude. It created a frenzy of interest.

Asmodelle is also the face of the Supermodel Agency in Australia - she has been their spokesmodel and also their main model since 1996.

Business
These days Estelle continues to run her network of modeling websites and now owns her an internet company, [http://www.ellenet.net Ellenet Pty. Ltd.] She has also acquired Night Star Pictures: an Australian film production company. According to media reports Estelle has become something of an internet entrepreneur and continues to build a significant online presence. Read more

Music and writing
Estelle avoids media attention but models regularly and owns a small online modelling agency AUSTRALIAN SUPERMODEL She is working on film career and hopes to launch her new cinema feature early 2009 as well a the proposed publishing of her Auto-Biographical novel; Anaesthetic Dream.

Estelle has a blog on one of her websites, namely; Asmodelle's Blog for updates on her activities. There is also an electronic music website that offers her electronic compositions as well, Asmodelle's Music.