Cory Williams, a geologist in the 1980s, made two significant discoveries: a lead-zinc deposit in the Kimberley region and a mining engineer named Rebecca Norton. At that time, women were rare in the mining industry, particularly in specialized roles like engineering. "She knew what she was doing as an engineer, that was pretty clear — even to a geologist," Williams remarked about Norton, who was a transgender woman and a pioneer in her field. Her remarkable story is now gaining recognition.

Rebecca Norton was born in 1940 in Ballarat, a city in Victoria known for its gold rush history. She pursued engineering at the Ballarat School of Mines and later secured a position in Mt Isa, Queensland. Her sister, historian Jill Blee, noted that Norton was enthusiastic about her work in Mt Isa. "She reveled in it; it was exciting, it was the most up-to-date mining venture in the world at that time," Blee said. "She dreamed mining, she dreamed rocks."

However, Norton faced significant challenges in an industry rife with stigma. Blee recounted that Norton's employment ended in 1966 after she attended a mine manager's ball wearing a "pretty pink number" and used the women's restroom. She lost another job when a company director recognized her during an interstate holiday. "She was kicked out of places left, right and center," Blee said. "She'd turn up at the races wearing a dress and then she'd run into one of the directors and out she'd go."

Norton's personal life was also affected by prejudice. After coming out as transgender, she was estranged from her mother. "Anyone who was at all different was labeled a pervert," Blee explained. "It's very difficult to explain just how gender-biased the world was until quite recently."

Despite her struggles, Norton continued to work in various mining roles until the 1990s, but she battled mental health issues, alcohol addiction, and bankruptcy. Blee reconnected with her sister in her later years and helped care for her until Norton passed away in 2017. This year, Blee published Norton's memoir after researching her career and obtaining her medical records. "She meant a lot to me," Blee said. "I think also I had a bit of a guilty conscience … that she'd been left to deal with all of this on her own because she'd been abandoned by the family."

Blee discovered that Norton was among the first in Melbourne to undergo gender affirmation surgery in 1975, during the early days of treatment at the Parkville Psychiatric Unit. The Queen Victoria Hospital's Gender Dysphoria Clinic, now known as the Monash Health Gender Clinic, began offering the surgery in 1976 but did so discreetly.

Julie Peters, who studied transgender issues in public health, also pursued engineering a decade after Norton but switched fields due to the "misogynistic and homophobic" culture she encountered. Peters noted that it was uncommon for transgender women to remain in the industry after transitioning. "You had to be able to 'pass' so well that nobody realized you were trans, but that also meant you had to totally hide your past," she said.

Peters transitioned when she felt society had progressed enough to handle the pressures. She described Norton's story as both exceptional and representative of the challenges many transgender women face. "It's ordinary in that trans women basically have to learn to deal with their transness, and some people deal with it by denial and high levels of alcohol and tobacco use," Peters said. "But it's very extraordinary in that she was so determined … that she did what she had to do in terms of being herself, and that had consequences because the society that she lived in didn't want her to do that."