Kim Petras
I did a few posts on Kim Petras, and they’ve been pretty popular, so I thought I should share this too. It’s a background story on Kim, but they didn’t use her full name. It was done a few years ago for Speigel Online, a German site; this was before her story hit the mainstream press, so I suppose they were keeping her identity concealed at that point. My other posts on Kim:
2.13.09 — Listen Up – Kim Petras Transsexual @16 – Internet Hit Song, “Fade Away”
02.10.09 — Kim Petras Transsexual Youth, Media Positive Star
Mistakes in God’s Factory
Even as children, transsexuals have the feeling of living in the wrong body. When should they be allowed to switch genders? Two years ago, a twelve-year-old German boy became the world’s youngest person to start hormone treatments for a sex change.
Kim P. is 14 years old. She wears light eyeshadow, a navel-baring top and embroidered jeans. She plays with strands of her long hair as she describes her dream of going to Paris one day to be a fashion designer. Her attic bedroom in her parents’ house is a girl’s paradise in pink, with the requisite fashion magazines, a makeup table, a sewing machine and even a clothes mannequin near the window.
She’s had enough of psychiatrists who ask weird questions. She’s had enough of doctors who reject her case because this fashion-conscious girl — previously called “Tim” in her patient file — unsettles them.
She was born as a boy. Her body, chromosomes and hormones were all undoubtedly masculine. But she felt otherwise. For Kim it was clear from the beginning that, as she says, “I wound up in the wrong body.”
At the age of two, Tim tried on his older sister’s clothes, played with Barbies and said, “I’m a girl.” Her parents thought it was a phase, but at the age of four Tim was still bawling after every haircut. At last he ran into his room with a pair of scissors and hollered that he wanted to “cut off my thing!” — and it was clear to his parents that the problem was serious. From then on, at home, Tim went by “Kim.”
His parents found stories on the Internet about men and women who felt so unhappy in their own bodies as children that they came out as transsexuals and underwent sex-change operations as adults. They weren’t all freaks — there were engineers and lawyers, artists, programmers and teachers — and it wasn’t easy. A switched gender had to be maintained with a lifelong regime of hormones. Germany alone has 6,000 transsexuals under permanent medical treatment.
The P. family wanted a less complicated future for their Tim, but they’ve also found reasons for optimism. They’ve learned that transsexuality has nothing to do with homosexuality. It’s not about feather boas and red-light districts so much as identity. Transsexuals aren’t “queer birds” — they want the perfectly normal life of the opposite sex. And some will submit to radical methods, from hormones to surgery, to conform their bodies to the “right” gender.
lots more at: Speigel Online
(by the way, when you go to the link, a print dialogue will open, just close it – no harm done)
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Would love to see more stories like this
OMFG! She is BEAUTIFUL! I wish I had her looks!…..
Hello
I also Would love to see more stories like this.
Well! Let me say this she is a very beatiful girl and I can say that again and again. As you can see that Theyve learned that transsexuality has nothing to do with homosexuality. Its not about feather boas and red-light districts so much as identity.
Transsexuals arent queer birds they want the perfectly normal life of the opposite sex. And some will submit to radical methods, from hormones to surgery, to conform their bodies to the right gender.
So therfore let take our step back and we all just have to respect her and leave her alone so she can moving forward with her normal lifestyle.
To Kim you are very beatiful girl and with a very nice name as well, I hope and wish that you the success for what every dream that you persuit in the near future. I will follow up with your success stories from time to time.
Anyway wishing you all the very best.
Got go go, bye for now.
I’d like the story rather better without the random idiot implication that homosexuals are not doctors, engineers, teachers, etc, and that they hang out in red light districts and sport feather boas.
I’m certainly supportive of truly trans people transitioning (i.e. those who feel caught in the wrong body) to whatever degree they desire.
However, there are also people who are effeminate men who like men, or butch women who like women, and who internalize homophobia to the point that they consider transitioning for the sake of social approval. Reductionist views of what “all gays” are like contribute to the problem. And that’s sad, because surgery and hormones are expensive, and they feed money into some of the biggest, most soul-killing companies. In contrast, self-acceptance, if you can find it, is free.
I sort of wish more people emphasized the message to “love yourself as you are, even if you’re a bit of a walking contradiction, and love the people you love,” instead of automatically defaulting to, “you have the right to blend in.”