Kim Petras may not have anticipated to make history when she collaborated with English artist Sam Smith on the song “Unholy,” which is about male infidelity and betrayal of the ideal of marriage.
In October, however, Petras and Smith made history by becoming the first openly transgender and nonbinary solo artists, respectively, to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart with a single.
Although Smith has had eight UK number one singles, including 2014’s “Stay With Me,” this was uncharted territory for Cologne-born Petras.
The LGBTQ sensation had not yet reached the pinnacle of pop, despite having written songs for the US rapper Fergie and the R&B artist Rihanna, earning comparisons to Lady Gaga, and landing a Spotify viral hit with 2017’s “I Don’t Want It At All” (the clip included a cameo by Paris Hilton).
Now that she has worked with Sam Smith on a song about a “dirty, disgusting boy,” the transgender singer has reached a whole new level of fame.
Nonetheless, it was a lengthy trip to get there.
The Beginnings
Originally from North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, im Petras spent his formative years in the city of Cologne. Kim’s parents said she started asserting she was a girl when she was 2 years old, and they eventually came to terms with the fact that she is transgender.
Her parents encouraged her, but insisted that she dress in a gender-neutral manner. Later on, her parents decided to get her some assistance with the transition, but they had a hard time locating experts in the field.
Bernd Meyenburg, former head of a clinic for children and a scholar of transgender issues since the 1970s, was located at Frankfurt University after a lengthy search.
After discussing her transformation on the German news program Stern TV in 2006, Kim quickly rose to international fame.
In 2007, Kim would be featured in a documentary and on a talk show to advocate for lowering the age at which sex reassignment surgery can be performed in Germany from 18 to 16.
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World’s Youngest Transsexual”
Her gender transformation at age 12 and labeling as the “world’s youngest transsexual” received widespread media attention after her 2007 TV appearances.
While it’s true that gender transition by children under the age of 12 is somewhat rare, it’s also not unheard of. Gender identity disorder is regularly identified in young children.
Petras, though, may have been one of the youngest people ever to have female hormone therapies.
She modeled for a German hair salon chain back in September of 2007. On her blog, Petras revealed that she had recently undergone gender reassignment surgery in November 2008, a few months after turning 16.
The topic broke in the media in early February 2009, and it was speculated that Petras might be the youngest transgender person in the world.
I was asked if I feel like a woman now, but the reality is I have always felt like a woman; I just ended up in the wrong body,” she said in an interview about her transition.
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In-School Aggression.
Some of her peers even harassed her on the playground. She began going to psychologists at the age of ten.
Exactly two years later, she decided to go by Kim as her first name. Dressed entirely in latex, she frequently attended classes in these. At least I wanted to be nicely dressed if someone hurled their school lunch at me,” she reflected.
After having Petras diagnosed as transgender, her parents finally understood her anxiety about entering puberty.
In an interview in 2007,
Lutz remarked of his daughter who was having hormone treatment, “That’s when we identified her pain, her anxieties of developing a beard and her voice changing.”
Petras announced her gender-affirming surgery to the world when she was 16 years old. Among the youngest transgender people ever to complete the change, she gained international attention.
By that time, Petras was uploading her own pop tunes to the web.
The 19-year-old had already made the transition to Los Angeles in pursuit of her dream of becoming a music sensation. We had a rough go of it in the beginning months.
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She told DW in 2018 that she had flown to Los Angeles, where she “known one or maybe two people via the internet.” I used to sleep on couches in recording studios since I was so low on resources and knew nobody.
