Interview with Ai Haruna

 

Ai Haruna (はるな愛, Haruna Ai), born on 21 July 1972 in Osaka, is one of Japan's best-known transgender women, a television personality, singer, actress, stage performer and entrepreneur whose extraordinary journey has taken her from a bullied child dreaming of becoming an idol to international fame and, most recently, to seeing her own life adapted for Netflix. From an early age, Haruna was drawn to femininity, music and performance. She loved Japanese idols and appeared in singing and impersonation programmes as a child, developing her passion for entertainment long before she had the language or freedom to fully understand herself. Away from the stage, however, her adolescence was marked by severe bullying and pressure to behave in a way others considered properly masculine. In her autobiography, Subarashiki, Kono Jinsei (This Wonderful Life), she later revealed a far more difficult private life behind her glamorous public image, including her father's debts and violence, bullying so severe that she contemplated suicide, the awakening of her sexuality, working as a hostess from the age of fourteen, a broken engagement and years of financial struggle. As a teenager, Haruna discovered Japan's newhalf stage world, where glamorous performers were living and working publicly in feminine roles. At seventeen, she entered that world herself, developing the skills that would later define her career, singing, dancing, impersonation, comedy and the ability to command an audience. She also tried to build a conventional music career, making an early record debut under the name Onishi Kenji. Her dream, however, was not simply to become known as a transgender entertainer. She wanted to become an idol and be recognised as an artist in her own right.

 

After years of struggling with her identity, Haruna underwent gender-affirming surgery in 1995. Yet transition did not immediately bring self-acceptance. One of the most important lessons of her life came later, when she realised that even after changing her body and living publicly as a woman, she still had to learn to accept the parts of herself she had spent years trying to hide. During the 1990s, she began appearing on television and became known in Osaka, but lasting national success remained elusive. When she moved to Tokyo, she experienced one of the most difficult periods of her life. Opportunities were scarce and money became tight, eventually leading her to open a small bar in Sangenjaya. At first, she tried to run it simply as a woman serving drinks without drawing attention to her history. The business struggled until she stopped hiding and began singing, dancing and performing for her customers, bringing her entire personality into the room. That decision changed her life. After developing various lip-sync and impersonation performances, partly inspired by vocal problems that made singing difficult, Haruna created the character that would make her a national star, "Air Ayaya", her exuberant and theatrical imitation of pop idol Aya Matsuura. Behind the comedy were years of experience in show pubs, where she had learned how to turn a single song into a complete performance. When "Air Ayaya" reached national television in the late 2000s, Haruna appeared to become an overnight sensation. In reality, her breakthrough represented almost two decades of performing, struggling and refusing to abandon her childhood dream.

This Is I (2026)

In 2009, Haruna won Miss International Queen, becoming the first Japanese contestant to take the international title and also receiving the Angel of Talent award. After competing previously, she had realised that trying to imitate other contestants was not enough and returned determined to compete as herself, allowing her humour and personality to become part of her performance. By then, Ai Haruna had become one of the most visible transgender women in Japanese popular culture. She expanded her career as a television personality, singer, author and businesswoman, publishing her autobiography and books about love, beauty, travel and personal style. Yet she has also spoken about the danger of audiences assuming that one famous transgender entertainer can represent the entire LGBTQ community. In 2010, she completed approximately 85 kilometres in Japan's famous 24-Hour Television charity marathon, finishing in 25 hours and 40 minutes. Her emotional reunion with her family at the finish became particularly poignant for a woman whose childhood and family history had been far more complicated than television audiences might have imagined. Haruna has continued to reinvent herself as an entertainer and entrepreneur, expanding her career internationally and, in 2021, appearing in the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Paralympic Games after entering the audition process herself. In 2026, her remarkable journey reached another milestone when Netflix released This is I, a film inspired by her life and autobiography, following a young person bullied for wanting to become an idol, searching for belonging in the world of cabaret performance and eventually emerging publicly as Ai Haruna.

 

It is a remarkable full circle. The child who dreamed of becoming an idol, the teenager who endured bullying and rejection, and the struggling performer who spent years trying to find her place in the entertainment world eventually discovered that the part of herself she had most wanted to hide could become her greatest strength. Behind Ai Haruna's famous smile, comedy and glamour lies a life shaped by survival, reinvention and an extraordinary determination to become, not somebody else, but more completely herself.

 

Monika: Ai, welcome to The Heroines of My Life! I have interviewed many remarkable women over the years, but I have to admit that I feel rather humbled today, and perhaps a little nervous too, to be sitting across from such a legendary star. From a little child dreaming of becoming an idol to a national television personality, international beauty queen and now the subject of a Netflix film, you have achieved more lives in one lifetime than most of us manage in three! But beyond all the glamour and success, I am especially happy and honoured to welcome you as a sister. How does it feel to look back at the extraordinary journey that brought you here, and did you ever imagine that the little girl inside you would one day become Ai Haruna?

Ai Haruna: Thank you. When I look back on my life like this, I realise that so many things have happened to me. When I was a child, I never imagined that my life would one day become known to so many people. I was simply a child who loved singing, dreamed of becoming an idol, and loved being on stage. From there, I experienced bullying, personal struggles, meeting the world of show pubs, surgery, difficulties with work, and many other things. Now I feel that every one of those experiences is connected and helped create the person I am today, Ai Haruna. And it is truly strange to think that my life has now become a Netflix film. If I could go back and tell that little girl, "One day your life will become like this," I don't think she would believe me.

I admired Japanese idols very much
from an early age.

Monika: You were drawn to music and performance from a very young age and even appeared in singing and impersonation programmes as a child. What did being on stage give you that ordinary life perhaps did not?

Ai Haruna: When I was on stage, I felt that I could truly be myself. When I was singing, dancing or doing impersonations, I could forget the pain and difficulties I experienced at school and in everyday life. I had loved Japanese idols since I was a child, and I was completely absorbed in singing and making people happy. In 1985, I even appeared on All-Japan Children's Song Imitation Grand Prix, where I sang Shinichi Mori's "Kita no Hotaru." I was very happy when I could sing in front of people and make them smile or enjoy themselves. Later, when I entered the world of show pubs, I learned not only about singing and dancing, but also about the joy of creating an atmosphere together with the audience. Looking back, I think the stage was not simply a job for me, it was a place where I belonged.

Monika: Japanese idol culture played such an important role in your childhood. Was there something about those glamorous women on television that made you think, "That is who I want to be", or was it more complicated than that?

Ai Haruna: I admired Japanese idols very much from an early age. In particular, Seiko Matsuda was a very important person to me. She could sing beautifully, she was cute and glamorous, and she shone on stage, so I wanted to become like her. It wasn't simply that I wanted to become a singer, I think I wanted to shine as a woman and as an idol. But at the time, I didn't know how to explain those feelings, even to myself. I simply had this strong feeling that "this is who I want to become." That is why I think idols were not only a dream for me, but also an important part of discovering who I really was.

Monika: You have spoken about being bullied during your school years and about feeling enormous pressure to behave in a more traditionally masculine way. How much of your childhood do you feel you spent performing a role for other people, and when did that performance become unbearable?

Ai Haruna: Until I was 14, I struggled with these feelings for a very long time. I was so troubled by questions about myself that I could hardly concentrate on my school lessons. Even when people told me, "You have to behave more like a man," I couldn't simply change what I felt inside. Trying to hide myself and become the person other people wanted me to be was extremely painful. The people who changed things for me were the older sisters I met in the show-cabaret world. There, I saw people living as women instead of denying the part of themselves that I had been hiding for so long. Seeing them made me think for the first time, "Maybe there is a way for me to live like this too." I believe that meeting them was truly one of the most important encounters of my life.

Monika: At your lowest moments, you questioned whether there was really a place in the world for you. What, looking back, do you think kept you alive and moving forward during those years?

Ai Haruna: For me, one of the things that kept me moving forward was my dream of becoming an idol. In particular, it was the presence of Seiko Matsuda. I admired her so much, and when I watched her singing and performing, I could imagine a different kind of life for myself. Even when I was struggling and could not see where I belonged, I still had this dream that one day I could stand on a stage and shine too. Music and performance gave me something to look forward to when everyday life was very painful. I think that dream helped me survive some very difficult years. Looking back now, I realise that the little girl who wanted to become an idol never completely disappeared, she simply grew up and became Ai Haruna.

My beloved mother was someone
I admired very much.

Monika: Your relationship with your family has clearly contained both pain and love. When you came out, did your mother embrace you as her daughter? And do you feel any connection to her in the way you look, carry yourself, or even in your style and mannerisms?

Ai Haruna: My beloved mother was someone I admired very much, but it took a long time for her to accept me. She also blamed herself and struggled with the thought that she had given birth to a child who would have to experience such painful worries. So there was a lot of pain and confusion in our family, and acceptance did not happen overnight. At the same time, there was always love between us, even when we did not know how to express it. As I became more comfortable with myself, I think my mother was also able to understand me little by little. Today, when I look back on everything we went through, I feel nothing but gratitude toward my family. We struggled a lot, but there was love there, and that love is something I treasure very deeply.

Monika: In 2010, after completing the 85-kilometre charity marathon, you publicly thanked your parents for giving birth to you as a newhalf. Was there a moment during that extraordinary journey when you felt you were not only running through physical pain but also running through your own history?

Ai Haruna: Running 85 kilometres was certainly a physical challenge, but for me it also carried a much deeper meaning. I had lived through many difficult experiences, from my childhood and school years to the struggles of becoming myself and building a life in entertainment. While I was running, I was also thinking about how far I had come and about everything my family and I had experienced together. At the finish, I was able to show my parents how people all over Japan were supporting me. In that sense, I felt that I had finally been able to do something for my parents and repay them in my own way. There had been so many difficult things between us, but standing there and seeing their support made me feel that everything had ultimately been worthwhile. I could say to them through that experience, "Thank you for giving me life and for being my parents." Looking back, I feel that all of those experiences, both painful and happy, helped bring me to that moment.

Monika: As a teenager, you discovered the glamorous world of newhalf performers. Can you take us back to that first encounter? What did you see on that stage that made you realise that perhaps there was a future for someone like you?

Ai Haruna: Until I was about 14, I was troubled by these feelings so deeply that I could hardly concentrate on my school lessons. I did not know what to do with the feelings inside me, and I could not imagine what my future would look like. Then I encountered the older sisters working in the show-cabaret world. What I saw there was something completely different from the world I had known at school. These beautiful performers were living openly and confidently as women, singing, dancing and entertaining audiences. For the first time, I saw people who seemed to have found a place where they could live in a way that felt right for them. That encounter made me realise that perhaps there could also be a future for someone like me. It was an extremely important meeting in my life, because it opened a door that I had not even known existed. Eventually, I entered that world myself, and it became the beginning of a completely different chapter of my life.

Monika: Before mainstream television gave you visibility, the show-pub world gave you a community and a profession. Who were the women or performers who influenced you most in those early years, and what did they teach you about femininity, performance and survival?

Ai Haruna: The women I met in the show-pub world had a very strong influence on me. When I was young, I was struggling to understand myself, and suddenly I found people who were living in a way that I had never seen before. They taught me that being feminine was not only about appearance, but also about confidence, expression and the courage to stand in front of other people. I learned how to sing, dance, entertain an audience, make people laugh and create a special atmosphere for the customers. I also learned that surviving in this world required much more than simply looking beautiful. You had to work hard, understand people and keep going even when things were difficult. Those women became an important part of my education, even though it was very different from what I could have learned at school. Looking back, I think the show-pub world gave me both a profession and a place where I could begin to understand who I really was.

 

2009 Miss International Queen.

 

Monika: You entered the entertainment world at a very young age. Did you feel that you were finally beginning to live, or did you still feel that you were playing a character, even then?

Ai Haruna: I think it was a little bit of both. On stage, I finally had the freedom to express a part of myself that I had been forced to hide at school and in everyday life. At the same time, I was still trying to understand exactly who I was, so I could not suddenly become completely comfortable with myself. Performing gave me a chance to experiment with femininity, singing, dancing and comedy, but there were still many things inside me that I had not resolved. In some ways, the stage was where I could be myself before I even fully understood what "being myself" meant. The more I performed, the more I discovered that entertaining people could actually be a strength rather than something I needed to hide. Eventually, I realised that I did not have to choose between being a performer and being myself. The two could become part of the same person, and that became an important foundation for the life I built later.

 

END OF PART 1

Part 2

 

All the photos: courtesy of Ai Haruna.

© 2026 - Monika Kowalska

Interview with Jamie DeCoursey

 

For seven decades, Jamie DeCoursey lived behind a carefully constructed facade, existing inside what she evocatively calls a “windowless house.” Raised in a devout Catholic family alongside five brothers in the mid-1950s, an era defined by rigid binary gender roles and deep societal intolerance, she knew from early childhood that something fundamental set her apart. As young as four, she harbored quiet dreams of magically transforming into a girl, later finding brief, fleeting moments of recognition in front of the bathroom mirror. Yet without the vocabulary, examples, or safety to express her feelings, she locked the doors to her inner world. She coped by suppressing her identity, channeling her energy into becoming an active, sports-loving, people-pleaser, and keeping her true self hidden from even those closest to her. To the outside world, Jamie built an exemplary, highly accomplished life. She enjoyed a long, successful career as a healthcare executive, raised two sons, and fulfilled every role expected of her. Yet performing her assigned male role functioned as a secret prison for her female soul. She survived by cycling through extended periods of hiding and guilt, occasionally allowing her true identity to quietly surface in small, hidden ways, wearing female clothing beneath her business suits, shaving her skin smooth, or trying on makeup in moments of solitary expression.

Renée Richards: Beyond the Icon

 

In 1975, at the age of 41, Renée Richards underwent gender-affirming surgery and began living openly as a woman. Two years later, she would become one of the most consequential figures in the history of transgender participation in sport. Born in New York in 1934, Richards had already lived an extraordinary life before becoming a public symbol: she was a highly accomplished tennis player, captain of the Yale men's tennis team, and an ophthalmologist. In 1976, after she was outed as transgender by broadcaster Richard Carlson, she was barred from entering the U.S. Open women's competition because she refused to submit to the chromosome test demanded by the United States Tennis Association. She challenged the decision in court, and in August 1977 the New York Supreme Court ruled in her favor. At the 1977 U.S. Open, the 43-year-old Richards finally entered the women's draw. She lost her opening singles match to Virginia Wade, but reached the doubles final, where she and her partner lost to Martina Navratilova and Betty Stöve. Richards subsequently became a coach, working with players including Navratilova, and her name became inseparable from one of the earliest and most important legal battles over transgender participation in professional sport.

 

Yet the woman at the center of this history is far more complicated than the historical shorthand of "transgender tennis pioneer" suggests. Now in her nineties, Richards remains a deeply contradictory figure. The person who once went to court to establish her right to compete as a woman now argues that trans women who experienced male puberty should not compete in women's sport. That tension is at the heart of Finding Renée Richards, because the book is not interested in turning Richards into a convenient icon. Instead, it tries to recover the complicated human being behind the headline, the lawsuit and the history-making moment. And it is this woman, with all her contradictions, achievements, struggles and complexities, that journalist and author Julie Kliegman set out to find. Kliegman has spent much of their career exploring the places where sport, identity and the human stories behind public controversies intersect. Their work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, The Ringer, Slate, The Verge, Vox and Texas Monthly. They have worked as a reporter, editor and fact-checker, served as Copy Chief at Sports Illustrated, and written extensively about transgender athletes, women's sports and mental health. And now that Julie Kliegman has published Finding Renée Richards, I am delighted to welcome them to The Heroines of My Life to talk about the woman they spent years trying to understand, the extraordinary journey of researching and writing her story, and what they discovered along the way.

Interview with Sofía Diéguez

 

Sofía Diéguez is an Argentine transgender actress, singer, performer, playwright and cultural worker. She was born on December 8, 1986, in Buenos Aires and grew up in Lanús. She began studying acting at the age of thirteen and later trained in theatre, musical theatre, ballet and singing, including studies at the Teatro Colón. Her acting training also included work with Alicia Zanca, Ana María Campoy, Pepe Cibrián and Julieta Vallina. At sixteen, she was cast in Pepe Cibrián's El fantasma de Canterville, appearing in the production during the 2003 and 2004 seasons. She subsequently continued her theatrical training and toured Latin America with children's theatre productions. At the age of twenty-five, Sofía began her gender transition and temporarily stepped away from acting and performance. She later returned to the profession with a role in Un gallo para Esculapio.

 

Her subsequent television work included El Marginal, where she played La Luli, and Telefe's Pequeña Victoria, where she played Violeta. Her theatre career includes Crianzas, el musical, based on the work of Susy Shock, for which she received the 2021 ATINA Award for Female Performer. She later wrote and starred in Magenta, una sirena más allá del mar, a children's musical inspired by the figure of the mermaid and addressing identity and freedom. Her later theatrical work has included Estar System, in which she also participated in the creative and dramaturgical process, and Teoría de la Sirena, a musical biodrama and autobiographical work combining theatre, music and elements of her own life. In 2023, she made her feature-film debut in Natural Arpajou's Unicornio. In 2025, she appeared in El suelo que sostiene a Hande, a Buenos Aires theatre production inspired by the life of Turkish transgender activist Hande Kader. Alongside her acting career, Sofía is a singer and songwriter who performs under the artistic identity La Sirena. In 2022, she released her first single, La Sirena, followed by an EP featuring La Sirena, Medusa, Sola and La Poderosa. She writes her own lyrics and melodies and has also participated in musical performances and live cultural productions. Outside the stage and screen, Sofía has worked as a tutor at the Mocha Celis educational project. Her career encompasses theatre, television, cinema, musical performance, songwriting, dramaturgy and autobiographical work, alongside public work on transgender visibility, representation and trans childhoods.

Interview with Stevie Bennett

Stevie Bennett is a British transgender woman, writer, software architect, former quantitative trader, Ironman finisher and father of three. After spending decades suppressing her gender identity, she transitioned in middle age and has since documented her experiences through her writing and social media. Stevie built a long career in software development and architecture and also worked in quantitative trading. Before transitioning, she was married and became the parent of three children. She met her future wife in Dublin when she was thirty-six, and the family later lived in London and rural Ireland. Endurance sport became another important part of her life. After taking up cycling and triathlon, Stevie completed a full Ironman in 2016. Medical investigations into her hormone levels later became an unexpected turning point in her life. After discovering unusually low testosterone and experiencing subsequent hormonal and physical changes, including feminisation, she began confronting the transgender identity she had spent much of her life trying to suppress.

 

Her transition brought both profound personal fulfilment and significant upheaval. Her marriage ended, and she has written openly about the joy of finally living as herself, alongside the grief and loss connected with the changes to her family life. Stevie has since undergone gender-affirming surgery and continued to document her experiences through her publication, Fast Track Femme, where she writes about transition, family, divorce, surgery, ageing, dating, technology and artificial intelligence. Alongside her writing, she continues to work in technology and has explored the use of AI agents in software and creative projects. Today, at fifty-seven, Stevie is continuing to build a new life while remaining a parent, technology professional, endurance athlete and writer. Her story is an unusual combination of a decades-long hidden transgender identity, family life, elite endurance sport, an unexpected hormonal journey and a rapid public transition later in life.

Interview with Luly Arias

Luly Arias is an actress, activist, educator and nurse from San José, Catamarca, Argentina. She began her gender transition during adolescence and, at 16, was expelled from her family home. She later studied Pedagogy and Social Education, graduating in 2009 before moving to Buenos Aires, where she continued her education in nursing. Her professional and artistic trajectory developed alongside her activism. She became involved in Cooperativa Arte Trans, a pioneering theatre collective created to provide transgender and travesti people with opportunities in the arts, and appeared in productions including Made in Lanús. She was also one of the protagonists of Guillermo Bergandi's documentary Reina de Corazones and later joined the cast of Telefe's prime-time series Pequeña Victoria in 2019. Education has remained central to Arias's work. She taught at the Bachillerato Popular Travesti Trans Mocha Celis, where she worked with trans and travesti students, and later worked within the diversity area of the Buenos Aires Province Ministry of Health, including training healthcare professionals in inclusive care.
 

Luly has also participated in projects such as Unides por la Música, bringing together trans, travesti and non-binary artists from Argentina and Uruguay, and has written extensively about trans representation, employment, housing, healthcare, cultural inclusion and historical memory. Her work combines artistic practice with activism, with particular attention to the opportunities available to transgender people outside the stereotypes traditionally imposed on them. From a small town in Catamarca to theatre, television, public health and activism in Buenos Aires, Luly Arias's trajectory has crossed many of the institutions from which transgender people have historically been excluded, while she has continued working to make those spaces more accessible to others.