Monika: I guess it was heartbreaking to have your parents divided over something so personal to you.
Susanna: What my dad did accept was the idea that they needed to send me to a child psychiatrist, and he was even prepared to set aside some money for this alone. This is something my parents agreed on initially, and they also agreed with each other that I was far too young to allow any medical intervention that might be irreversible. They both remembered at that point, as an example, that when I was six years old, I begged and begged to be allowed to go to ballet classes like my sister had.
But when I started classes, I was bitterly disappointed that I couldn’t wear a ballet tutu costume like the other girls – and like my sister. I then refused to go to class, and my dad lost the money he’d paid out in advance for tuition. “What would happen if you changed your mind about becoming a girl?” they asked. “I will never change my mind,” I assured them. But they insisted that I would have to be old enough to make my own decisions on anything permanent. So for a time, that was the big stand-off.
Monika: It’s so moving how consistent you were, even as a child, you already knew exactly who you were, even when adults tried to reason with you.
Susanna: When I did go to the psychiatrist, I tried to explain how I’d always felt about being a girl and he listened and asked me questions, and he sent me for psychological and cognitive testing. Then at some point, I told him during a session that I felt down and had been contemplating suicide – and that is precisely when everything changed. He called my parents in for an urgent meeting and was apparently recommending that I be confined in a facility for my own protection, and he even floated the possibility of electro-shock therapy and other such interventions. That was when my parents both said absolutely no. They had known someone previously who had gone through that sort of treatment in a facility. They totally agreed with each other that they were never going to put their child through that.
Monika: Thank goodness they refused. That could have been devastating, and sadly, that kind of “treatment” was all too common then.
Susanna: Soon after that episode, my mother became my advocate. That’s what I needed. She decided to approach one of the few female doctors whom she worked with at the local hospital. Through my mother, this doctor took a direct interest in me, as well as both of my parents, and she was sympathetic overall to our plight as a family. She specialised in urology and worked mainly in obstetrics and gynecology. Subsequently, she met with me and my mother and took the trouble to read everything then available on transsexualism, including The Transsexual Phenomenon and Christine Jorgensen’s autobiography. She organised tests which showed that I was almost certainly born mildly androgen insensitive (what is now termed MAIS). She apparently contacted Dr. Harry Benjamin several times for guidance.
Monika: What a wonderful woman — she sounds like one of those rare doctors who actually listens and cares.
Susanna: The end result was that she suggested to my parents that although it was largely untested practice, it probably would not harm me if she could trial some hormone therapy on me to see how I responded. My father argued that if I was given testosterone treatment (rather than estrogens) that might make me more masculine, and it might even help me accept my birth gender. The doctor explained why she thought this would probably be a bad idea – not least because she understood that I would never play along with it. My father eventually conceded on the point, however reluctantly.
So that is how I began my estrogen therapy, and with that I began a crucial first step in my transition to girlhood, and so much became a lot less scary for me. However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for my parents because at 13 (almost 14) they still had to get me through school at a time when very few people knew the term ‘transsexual’ – and nobody was exactly ready for the extraordinary changes that happened in my body. Everyone who knew me witnessed it to some degree, and some teachers at school started to question.
|
| Susanna in 1985, France. |
Susanna: Yes, in 1968, my mother and I had written to the Erickson Educational Foundation for help. They eventually put us in touch with a trans woman in San Francisco who, after many years of hormone therapy, had traveled to Casablanca in about 1964 (when she was about 30, I think) to undergo the sex reassignment surgery performed by Dr. Georges Burou – the same surgeon who operated on Bambi, Coccinelle, April Ashley, and allegedly Amanda Lear. She worked as an administrative secretary for the San Francisco police department for many years. Before she transitioned, she had been an accountant in Los Angeles.
Monika: Oh, that must have felt almost surreal, finally connecting with someone who had actually walked the path you were dreaming of.
Susanna: She became a pen pal to me, and through our correspondence, we grew to be close friends and confidants – and my mother corresponded with her too. It was so helpful to both of us. She was able to convey her own experience, which meant a lot to us. In 1970, we finally met her – she came to our family home for a visit on her way to New York (which is where she was born). She was lovely in photographs, and yet in person we realized she was even taller than me, and her voice was quite deep. She dressed beautifully and was very well groomed and poised, but we noticed (privately) that her hands and feet were quite large. We thought perhaps she might not “pass” very well.
Monika: It’s funny how we notice those little details at first, but once someone’s warmth and personality take over, they just melt away.
Susanna: Exactly. We adored her, and as time passed, we noticed those things less and less. My dad was brilliant – he pretended not to notice any of that and made her laugh. She became our lifelong friend, and she was a great support to me and my parents, especially when I went to San Francisco when I was 16. She initially hosted me there, and I would say she sort of became my “trans-mom,” so to speak. Throughout my life, she was always there for me, including when I would get into trouble with my wild-child ways, and she would help pick up the pieces whenever boyfriends broke my heart.
Monika: When I reflect on my own transition, I often feel a deep sense of loss that I never had the chance to live my teenage years as a girl, as if those formative years were taken from me. You, however, had that opportunity. Today, with more countries banning access to puberty blockers for transgender teenagers, this possibility is being denied to so many. What are your thoughts on this, and what does it mean for young people growing up today?
Susanna: Ah – yes, I was indeed able to begin my transition in my teens with hormone therapy – and I am fairly certain that up until then nobody had yet started so young. It helped me in my preliminary journey a lot, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to live as a teenage girl until after I left home to go out to San Francisco (at the age of 16) with the help of my parents and my ‘trans-mom’ friend who lived in that city.
Monika: What was it like trying to balance your transition with school life before you left home?
Susanna: From the time I started on hormones I had two and a half years at school during which I had to pretend to still be a boy. During those years, I proceeded to develop my new feminine form, and as a result, I was obliged by my parents to wear a support garment that flattened my breasts, especially when I was at school. And my father insisted that I keep my hair fairly short in the interim.
My parents and my doctor managed to convey to my school principal and my gym teachers, under strict secrecy, of course, that I was undergoing medical treatment that would exempt me from rough contact sports activities, and I didn’t have to shower with the other boys. I was assigned school counselors who were aware of the general situation (no specifics), and I was assured that I could go see them at any time if I ever felt threatened or needed help with anything to do with school or being bullied.
Monika: Did you have anyone your age you could confide in at that time?
Susanna: I didn’t have very many friends before this period, but once I started changing, I had absolutely no friends at school. To that extent, I became the loneliest teenager in town! During that era, the school dress codes became far more relaxed than previously during junior high and high schools, so I was able to dress more in the fashionable ‘unisex’ hippy style, which I was more comfortable with. My dad relaxed his rule about keeping my hair cut short – eventually.
|
| Susanna in late 1970s Chicago, magazinr editorial photo for 'The Revlon Look', photo by Peter Tabor. |
Monika: Moving to San Francisco at 16 sounds like a huge step. How did it feel to finally live openly as yourself there?
Susanna: When I arrived in San Francisco, I started living as Suzannah fully and without the limitations of being at home safely with my parents and without having to continue navigating my way through the remaining years of high school. I eventually took a high school equivalency test.
In California, I started doing other useful courses, including sewing and hairdressing etc. This became an extraordinarily creative time for me, and I mixed with all sorts of fascinating artists and musicians – the gravitational pull of San Francisco brought so many of us ‘creatives’ there at that time. And I started making friends and meeting so many other trans girls – but nobody at that time was quite as young as me. I never met anyone then who had started hormone therapy as young as I had.
Monika: San Francisco in the 1970s must have been full of freedom and energy. Did you find it liberating, or was it overwhelming at times?
Susanna: With the freedom of being a teenage girl in a very vibrant liberal U.S. city, I went quite wild for a time and got myself into a heap of trouble. At the beginning, I was man crazy, and all the attention I got was so thrilling – and felt affirming. That was also a big part of my downfall, and I really didn’t like the peril and heartache I put myself through. In very short order, I was snatched at gunpoint by two men who intended to traffic me on the other side of the Bay Bridge in Oakland. I survived that incident and somehow got away after a few harrowing hours.
On another occasion, I was arrested and put in jail for vagrancy/loitering along with several other trans women. I was in custody only until the authorities were informed I was underage. After an abusive boyfriend choked me, I tried to commit suicide and ended up in the hospital. All of this and more occurred within a few months.
Monika: That’s heartbreaking, Susanna. How did you find the strength to move forward after such terrifying experiences?
Susanna: Yes, to the extent that I was able to experience something of being a teenage girl, I felt lucky, but with all the craziness and havoc I brought myself I had to grow up and become an adult very quickly! I learned to respect myself a lot more through this experience, and it started with understanding the dangers of putting myself out there and trusting any handsome guy who paid any attention to me. It was a sharp learning curve!
Monika: You’ve witnessed so many changes in how society views trans youth. Looking at today’s political climate, how do you feel about what young trans people are facing now?
Susanna: As to my thoughts on the current situation in various countries, including my native country, the U.S., and my adopted country, the U.K., I am very sad for the young ones in our community with these developments. I think much of this public reaction against young people transitioning is based on widespread disinformation and a frightening lack of understanding about gender dysphoria. All I can say to counter this is that I am still alive after all these years. I am 70 and I am ok. Actually, better than OK. Had I not started early, I do not think I would be able to pass so well and thrive as I have.
Monika: Do you think things have improved at all for younger generations, despite the backlash?
Susanna: In the last few decades, we have seen far more young trans people transition early, and I think with the exception of a few, they have mostly done well – and that is mainly because they have had the support of their families and the solidarity of the wider community. In my generation, there was no support for young people transitioning. It was unheard of because the whole issue looked dark and dangerous to parents. I was super lucky with my parents, but I recognise it was very scary for them too. They were not prepared for a trans child, but they loved me and somehow we managed to work it all out together. I somehow learned how to articulate to them how I felt inside and let them know what I needed.
|
| Susanna in 2019, London. |
Beyond my parents' support, which I am grateful for, whatever other support I got out in the wide world, I had to reach far and wide – sometimes I had to demand it as though it was my right and their duty (even when it wasn’t). I had to gain the support – sometimes by stealth, sometimes by persuasion. For me, the need to live my truth was all compelling. And there was nobody really compelling me to do anything.
Let us hope that as we move forward, we can reverse the tide of disinformation, distrust, and intolerance. We have reached the age when we must be ready to support our young ones if they need it!
Monika: You blossomed into such a beautiful young woman, but of course, not every pretty girl becomes a model. You mentioned that modeling turned into something you did only occasionally. What held you back from taking it up as a full-time career?
Susanna: Actually, in my mind I have never really thought of myself as naturally pretty or beautiful or even particularly attractive. Did I think I was ugly? No, but absolutely never even close to someone who was either born or who became a ‘natural beauty’. I was a natural creative artist to my very soul – and an existentialist. I think that many trans people are existentialists to some degree or other.
Monika: That’s an interesting way to describe it, an existentialist at heart. Do you think that the creative side helped shape how you expressed your femininity?
Susanna: What I did come to realise is that I was one of those creative people who had an eye for beauty and elegance and fun. And I just so happened to be able to put myself together in a certain way to create a striking (and largely convincing) feminine image. One of my friends once observed that I ‘was my own art project’! That rings so true to me when I consider it, particularly for those early years. I know I am not alone in this ‘power of the will’ among fellow trans women.
Monika: I love that — being your own art project! Did you look up to anyone for inspiration while shaping that image?
Susanna: I recognised how many of the iconic women in the pages of Vogue or in Hollywood films – those who we might think of as great beauties – have all carefully studied and cultivated their own striking image. For me, that cultivated image evolved and was ultimately helped by medical intervention, including hormone therapy from an early age, but the image itself that I projected was always expressive of how I felt inside, how I wanted to be both inside and out, and how I wanted other people and the world at large to see me. Above everything, I wanted validation, and I longed to be loved and seen.
Monika: That longing for validation feels very relatable. Would you say that your early experiences in San Francisco changed how you saw yourself?
Susanna: After my wild experiences in San Francisco, I also wanted to have self-respect and boundaries. Before I went to New York at age 17, people often told me, “You should be a model,” but the stark reality (as conveyed to me very politely and constructively by the model agent Wilhelmina) was that there was no lucrative career path in the U.S. for a transsexual as a commercial model.
Monika: That must have been disappointing to hear at such a young age. Were there any trans women at the time who managed to find success despite those barriers?
Susanna: We are still learning today that there were, in fact, some few models who had some success by stealth back then. They were beautiful, and they passed, but it is worth remembering that they were not openly trans. I wasn’t exactly open about being trans but I felt more comfortable being around friends who knew – those I felt I could confide in.
Amanda Lear, of course, was reasonably successful as a commercial model in Europe in the late 1960s and early 1970s – with or without Dalí’s patronage. She looked the part of an exquisite model for sure, and she was in demand, it seems, but many in the fashion world in both Europe and the U.S. perceived that she was transsexual. Did that perception hold her back? Maybe – or maybe not. She seems to have figured out how to cultivate a certain mystique around all that even to the present day. Good for her, I say!
|
| Susanna in the early 1990s in Cotignac, Var, South of France. |
Monika: Amanda Lear really was one of a kind. It sounds like the landscape started changing in the 1980s, though — was that when opportunities finally began to open up?
Susanna: In the New York fashion scene, there weren’t really any openly trans models until the early to mid-1980s, and I am told it started with Teri Toye who was a muse of the designer Stephen Sprouse and the photographer Steven Meisel. I understand that Teri was represented by Frances Gill of Click Model Management, who got her various modeling gigs with fashion houses such as Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, and even Chanel.
It seems she became something of a novelty or a ‘fashion cult figure’. Teri was the key breakthrough as an openly trans model. She paved the way for all the beautiful trans women models today who are far more in the fashion mainstream – and certainly in demand. We cannot help but be very proud of them.
Monika: Absolutely! She really opened doors for so many. And what about you, personally? How did you feel about your own place in that world?
Susanna: As for me, whenever I was lucky enough to be asked to model, I never turned down any opportunity but I wasn’t exactly ‘in demand’ overall. Or maybe I wasn’t ambitious enough in that direction. I wanted to be invited but would not invite myself to the party. I suppose that reluctance may have been driven by fear of rejection. Also, the fear of discovery and the resulting humiliation and cancellation – all that was a real thing back then.
END OF PART 4
All photos: courtesy of Susanna.
© 2025 - Monika Kowalska
No comments:
Post a Comment