Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Caroline " Tula " Cossey, Who Became Playboy's First Transgender Model, Looks Back

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/23/tula-transgender-playboy-model-_n_7638670.html

The Huffington Post/by Curtis M. Wong    06'23/2015

" Carol;ine " Tula " Cossey, who became the world's first transgender model to pose for Playboy magazine in 1991, opens up in her first interview in two decades for the publication." " In the 1970's, the British-born Cossey appeared in issues of Australian Vogue and Harper's Bazaar"

Quite a story but her interview also suggests some less supportive or dated ideas about crossdressers IMO.

I read Caroline Cossey's biography shortly after I came out at 38 and it helped me a lot.  We're both the same age so it made me feel just that little bit less alone as I started my transition.

Quote from: Tessa James on June 23, 2015, 07:02:36 PM
Quite a story but her interview also suggests some less supportive or dated ideas about crossdressers IMO.

I was thinking the same thing. We assume that our sisters are keeping current on trans issues and treatment, but her thought paradigm seems to be stuck on the treatment protocol in use when she transitioned. Oh, well! She's still a trailblazer!

Pretty damn sure (like 100%) that the playboy spread was in 1981 not 1991. I have the issue in question and it was indeed published in the UK in 1981 and was a decisive element in my decision to go ahead with my own surgery a couple of years later.

Yep - just dug out the issue - publication date was 26th June 1981!

It matters because us oldtimers do tend to get airbrushed out by young journos who think that this is very recent and shocking, when in fact its all rather old hat! We've been around and in high profile for far longer than most of the young jenny-come-latelys seem to imagine.

thanks for the update

I must be another one of those "old timers" because honestly there is so much I could relate to in the interview. I know she wasn't my inspiration, but, it didn't hurt to have heroes like her running about many years ago.

OMG, I remember being at the age of 13 and reading an article about "transsexual " Bond girl in a newspaper... It was the first time ever when I saw that word "transsexual" and in the long term it helped to figure it all out.

I remember that story

Quote from: stephaniec on June 25, 2015, 08:44:57 AM
I remember that story

A light just went off that's the girl I remember

I bought and read Caroline's second biography back when it came out in the '80s. While not heady reading it was quite an impressive story and still is. I'd recommend reading it if you never have (she just released it as an Amazon ebook). In the dark days before the Internet stories like that were pretty rare, though that was when daytime TV shows like Donahue were starting to bring the concepts of transgender situations into people's living rooms.

While she would have liked to have simply been considered a normal model/actress I think her most important contribution to the world was showing a TG person could be quite beautiful and sexy rather than a comedy act. She paved the way for models like Andreja Pejec and others who I think are doing so much to expand TG acceptance today.

Quote from: Rejennyrated on June 25, 2015, 07:27:58 AM
"......us oldtimers do tend to get airbrushed out by young journos who think that this is very recent and shocking, when in fact its all rather old hat! We've been around and in high profile for far longer than most of the young jenny-come-latelys seem to imagine"

Yes, indeed we have, Jenny. ;)

Quote from: Lyric on June 25, 2015, 09:46:49 AM
I bought and read Caroline's second biography back when it came out in the '80s. While not heady reading it was quite an impressive story and still is. I'd recommend reading it if you never have (she just released it as an Amazon ebook). In the dark days before the Internet stories like that were pretty rare, though that was when daytime TV shows like Donahue were starting to bring the concepts of transgender situations into people's living rooms.

While she would have liked to have simply been considered a normal model/actress I think her most important contribution to the world was showing a TG person could be quite beautiful and sexy rather than a comedy act. She paved the way for models like Andreja Pejec and others who I think are doing so much to expand TG acceptance today.

Yes I bought her first biography which came out in I think 1976 or 77 simply entitled "I am a woman". I was more inspirational to me than Jan Morris's rather flowery 1972 book Connundum, even I went to the same school as Jan had.

Quote from: CollieLass on June 25, 2015, 01:31:52 PM
Yes, indeed we have, Jenny. ;)

I suppose if I were doing a personal early UK hall of fame though I should probably add Adele Anderson who has been a successful actress and singer since the 1970's, Roberta Cowell who on 15th May 1951 became the first successful MtF SRS patient under the hands of Sir Harold Gilies - and thus predating Chiristine Jorgenson by over a year. Also of course April Ashley, who my mother will have known, and who therefore is probably responsible for the fact that I was allowed some degree of freedom of gender expression in my own childhood in the 1960's

There are many many others and while I don't take anything away from those currently going through the mill, I think you should all remember that those of us who transitioned before support groups and the internet, had to fight our battles more or less alone. You had to be very strong to survive back in those days.

She became my inspiration (and obsession) when she appeared in this advert in the 80s:
https://ironingboardcollective.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/tula_041.jpg?w=710

This was the first time I understood what hrt treatment could potentially achieve. In my secondary school (80s), my male school mates were essentially drooling over her! She even inspired my biology teacher to discuss the subject of transsexualism in class. And she became the acceptable face of transsexualism, someone I could explain and show to my mother. It was then that I was certain of what action I needed to take.