Kim Petras: the first trans woman to win a Grammy

Kim Petras is the first transgender woman to win a major music award, the Grammy. Born in Cologne, the German star has sung her way onto the pop Olympus. Find out all about Petras and her Grammy award here.

Together with Sam Smith, 30-year-old Petras received the coveted award in the category 'Best Pop Duo' for their song 'Unholy' at the 2023 year's Grammy Awards.

Commenting on the award, Petras said, "I just want to thank all the incredible transgender legends before me, who kicked these doors open for me so I could be here tonight."

Petras continued: "I grew up next to a highway in nowhere Germany and my mother believed me that I was a girl. I wouldn’t be here without her and her support."

Petras underwent gender reassignment surgery at the age of 16, making her the youngest person known to have done so.

Kim Petras was born as Tim Petras in Cologne in 1992.

Petras recognized her own trans identity early on and started wearing skirts and dresses at the age of two. Petras' parents initially thought this was a phase. However, when Petras said she would like to be a girl at the age of five, her mother pledged her support.

Petras says about this time in an interview with Zeit Online: "I have always felt like a girl. I hated my body when I was five. I couldn't identify with a gender, wanted it gone." She said that she ran across her room with a pair of scissors trying to cut her member off.

Support from her own parents was crucial for Petras: "My mother told me back then that I could have sex reassignment surgery when I was older. That helped me a lot. When I was ten, I started going to psychologists. I was fortunate to have parents who really understood me."

Initially, however, Petras had difficulties because she encountered a lack of understanding from the doctors who had been consulted. "There were strange doctors who told me: You're crazy.'"

In 2003, when she was 11, Bernd Meyerburg, the chief physician at the children's clinic in Frankfurt, issued Petras a confirmation in the form of a doctor's letter, according to Der Spiegel: "There is no doubt that the wish is irreversible, since it has been constant since observed from earliest childhood."

She was allowed to wear whatever she wanted. At school, her style of dress got Petras into trouble. Dressing femininely, and "[going] to school in latex clothes and Doc Martens shoes," as she states in the Zeit online interview, Petras was getting bullied.

However, despite the bullying, Petras did not change her style of clothing: "Nobody can pull me away from fashion. I wanted to at least be well dressed when someone threw their school lunch at me," she told Zeit Online.

Bullying at school and living in the wrong body led Petras to consider ending her life: "I didn't want to live as a boy," she told Zeit Online.

Petra's salvation was music. She invested time into learning English and wrote her own songs in that language.

From the age of 12, Petras received hormone therapy. First of all, the physical development into a man during puberty was prevented and then the development into a woman was brought about.

At the age of 13, Petras had a TV appearance on Stern TV and talked to her parents about hormone therapy. At the age of 14, Petras was part of the program 'Man or Woman?' on Vox, making her known internationally. On the show, Petras asked for an early gender affirmation operation.

At the age of 15, Petras started uploading her own songs and videos to social media.

Petras' first single, 'Last Forever,' was released in 2008 and had a lot of success on YouTube and MySpace.

In 2008, she was only 16 years old. The girl released her first commercial single: 'Fade Away.'

In Germany, Petras had difficulties finding producers for her music. As she recalled in Zeit Online: "Your songs sound too American, that doesn't work in Germany. Your sound is too pop," the producers would tell her.

In 2011, the then 19-year-old Petras decided to move to the USA.

In Los Angeles, Petras initially had no contacts and no money. She worked as a songwriter and slept on the sofa of a studio, as she recalled in her interview with Zeit Online. At some point, she caught a break. The well-known singer Fergie sang one of Petras' songs. It was never released, but it did get her more contracts.

Next, Petras got the opportunity to work with well-known producers. She also started performing as a singer herself.

In 2016, the then 24-year-old Petras founded her own music label called 'BunHead Records.'

In 2017, at the age of 25, Petras had her breakthrough as a singer. Her song 'I Don't Want it at All' reached the Global Viral 50 Charts on Spotify. The New York Times called her the 'Princess of Gloss' and Petras was compared to Lady Gaga.

In the years that followed, Petras released various songs, but they were only planned as singles and not as an album version. Petras herself refers to these singles as 'Era 1,' which lasted until 2019.

Petras also had to struggle with reservations and resistance in the music industry because of her transgender identity. "A woman in a high position at a very well-known record company in Los Angeles once asked me if I was trans because it's trendy. Other people said it was against God and stopped working with me," she tells Zeit Online.

Petras didn't let that get her down and she released her debut album 'Clarity' on her own label in 2019. She then went on tour through the US and Europe.

Around three years later, Petras received her Grammy award for the song 'Unholy.'

The song, which she performed with Sam Smith, became a #1 hit in the UK and US and reached the top 5 in several other countries.

Petras is the first trans woman to win a Grammy. She says the award is a "sign of more diversity."

The song is about a family man having fun in a strip club, Petras explains.

She continues to live in Los Angeles, where she works on new music.