Kim Petras

Early life

Kim Petras was born Tim Petras on 27 August 1992. Her parents, Lutz and Konni, have said that from the age of two, she began insisting she was a girl. It became apparent this was "not just a phase," and her parents tried to be supportive but made her wear gender neutral clothes in public. Eventually her parents sought professional help but struggled to find people who were knowledgeable on the subject. In time they found Bernd Meyenburg at Frankfurt University who was head of a clinic for children and had studied transsexuality since the 1970s.

Music career

In 2007, Petras recorded a few home videos of herself singing, and uploaded them onto the internet. Her videos, which included some of her own compositions, were seen by German music producer Fabian Görg. She was subsequently signed to the independent record label, Joyce Records.

In 2008, Petras released two more compositions, this time produced by Görg. The first, "Last Forever", was released online and became popular on YouTube and MySpace. A few months later in September 2008, she released her first commercially available CD single, "Fade Away", into the German market. The title track from the single was also made available for download worldwide via a number of online electronic music retailers.

On 17 April 2009, the previously free promotional track "Last Forever" was made available on iTunes Germany. She released her first extended play on 11 March 2011 titled "One Piece of Tape". In 2013, Petras was featured on the single "Flight To Paris" by Klaas.

Joyce Records has announced plans to release a debut album for which Petras is currently working on new songs.

Many other songs have been released to the public via YouTube, including many a cappella covers, alternate versions of her own material, and a couple new original songs.

In August 2017, Petras released the song "I Don't Want It At All," which reached the top of the Spotify Global Viral 50 chart.

Publicity

In 2006, Petras, then aged 13, made her first significant media appearance in a story on Stern TV, a German television current affairs show. In it, she described her gender transition and the medical treatment received at the Endokrinologikum (endocrinology center) in Hamburg by Achim Wüsthof. However, it wasn't until the following year, aged 14, that Petras gained worldwide attention from the news media. This came about after she appeared in a German television documentary, and a talk show, in a push to get permission for early gender reassignment surgery at age 16. According to German law, a person must normally be at least 18 to be allowed to undergo this kind of surgery.

The publicity generated from the 2007 TV appearances resulted in many news articles about her gender transition at age 12 and describing her as the "world's youngest transsexual". This assertion, however, is inaccurate, as gender identity disorder is often diagnosed in early childhood and transition by children under 12, though uncommon, is not unknown. However, Petras may have been one of the youngest people at that time to receive female hormone treatments.

In September 2007, she was a model for a nationwide chain of German hair salons.

Petras turned 16 in 2008, and announced in a November 2008 post on her blog that she had recently completed her gender reassignment surgery. The story hit the news media on 4 February 2009 and appeared in newspapers worldwide, even making the front page of some. A common theme of these articles is that Petras may be the youngest person in the world to have had gender reassignment surgery.

Petras is very adamant that her gender has always been female. In an interview about her surgery she stated "I was asked if I feel like a woman now - but the truth is I have always felt like a woman - I just ended up in the wrong body".