Kim Petras (born Tim Petras) is a German teenager who is an aspiring pop singer. Petras is well-known for having undergone a male to female gender transition at an early age. In 2008 she was signed to Joyce Records and released online her first single “Last Forever” which became popular on YouTube and Myspace with her songs being listened to 60,000 and 46,000 times respectively. In September 2008 she released her first commercially available single “Fade Away” into the German market.
In 2006, Petras, then aged 13, appeared in a story on Stern TV, a German television current affairs show. In it she describes her gender transition and the medical treatment she receives at the Endokrinologikum (Hormone Center) in Hamburg by Dr. Achim Wüsthof.
Petras received worldwide publicity the following year, aged 14, 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 be at least 18 to be allowed to undergo this kind of surgery, and at present, no cases are offically known where an exception was made. Kim 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 publicity generated from the 2007 TV appearances resulted in many news articles describing her gender transition at age 12 and describing her as the “world’s youngest transsexual”. This claim is erroneous as children as young as six have been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder and have begun transition. However Petras may qualify as one of the youngest people - at that time - to have received female hormone treatments.
