Caroline Cossey later on known as Tula was born in Brooke, UK in 1954 and became the first transgender woman to grace the covers of magazines such as Vogue , Playboy and Harper's Bazaar.
Since a really young age Tula felt alienated and ostracized by her classmates and on a daily basis was bullied for being feminine. As she documents in her book My story , she felt pressured and overwhelmed to behave as her assigned sex at birth until she moved out of Brooke to London.
Once in London she met a transgender woman that sort of became her fairy godmother , and helped her to start hormone replacement therapy at 17. After a variety of low-wage jobs in London and being discovered by agents who were struck with her beauty , she began working as a showgirl after undergoing breast augmentation surgery at 18 .
Offers to be a show girl in Paris and a topless dancer in Rome allowed her to save up enough money to complete her transition in 1974 and go through with her sex change operation, as she stated in multiple interviews in the 90's and 80's in talk shows such as The Phil Donahue show.
With her sex change operation Tula was able to change all of her legal documents , except her birth certificate despite her mental and physical transformation to become the woman she always felt inside.
After changing her legal documents and physical transformation Tula's career as a super model skyrocketed and became one of the most famous British models in the world and appeared in a minor role on one of James Bond movies called For Your Eyes Only.
In 1982 with a modelling career of over 6 years the British press abruptly outed Cossey as a trans woman , months after the premiere of For Your Eyes Only. Following getting outed as trans Tula contemplated the idea of killing herself, which she confessed in her book and multiple interviews in the UK and US.
But instead Tula took this attention she was receiving from the press to her favour , and later on that year released her first book called ''I am a woman''. The book turned out to be a best seller around the Uk and Tula started to surprisingly get job offers in TV and as a model after both her outing and book release.
The job offers were appealing but she was afraid for her safety's sake to be in the spotlight knowing perfectly how people like her were a target at the time. So Tula turned down the job offers and decided to have somewhat of a low profile amongst society.
However her low profile status was difficult to keep , when years later in 1988 got married with a rich Jewish business man called Elias Fattal. The news of her marriage reached the tabloids all around the UK after the couple came back from their honeymoon , with led to an end of their relationship and their marriage to be annulled because of Tula's birth certificate at the time .
She also was once again in the spotlight because of her involvement in a legal fight with the European Court Of Human Rights to change her birth certificate to female , which unfortunately the appeal was overturned on September 27 of 1990.
After these series of unfortunate events, Tula's life started to shape itself towards the happy ending she had always yearned for. Months later after publishing her second book called My Story in 1991, while having a coffee at a restaurant Tula met her future husband David Finch.
Finch was at the time a 27 year old engineering student that was immediately drawn to Tula , and the connection was mutual. Tula handed to Finch her business card and asked him to read her book , because she thought that once he knew that she was trans things might change.
But Tula's past although surprising at first didn't ceased Finch's interest towards Tula. A year later they got married in Montreal , where their marriage was legal. Subsequently they appeared on the Shirley show and other shows where they exposed their happy relationship and hopes of becoming parents before ultimately disappearing from the spotlight for 25 years.
Tula then made an appearance on the 2016 documentary The Trans List. Now she is remembered as a trailblazer for the trans community and to have paved the way for trans models such as Valentina Sampaio and Andrea Pejic.
References
Cossey,T. My Story (1991)
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