Supporting young people’s LGBTQIA+ identities can be a matter of life or death.
In a new interview with Out Magazine, Kim Petras says she thanked her mom upon winning her first Grammy Award because she and her father affirmed her transgender identity as a child and saved her from taking her own life.
“I literally was very suicidal as a kid, and I just wouldn’t still be here had my parents not believed me,” the pop star, 30, told the outlet in its latest cover story, shared exclusively with PEOPLE. “So, I was like, ‘OK, first thing, I’m going to thank the person who’s responsible for me being alive.'”
Everything to Know About Kim Petras, the First Trans Woman to Win a Grammy for Best Pop Group/Duo Performance
![Kim Petras and Sam Smith accept the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance award for “Unholy” onstage during the 65th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.](https://people.com/thmb/oq2dNbrdrZay3ZwcVHh3iSjFt90=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(299x99:301x101):format(webp)/sam-smith-kim-petras-grammys-020523-1-ddc4b2c138f5444fbd48b03c6d37cf11.jpg)
At the 2023 Grammy Awards in February, Petras became the first transgender woman to win in the best pop group/duo performance category alongside Sam Smith for their collaboration “Unholy.”
The German singer-songwriter thanked her mother alongside artists including Madonna and the late Sophie, who died at age 34 in 2021, as well as “all the transgender artists who kicked the door open in order for me to be here tonight.”
Elsewhere in her Out interview, Petras spoke out against rampant transphobia in today’s society. “I hate that another generation is going through this, and I hate that young kids are going through the same s— I was going through, and that apparently just isn’t changing,” she said.
The Human Rights Campaign reported that “at least 34 transgender and gender non-conforming people” were killed in the United States throughout 2022. Additionally, the American Civil Liberties Union is tracking a record number of 471 bills targeting LGBTQIA+ rights introduced during the 2023 legislative session.
![Kim Petras Says She Was 'Suicidal as a Kid' Over Trans Identity and Parents' Support Kept Her Alive. Credit: OUT.com / Devin Kasparian](https://people.com/thmb/5UlzfFaeUMbWjX0ohxz8oBFjuoQ=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(807x359:809x361):format(webp)/Kim-Petras-050223-03-2000-689a7f4503cd4e649b16b06e0a2d99ee.jpg)
Kim Petras on Finding Success After Being Told She’d ‘Never Make It’: ‘Look at Me Now, Bitches!’
“I think it’s sad,” added the “Alone” performer, who made headlines when she underwent gender-confirmation surgery at age 16 in 2008 with full support from both her parents. “I just never understood why people were so obsessed with what people do to be happy. Just focus on what you can do to be happy.”
She also opened up about how gay clubs supported her music career early on — long before she was even nominated for a Grammy. “I pretty much only go to gay clubs, and now it’s a little harder because now it’s a lot of photos and stuff like that,” said Petras. “But that just feels like f—ing home.”
Such spaces helped the musician build a fanbase without support from radio or major outlets. “I am so grateful for all the people that came up to my last tour, when I didn’t have any hits, and I just had the songs that I made that weren’t big, but they were big to the people that I wanted to be big for, and would’ve been big for little me,” she added.
Petras noted that gay clubs are a place where she can be unabashedly true to herself because “there’s such mutual understanding of what it’s like to be LGBTQ in today’s climate.”
![Kim Petras Says She Was 'Suicidal as a Kid' Over Trans Identity and Parents' Support Kept Her Alive. Credit: OUT.com / Devin Kasparian](https://people.com/thmb/f0uFbhwiZ9u6prFJgG_LMDM8VHE=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(877x539:879x541):format(webp)/Kim-Petras-050223-01-2000-15ec10b7cb4242e3ab18a80b5260f1a6.jpg)
Nearly All Transgender Children Who Socially Transition Stay with That Gender, Study Finds
“I kind of always wanted to make gay club music. That’s always been my thing,” she reflected. “That was just why I fell in love with music, and I feel like I do make music for the dolls, and I never thought that that would be kind of taken seriously. And I was really fine with that.”
According to a study conducted last year, the vast majority of transgender children who socially transition between the ages of 3 and 12 years old will remain that gender.
Socially transitioning is often the first step for transgender people, and means that they have adopted a name, pronouns and a general appearance that matches their gender identity.
In the study of more than 300 transgender kids who socially transitioned between the ages of 3 to 12 years old, researchers found that just 7.3% chose to retransition — meaning they returned to identifying with the sex they were assigned at birth or to a different gender identity — in the next five years.
Of those who retransitioned, the majority — 3.5% — did not return to their assigned sex, instead identifying as nonbinary. Most kids — 92.7% — were consistent in their social transition.
“These results suggest that retransitions are infrequent,” the researchers, from Princeton University, the University of Washington and Canada’s University of Victoria, wrote. “More commonly, transgender youth who socially transitioned at early ages continued to identify that way.”