Caroline Cossey (whose professional name is Tula) was born on August 31, 1954 in Brooke, England, United Kingdom, with male sex organs, under the name Barry Cossey. Throughout her teenage years, even though anatomically she was a male, she was extremely feminine, tall, very thin, and often was mistaken for being female (even before transitioning). Later tests would prove that her chromosomes were in fact XXXY, which make her genetic makeup sexually ambiguous...in other words her genetics are more female than male, which gave her the extremely female appearance naturally, no facial surgery altering. She was not "just a male" as many have implicated. Original reports in this biography have said she had XY chromosomes, which is incorrect. Later, in her late teens (17), she moved to a part of town where other transgendered women helped her transition to the female gender, and she began living entirely as a female, underwent breast augmentation surgery, and in the early 1970s worked as a topless dancer to raise money for sex-reassignment surgery (completely concealing her "male" parts in custom-made (very uncomfortable) underwear. Ms. Cossey posed topless for several well-known adult magazines still as a pre-operative transsexual, the photographers completely unaware of her "addition". In 1974 she had her (long-awaited) sex-reassignment surgery performed at Charing Cross Hospital in London, England. Her career then took off as a fashion model because her Amazon Goddess height of 6 feet was in strong demand, and her beauty attracted photographers from everywhere. She modeled for various agencies, advertisements, and appeared on numerous well-known magazine covers, as well as countless spreads, including the glamourous Vogue. She was cast in the 1981 James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only", credited only as "Girl At Pool". Major scandal erupted following the release of "For Your Eyes Only" when she was outed as a transsexual by the Sunday tabloid, "The News Of The World". She was hounded by the press, persecuted by tabloid journalists and photographers asking incredibly ignorant questions. Caroline fell into a deep depression, and contemplated suicide, feeling her professional career was in ruins and completely over. In 1982, she wrote an autobiography titled "Tula: I Am A Woman", which was told in straight-forward terms to defuse the situation by telling the full story, in her words. She eventually returned to modeling, in 1983 was the star/model of the music video "Rio" by Duran Duran, then in 1986 was featured as the model in the music video "Some Like It Hot" by Power Station. She has done several pictorials in Playboy magazine, the first (out) post-op transsexual to appear in the publication. In 1990, she published a second autobiography "My Story". Unfortunately she had a failed engagement with Count Glauco, an Italian national, in 1983, for his family forbid him to marry a transsexual. Caroline has worked hard and endlessly for transsexual equal rights, and on attempting to have the British Government recognize transsexual marriages. In 1989 she had a brief marriage to Elias Fattal that only lasted a couple weeks. She re-married in 1992 to Canadian-born David Finch, and as of 2003, she is still successfully married to David; both reside in Atlanta, Georgia, and are both actively involved in the transsexual community in USA, England, and around the world. They are living happily ever after. - IMDb Mini Biography By: [email protected]
