This week’s guest is the wonderful and inspiring Katherine Wolfgramme. Katherine is a well-respected and prominent transgender woman. She’s a multi award-winning, internationally recognised transgender advocate and gender diversity educator. Katherine is currently on the board of Qtopia, Sydney’s Pride Museum, she’s a Sydney World Pride Rainbow Champion, and a really loved member of Sydney’s Gay Community. Katherine transitioned over 30 years ago in Melbourne and throughout her life has been a trans child, trans youth, trans adult and now trans elder. She has a goal to broaden awareness through her training programs and a vision to reduce transphobia towards all transgender people and turn fear into understanding. 

In this episode, we hear Katherine’s truly remarkable story. She shares what it was like growing up in Australia in the 1970s as a child born with gender dysphoria (and she helps explain what that is). She tells us what it was like to be born in a body that was biologically male, but with a brain that felt she was female. Katherine talks about transgender issues and her personal experiences in a way that opens our eyes and hearts to what transgender people go through and truly creates understanding. 

Katherine opens up about the discrimination and bullying she’s experienced throughout her life, not only as a transgender woman, but also as a woman of colour. Born in Fiji, Katherine unfortunately had to deal with racism when she moved to Australia. But as well as the hard times, we hear about the beautiful and uplifting moments in her life - the life-changing dream she had as a teenager when she was at rock bottom, how incredible she felt when she first started taking hormones, and the progress we’ve made as a society that means that transgender youth can live with more freedom and acceptance today. 

Katherine is such a great storyteller and we loved hearing about the highs and lows of her life and the strength she’s shown to cope with it all, rise above it and become a role model for so many. We also hear a sneak preview of Katherine’s upcoming show in the Sydney Fringe Festival, SHE: The Extraordinary Journey of an Ordinary Transgender Woman. The show is running from the 5th-8th of September in Sydney and has just been selected as one of the Fringe’s picks, so make sure you grab your tickets below. We’re so grateful to Katherine for this conversation. 

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Buy tickets to Katherine’s show SHE at the Sydney Fringe Festival here 

Check out Katherine's website here

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