Caramel's TGirls

2008 AVN Transsexual Performer of The Year Allanah Starr is a media icon who’s carved and enormous niche in the transsexual community and is the hostess of Transexual Starr. Her webmaster does all the technical work while she produces all the content and directs operations. She was born under the Communist regime in Cuba and migrated to the U.S. when I she was five years old. Her father was a political prisoner and they wanted him out. She grew up in Miami and now resides in New York City where she promotes the world’s hottest transsexual events. Ever since she can remember, she’s felt extremely effeminate and was never interested in boy’s toys or games. She always wanted to play with dolls and dress up and play house and didn’t really realize she was different from anyone else until she was in kindergarten and the school kids started calling her a sissy and a faggot. She was totally in shock, because at five years old she really had no understanding what that meant. Her parents had completely sheltered her and school was definitely a rude awakening. She basically dealt with that harassment constantly for 12 years of her schooling. Through all that, she somehow managed to excel in her studies and become an awarded member of the high school’s speech/debate and drama teams. After high school, she went to an arts school for two years and began dressing up and recalls that she’s always wanted to be a girl. Slowly, she began to evolve, discover her true identity and look into her options regarding her physical transformation.

Allanah is widely known as a role model for the community but she really doesn’t see herself that way because she feels she’s nowhere near perfect. She feels that the term “role model” may be applied to anyone who achieves goals that are far beyond what is expected of them from society and that society does not have very high expectations of transsexual women. When she set out to create adult websites, not only did she want to create a business, but to create a fan site and an information site, especially to help admirers understand the life more. Allanah was sick of going to transsexual parties that were completely horrible and believed that tgirls and admirers deserved good, upscale places to come together and party.  All the monthly parties have themes and decorations, costumes and although she could spend a lot less money by cutting out those elements, it’s clear that she puts her all into her projects.

She never expected to find herself running parties. The idea came to her as more of a promotional vehicle to improve her website memberships. She collaborated with a ts promoter at the time who had a party, and figured she’d advertise and do the party as a promotion for her website with a personal appearance. She really didn’t think many people would show up, but the party ended up with about 250 fans in attendance. Then she realized something was sorely missing in the transsexual nightlife scene, so she began to do parties here and there without much organization or without an idea of what she was really doing. It took a while to get the formula down, but she’s certainly in total control and proud that there is nothing like her monthly events anywhere else in the world. Allanah’s career in adult films was also something that she wanted to do to complement her web work and to help her promote herself. Knowing that life would be hard for a transsexual adult actress, because the system is not set up to make you a a transsexual a “star”, she fought the industry to create her own name recognition and product.

There were no contract star transsexuals or large companies pushing a particular tgirl  model/actress when she started out. Her appearances on The Maury Povich show garnered quite a bit of attention. People often ask her if Mr. Povich is personally into tgirls because he does so many episodes featuring them but feels that his motivation is due to high ratings and that his approach is ver professional. She’s gotten a lot of flack from some transsexuals because they feel the show represents the community in a bad way. She would prefer if the producers would use the word transsexual rather than man as the reveal point, but understands that it’s entertainment and they are appealing to a certain audience. Since she lives openly as a transsexual, she has no problems in revealing her sexual identity and the show is purely a publicity vehicle for her. Someone can hear her name on the show, Google it, and voila, they discover the world of Allanah Starr. There are a lot of men who have become interested in transsexuals from watching those shows. In fact, she’s recognized on the street often these days and men tend to be a little shy when they recognize her. If her male admirers don’t approach her, they usually send her emails about seeing her and she finds that sweet. This down-to-earth quality about Allanah Starr is what I feel is part of her charm. Her fans are very gracious individuals from all walks of life and from all over the world. Sometimes she’s shocked by some of the fan mail she receives because people are so kind and thankful for her presence. Allanah is deeply grateful to anyone who takes the time out to write her a note of appreciation. She’s proud of all the thank-you notes from men who’ve read about her experiences and opinions on what it means to be attracted to a transsexual. She knows that a lot of men who are first introduced to this world may have a lot of trepidation or fears and she makes an effort to explain that they’re not alone.

She’s also very upfront about her plastic surgeries. Her first operations were her nose job and otoplasty (ears pinned back) and she’s deeply grateful for the doctors who had made her life better. She’s had over 30 actual surgeries and as you can see, it would probably take a medical professional to “clock” her as someone who wasn’t born a female. Allanah is inspired by so many artists and mediums that she could probably write a long dissertation about who’s inspired her at different points in her life and some of her favorites are stars of the golden age of Hollywood and women like Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Jayne Mansfield, Sophia Loren, Gloria Swanson; some for their beauty others for their talent. She’s inspired by films like Sunset Boulevard, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane, Mommie Dearest, all the John Waters films, and many more, all for different reasons. Some of the artists she loves are Mondrian, Salvadore Dali and The Chapman Brothers. Couture fashion is also a great inspiration for her and she’s very enthusiastic about Thierry Mugler, Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, and basically all designers who are visionaries. Her inspirations are really an eclectic mix and she’s inspired as much by Dolly Parton as she is Jocelyn Wildenstein. Allanah’s next goal is to produce the first ever Adult Transsexual Awards show, which will honor excellence in all mediums of transsexual adult entertainment, from film to magazines to websites. She’s particularly excited about this project because she knows that transsexuals are often overlooked by the mainstream adult industry and that it’s really about time they get the recognition they deserve as transsexual erotica is a huge and viable part of the adult industry. The subscription price is $24.95 for 30 days.

Reviewed 3/31/09 

Originally Reviewed 10/0/08