Radiolab
What happens when doing what you love means giving up who you really are?
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This is Radiolab. I'm Soren Wheeler, the executive editor here at the show. And I want to play you an episode today that we first put out in 2017. And the reason is because I still think about this story all the time. It was both a real challenge and a joy to work on because it's the story of a person who had to face off against literally the entire world and against our most ingrained ways of seeing the world and each other, all just to be who they really are. That person is named Alex Hai. And in this episode, we meet Alex sort of in the middle of that struggle.
And as you'll hear in the show, it doesn't end at the end of the story. So I got ahold of Alex to find out what happened next. So if you stick around for the end, you'll hear Alex telling me about a whole second act to this story, which honestly, I found very moving. But first, I'm just going to play you the original piece, which is called "The Gondolier."
Yep, wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right.
You're listening to Radiolab.
Radiolab.
From...
WNYC.
Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.
I'm Robert Krolwich.
This is Radiolab.
Today, we have the story of just how hard it can be to be who you actually are when it seems like the entire world is doing its best to make you who you actually aren't.
Well, I guess I could, I mean, this could be too many details, but.
The story starts for us with reporter David Conrad.
So for me, it was back in late 2014. I was living in Philadelphia as a grad student.
And it's a time David was applying for jobs. And one of the jobs he was applying for was at a radio show that was doing a series about international women's issues.
And so I had this on my mind, and I was taking a bus to the university, and I just overheard somebody talking about their recent trip to Venice.
And of course, the classic tourist thing to do when you go to Venice is to take a ride on the canal boats, the gondolas. You know, go down the canal, maybe someone sings you the famous song.
(singing) Oh, sole mio.
It's very romantic. In any case, the person sitting on the bus next to David was telling their friend.
That they had taken a gondola ride with this first ever woman gondolier in Venice.
Yeah, and then we were poking around, and we realized how.
But how did this become a "we"?
Um, no.
Who are you?
I'm Kristen.
Kristen Clark, also a journalist and radio producer.
Uh huh.
And she and David are partners and collaborators.
I mean, and this is what was interesting is like, we realized how big a deal it is to be a female gondolier. This is like, it's like a 900-year-old tradition.
900 years.
Yeah.
All men.
Yeah, all men. And it's always passed father, son, father, son, father, son, or like uncle, nephew, down the line.
So this is like, this has been no ladies now, no ladies then, no ladies ever?
No ladies in 900 years.
Just think about that for a second. Almost 1,000 years of all men, men, men, men, men. And then one day, you get a woman.
Right. As a headline, woman breaks through 900-year-old glass ceiling?
I thought that sounds like a good pitch.
Are you kidding? It sounds like God kissed you on the lips.
Exactly. It sounded, it sounded like the perfect empowerment story, I guess.
Yeah, and so we're kind of just like Googling it and like it's all over the media.
It seemed like every outlet from The Guardian to The New York Times to The Financial Times to The Cedar Rapids Gazette to newspapers.
It made it all the way to Cedar Rapids?
Yeah, to newspapers in Germany and China and Australia. And they all, all the articles laid out the same basic story. It was this Algerian woman from Germany named Alex Hay showed up in Venice 20 years ago, got around a gondoliers' association that never wanted to see a woman become a gondolier and eventually became the first ever female gondolier of Venice. The whole thing, of course, sparking this giant gender war. But that was sort of it. Pretty much the headline and a picture was the story. Many of the articles didn't actually have all that many quotes from Alex. And so for me, it sounded like a great, simple opportunity to go back and tell a deeper story.
Yeah, just like, who is this person? Why, why would somebody be so hell-bent on getting into this club that just so clearly does not want them?
So we, we emailed Alex.
Just, we're, we're interested in your story. We're wondering if you might be willing to spend a few days with us this summer. And I was hoping it would just be like, yes, I'm happy to meet with you for a couple hours and that would have been great. But we got an email back right away that said, if you come do this story, you have to spend a week with me.
A week?
Yeah. And then there are all these questions about like who we were as journalists, what our purpose was, and a bunch of demands. You have to stay in the city. You can't stay in like one of the suburbs in Marguerite even though it's cheaper. Like you have to be in the city. I want to hear these sounds at this time. I have a vision for things.
Did you have the sense that there was something a little odd?
Yeah, and I mean, the message was definitely, I want to tell a different story.
Did you have any idea what that meant?
No idea.
But we had that echoing, I had that echoing in my head.
So we flew to the Venice airport, took a bus to city center.
That was really fast.
We stepped off the bus and you could smell the salt in the air from, from the Grand Canal and it was kind of raining a little bit. It was around midnight.
We're kind of, you know, getting our bearings, grabbing our bags and we, we look up and across the parking lot.
There's Alex.
Standing under a lamp post, just leaning against it with a cigarette.
Smoke kind of curling up into the light of the street lamp.
Short hair, dark. It was slicked back.
Do you think you were in a Fellini movie?
Honestly, I didn't know what to think. This person was legit under a lamp, smoking.
Hi, how are you?
I'm good, good. Excellent, light travel.
So quick.
Up close, Alex looked taller than I expected. Strong build, kind of a face that was a little weathered, like someone who works outside all day on the water. I was finishing quite late, so when you called, I'd just finished. Oh, perfect. How was your flight?
It was good. It was long. It was, you know, we flew to Moscow first, which is...
And since it was late, we made a plan with Alex to meet up at 5:45 PM the next day on the steps of La Finicie Opera House.
Okay, beautiful little opera house.
Yeah. I was rushing out to find you, so I left all the mess in the gondola. Usually it's not like... So anyway, the plan was to go out on a gondola ride.
Which was one of Alex's demands in that first email.
So we walk around the corner to where the gondola is parked. And...
Oh my God.
The boat was just like shining. So the gondola was made for three people.
It's long, narrow, jet black.
This was where the noble couple was sitting. Antique cushions, golden trim. And over there, there was the servant sitting. Alex had had it about 12 years. It was already quite an old boat when I got it. And it had a name. This is called Pegasus. Pegasus.
And you choose it?
Yes.
Yes, of course.
All right, so.
If you want to come in. One step.
So, we climb into the boat.
Perfect.
Sit on the little elbow there.
And Alex stands at the back, holding the oar. And we're down-sitting in the lower seats, kind of just like pointing the microphone up. Alex, I know you were just telling us how annoying it is when people snap pictures. Is it okay if I take photographs every once in a while?
No.
You came here to study at first?
No, that's not what I said.
And it was pretty much immediately clear you came here, I mean...
that it was not going to be an easy interview.
You came here when you studied. I know, I know, but I was wondering... Right, right.
You need to do a lot of practice.
Yeah, we had a notebook full of questions and things that we had pulled from all these articles we'd read. And that pretty quickly became useless.
That's what I was asking though is, is you didn't come... And whenever I asked about being the first female gondolier, the first woman in 900 years to do this...
Oh, it's an old story.
What's that?
You can read that everywhere on the net. I mean, so, you know, such an over and over and over and over. It's all set already. Why we need to repeat things which are already done?
This is a very frequent journalism problem. Like, you become boring to the person you're interviewing and you start flailing.
Exactly, and we were. We were like, "Uh..."
You don't have anything more?
How, what do you do?
You know, we just thought maybe we should just be...
quiet, probably?
We are about to make the tightest turn. I have ever seen in a 30-foot boat.
We moved away from the tourist centers of the city and into these smaller canals.
Oi, oi! Hey, ongo!
And as we'd go around these tight turns,
Oi, oi!
Alex would sing out to let the other boats know that we were coming.
Oi! So here we have a crossway. This is why I shout out my direction. In order to avoid accidents because you cannot hear the gondola arriving.
You know, we go under these beautiful archways,
Hey, ongo!
Past hidden gardens.
You don't necessarily need eyes in order to appreciate a gondola tour. And every channel has a different sound. There are some channels you have a lot of birds singing.
Sometimes they fly in your face.
So this is a beautiful entrance here. I wanted to show you.
At one point, our gondola cut through this rectangle of light,
shining from an open kitchen door.
It was nice. I mean, this side of Venice was unexpected and really beautiful. But the whole time, we were sitting on our notepads and we were definitely quietly panicking.
Well, you know.
You know, I didn't know this at the time, but...
I thought there's some, you know, I was like, hmm, maybe a little too young.
I think Alex was testing us.
Maybe a little bit too, you don't have enough experience, maybe. That was my concern. But I liked the enthusiasm and I liked the...
There was an honesty which I liked.
Did you ever figure out what you were being sussed out for? Or what was going on there?
Nah, for sure not on the boat. But we, we actually made plans to go out to dinner that night.
And considering how the boat ride went, we thought at this point we should return to square one and leave the recorder at home.
Right.
And just try and have a conversation.
Anyway, we sit down outside and very few people are in the restaurant. We were the only table outside. They had to open.
And when we, when we got there too, we should say we met Alex's girlfriend, right?
Yeah, and we're making, I think we're just kind of making small talk. And yeah, it turns out, turns out Alex's girlfriend is a photographer and she'd done this photo essay of Alex. And the photos are really striking. Like one of them, Alex is just like drowning under the water. There's one that's just like Alex's back is to the camera.
This ripped muscular back.
Yeah, like arms splayed, like looking out the window over the city of Venice.
Venice's lone defender.
Just like so badass and like, kind of like superhero style.
So we were just chatting about the photos and asking Alex's girlfriend like, you know, tell me a little bit more about what inspired you to take these photos? And, you know, like small talk friendly stuff. And she kind of was like, you know, it was just, it's so strange. You know, we thought, we thought it was so clear. We, like, the photos were so, like, they emphasized every masculine quality on Alex's body. We, you know, in our artist statement, you know, we used all of the male forms in Italian. You know, like lui, which means he, instead of lei, which means she. But everybody at the photo exhibit was like, oh, must have been a typo or you made a mistake. And she was like, which is funny because I'm Italian, so I should know.
And I was like, oh, pronouns. Lui, he, Alex, she used he. He, Alex is a he? Is Alex trans, like, oh my gosh, Alex is a transgender man.
Whoa. What did you... What did that mean to you in that moment?
What I thought that meant was Alex was probably born in a body that he didn't identify with.
Yeah, I mean, mine was, I didn't think transgender. I didn't think, I thought Alex is a guy. Of course, Alex is a guy.
Really?
Yeah, I wasn't surprised. Were you surprised?
I wasn't that surprised. I mean, I wasn't, I'm not saying that the pronoun thing is accurate.
I would say that like flipping into he, not a thing. Like, like it was like Alex is he. Alex is a he. Alex is he. He is sitting at the table with us. Alex and his girlfriend. Very quickly, it was like him. I'm looking at him. And then I start thinking about the story that we had come here to tell, that was about all of the women things that she had done. Her, her, her, her, woman, hero, heroine, first female in 900 years, international symbol of female power. You start thinking about that and it's like, those things are really
hard to square in your head. This real person is also these stories. And how did that happen? What has it been like for 20 years to be inside of that story when you're actually a man?
Coming up, Alex tells his side of the story, which is not what you would expect at all.
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I'm Robert Krulwich.
This is Radiolab, and today we're telling the story of Alex Hay, the first ever female gondolier, someone who seemingly broke through this 900-year-old gender barrier and made headlines all over the world along the way, except turns out Alex isn't a woman. And after who knows how many articles about Alex, this is the first time that he's telling his story to the public. And so we should probably stop for a second and talk about pronouns, because this is really important for many transgender people. In moments when Alex was publicly understood as a woman and was getting international press for it, we've decided, with Alex's permission, to only use his name or his title of first female gondolier. While
some of the people interviewed for this story were unaware that Alex is transgender and do use female pronouns or do refer to him as a woman, we, when we're talking about him, we will only use male pronouns.
So after that dinner, we made plans for the next day.
On his motorboat, and he would just take us to a quiet spot, and we would talk, was the agreement.
On the water.
Shut up!
Stop it. Basta. Eh, Lala.
Okay. And how does that begin?
A lot of false starts.
Well, I don't know, maybe I can ask, has anybody, has anyone ever asked you what gender pronoun you prefer?
No, never, never had, ever.
So after getting some of the basics out of the way, Alex kind of started at the beginning.
Well, you know, it's a long story. I was born transgender.
This is in Germany. Alex tells us he was born with a female body, but at a pretty early age, knew himself to be a little boy.
I knew already before I went to school, with three years, I was standing on the toilet to pee inside.
Alex says that, you know, for him, you know, he had the sense even when he was three, that there should just be something on his body that wasn't there.
Yeah, yeah, no, I was praying for a penis every night.
My, my parents knew about it.
His parents were actually both doctors.
They, they knew, but they, they were not supportive.
You know, I, I heard them, you know, they were talking about all the weird stuff I did.
How he would rip the arms off of his Barbies.
Coloring them like, you know, with a black pencil and like destroying them and...
Or the way Alex dressed himself.
When there was a swimming lesson in the school, I was there only with little pants, so you call them a base suit for, for boys. And, you know, I was of course very aggressive as a child.
Lot of fights.
You know, I got quite, I was quite violent as a kid. So now I can laugh about this, but you know, it, it was a drama at home. It was a drama. The constant try of my mother to get this behavior out of me.
Alex says pretty early on, his parents basically gave up on him.
They ignored me as much as they could, which was, you know, in a way, it was saving me because I could wear whatever I wanted, I could do whatever I wanted.
And then, when Alex was 10, a little brother was born.
And that was a shock.
That was a terrible shock because,
basically, it confirmed that my mother wanted desperately a boy, but she didn't accept me as her son. That's what it was.
Alex said, basically, you know, that was the first time he saw what like, like, it should look like, basically, when a parent loves their kid.
So when he was 15,
he ran away from home. I escaped to Hamburg. And in Hamburg, you have a huge district called Sampaoli, where they have all the prostitutes and, you know, all the bad things. And that's exactly where I went.
Some people kind of took him under their wing, got a job, kind of figured out how to take care of himself.
I got lucky. But I know also very unlucky stories. But I got lucky.
Did he ever think about, like, transitioning to a male body?
He says he thought about it at one point.
But in the 80s, when I was 15, the opportunities you had to become a man were very, very poor.
In particular, if you wanted to go down the road of surgery.
What I can remember for my family was constant talks about how operations went wrong, how they went wrong and what went wrong. And so for me to go in a hospital to do an operation, this is not going to happen.
And of course, many transgender people don't end up having surgery. But anyway, after Hamburg, at some point, Alex fell into filmmaking and ended up in San Francisco, working in the film industry. And so, 1996, he got involved in a production that sent him abroad to go scope out locations for a film that was going to be shot in Venice.
So shows up in Venice in 1886.
How old is he around at this point?
Well, 29, I think.
Oh, so he's older.
He was not a kid at this point. Originally, he's just supposed to stay a few days. Kind of just enough time to do some research and scope things out. But somewhere along the way, he sees these guys rowing their boats down the canal. And for reasons he can't entirely explain, he's just transfixed.
I was fascinated by this kind of boat. And I was fascinated by the rowing style, that you row forward so you actually see where you're going. So I was just fascinated and I just wanted to try it out myself.
Eventually, Alex ends up actually meeting a gondolier and asks, like, "Do you think I could do this?" And he actually ended up down at the gondola station as an apprentice.
Did they ask you, did they ask you why you wanted to study?
I remember the first day. I was introduced by the head boss of the group. "Okay, so this is Alex. She's gonna be our mascot."
Because they saw Alex as a woman. And there had never been a woman gondolier.
Most of them thought for sure this was like a kind of a joke. There was a very old one who later said, "Now we have a gondolier with tits."
For the first several months, Alex says he basically just picked up after the guys.
You were the busboy for everybody. So you needed to clean their boats and to ship out the water, like 10, 20 times a day.
He says it's really backbreaking, grueling work. For somebody that everybody, everybody sees as a woman, you'd think this would be like the worst place on earth. But, you know, actually...
Those first, those first months in the city, just kind of with the boys, dirty jokes.
I thought, "This is great."
Alex knew all the gondoliers' nicknames, walked and talked and acted like them and cursed in the same way. And he says he felt like he was part of this tradition of, you know, learning from these old guys who were mentors to him.
It was really like, maybe the best time of my, my life.
It was like he was home.
And then the trouble began.
It started with a journalist.
This is reporter Consuelo Turin. We met in a noisy café.
It started in 1996.
With a translator.
When Consuelo was a collaborator of Nuova Venezia.
She was a cub reporter in Venice, working for a very politically progressive newspaper. And she was out looking for her big story.
And she runs into our... How do they encounter each other?
Consuelo saw Alex at one of the gondolier stations. And she was like...
Whoa.
Obviously, this struck her attention.
It looked to her like there was this woman rowing among men and seeming to blend right in.
Consuelo was attracted by this vision, unusual vision for Venice. So she observed her.
She said, "I camped out for a whole morning and basically just watched Alex's behavior."
But...
Alex didn't want to talk.
I told her, "I can't talk about it."
Told her, basically, "I'm just a student. They're teaching me. Don't make this into a thing."
Consuelo said, "Listen, I recognize that you don't want to talk to me, that you're apprehensive and that this might be difficult. And I get that this might even damage your reputation with the other gondoliers. But...
This is an important story.
You're a pioneer. I can't ignore you."
And so, Consuelo said...
There are two options.
"I'm going to write this story no matter what. So you can either talk to me and we can do the story together, or I can write what I think."
That was the offer.
You know, I said, "It can't go out now." And she said, "It will. It will."
And why wasn't Consuelo persuaded that she should wait?
Well-
There were journalists coming from all over the place, you know?
I think the story was gonna get out there and somebody was gonna write it.
And Alex never sort of stopped and was like, "Listen, Consuelo," or whoever, "let me just tell you the real story."
The way out of this is to speak, and yet he stays quiet.
Do you have a sense why?
I mean, so, just to kind of give like some like data points that might be helpful in understanding kind of where we were. So, we're talking 1997.
Just to give you like a corollary thing, where we were in our discourse around LGBT issues was like Ellen DeGeneres, I think, that year- This is, this is so hard, but I- -came out on her show- I think I've realized that I am... I can't even say the word. Why can't I say the word? And like shortly after it was canceled. Caitlyn Jenner was just a few years ago. Like, we didn't even really have a grip on what transgender was. That wasn't a conversation that we were having in public. Can you imagine what it would be like to be like, "Guys, guys, guys, don't worry, though. I'm actually a man." That wouldn't have gone over so well with the dudes at the gondola station.
Yeah, yeah. So what ended up happening after Consuelo and Alex had this, had the showdown about the article?
Well, a couple of days later, Alex was on the way to the gondola station.
I found it in the newspaper shop.
The headline?
"A Woman Is Challenging The Gondoliers." So I was like, "Oh my God, this is gonna be hell."
So it's in the newspaper stand. Alex shows up at the gondolier station and of course there's a big hello.
A big unfriendly hello.
Yeah, just like a, "Oh, hello, gondoliera."
Those boys, they got really, really angry. They were like, "We do everything to teach you well and, you know, now you're challenging us."
Alex says a lot of the gondoliers stopped talking to him. They wouldn't even let him wash their boats.
And then, you know, of course, then there were the ones who said, "Ah, I told you in the beginning, blah, blah, blah."
"Told you she was just gonna blab to the press."
"A woman is a lot of good thing." And the whole thing, you know, was like a little stone becoming like a huge, huge thing.
By the way, this is right, this is coming right before Alex is about to take the very first exam.
Oh, no.
There's actually a series of exams and it gets a little complicated, but eventually, anybody who wants to be a gondolier has to take this rowing test.
And by all accounts, Alex was good.
Like, we talked to the guy who was the head of the gondoliers association at that time.
Alex Ai.
This guy, Folvio Scarpo, was like...
But Alex, for me, is more good than the other men gondoliers.
And this is the head of the guild?
Yeah, and we also talked to this legendary rower named Franco Creia.
And he was also like...
Alex is better than most of the guys.
So anyway, Alex takes the test and...
I failed the exam.
Which wouldn't have been, that by itself wouldn't have been such a big deal because a whole bunch of people failed the first exam. But the thing was, there was a feeling that like something deeply unfair was happening.
According to Consuelo, a lot of people started to think, maybe the fix was in.
Because there were other boys there who failed, who were better than other boys who did not fail.
Alex says suspiciously, pretty much all the people that passed were sons of gondoliers or from gondolier families.
Because they have had the right last name.
Then I got angry. I got a lawyer.
Alex thought this was going to bring attention to how corrupt the license practice is, how corrupt this association is.
I wanted that the exam is repeated for everybody.
And this lawyer was negotiating and the gondoliers' association was like, "If we let everyone retake the test, that will basically be admitting that we favor certain families over other families."
That was exactly what I wanted.
But it's not what they wanted.
They said, "We don't want the bad press of this." But then, and this is another moment, according to Alex, where his story just gets hijacked.
My lawyer negotiated without my permission.
According to Alex, without telling him, the lawyer, together with the gondoliers' association, dug up this old law that says, "Because Alex is a woman," I mean, he's not, he's a man, but they thought he was a woman. And this law says that, as a woman, he had the right to take the test again, this time with women judges in the boat. When she came back and said, "Okay, here's what we're gonna do," do you remember what you said?
I was pissed. I was very upset. That was not what I wanted. It's nothing to do with man or woman.
Do you think she was your champion because she identified with you?
Yeah, for sure. It was not my story. It's her story.
But unfortunately for Alex, as soon as the lawyer did that,
it became everyone's story.
Oh, yeah, because...
The press...
They ran with it.
In the next two months, every paper in town was writing about it. Suspended by a gondolier's examination. Alexandra, Mrs. Dexter. That gondola banned from foreigners. Then, the story went global. German catches a crab in her feet to become Dennis' first woman gondolier. Sexist think first female gondolier.
Girl gondolier fights a male tradition. Failed gondolier blames chauvinism.
And then, things escalate into a full-blown gender battle. The gondoliers are, of course, super pissed because of all this press that they're getting. We talked to a couple of key, like, gondolier guys. Alexandra, hey. Well, uh, no. They have some thoughts and feelings about him. She had to pass a test. She didn't... It's a disaster. Alex says at one point, things got so bad.
That was one of them who was saying, you know, gonna wait for you in a small, little street with a knife and I'm gonna kill you or I'm gonna... So I grabbed the guy and I said, "Where's your knife? I'm here. Get it out, you know? Do it." That was one episode. There are many others.
So on the one side, Alex said he has gondoliers wanting to knife him. On the other...
That was terrible because then feminism kicked in and...
Alex said he had all these women rushing in to save him. Wait, when do you want me to like? Because they thought he was a shite. We'd read in the paper that she had tried to take the test and had failed and had called foul, saying that the Venetians were mean and sexist and wouldn't let women become gondoliers. This is Jane Caporal. She was active in the community of Venetian women rowers at the time.
What women, by the way? Like, there aren't any?
Well, so there weren't any women gondoliers at that time, but there's a whole community of female rowers. They have teams and they race. I've been doing Venetian rowing for over 20 years. And being a female rower in Venice? It was very difficult. Elena, this woman rower I was talking to...
Last week, I was with my rowing partner.
Was like, I'm routinely, when I'm out on the water, like, old men yell at me and say...
Hey, what you doing? Return back home in the kitchen, cooking or cleaning your house. Why are you here?
But you know, you're just a cantonal. You're just a side dish. They both told me when it comes to racing, there's a big discrepancy in the prize money. The men are getting like four times as much prize money as the women.
We are now trying to convince the city of Venice, who gives prizes, that we are like men. We are not less than them.
We hear all these women who've been incrementally busting their ass to try to be taken seriously in the sport.
We are here. We can do this.
And when they saw this press about Alex fighting the gondoliers, they reached out. I sent one of the other concierge down to speak to her, you know? Come to our club and come and work with us and help us out, help us teach people. You've got your back. But she wasn't interested.
No, of course not.
Because to Alex, there are two problems. First of all...
You cannot compare the gondoliers' rows with the racing rows.
They're two different styles of rowing. And second of all, the sense I got was that it was kind of like, "I don't want to row with you. You guys all wear matching white skirts. Like, not my thing." So I remember there was a lot of resentment.
You're a woman. How can you be one of us in this battle for equality? Some people, they see me and then they are convinced that I'm a feminist, that I am one of them, and I'm not.
And all of this comes to a head in October of 2004,
when Alex has to retake the test, and this time with champion women rowers in the boat, judging him.
There was a lot of pressure.
Everything about this test is supposed to be a secret: the location of the test, the path that Alex is going to row.
I've had no clue where we're going to go.
But suspiciously, as Alex stepped into the boat, he noticed that...
There was a huge crowd.
Lined up all the way down the canal.
Gondoliers and their friends.
And they're shouting and yelling.
People were screaming all kinds of swear words and all kinds of "go home."
I cannot imagine the hate.
He had female rowers in the boat glaring at him. There's press lined up along the entire way.
Plus the tourists, plus everybody. It was full of people. I felt like I'm in a ring.
I tried to block it all out because I needed to do an exam.
I wanted to do a good performance.
And I wasn't able.
It was hell, one of the worst, worst days of my entire life. I really don't, I don't wish that to nobody. That was real hell.
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We return now to a story from Kristen Clark and David Conrad about Alex Hay, transgender man who became somehow the first female gondoliera in 923 years, and thus, an international feminist hero sensation.
And so, we now find Alex being painted by everybody in town in colors that he doesn't particularly agree with.
Yeah, and what's interesting, according to Kristen, is just how easy it is to do that to someone.
Okay, so, I'll tell you, as we were doing the interviewing and the reporting, I'm like, I'm feeling like I have a good grip on Alex's story. I'm feeling like, oh, man, I know what it feels like to be inside of a narrative that feels really icky. And so, I feel like I'm kind of getting it, and I'm like, understanding the full Alex. And like, it's about all of these other things that have nothing to do with gender. So, Alex's story isn't about gender at all. And for me, that made sense, because I was like, in my life, gender has been a box. Like, even when you're in the right, even when you're in the right box, gender is a box, and it can feel shitty to be in that box. And so, I was like, yeah, let's bust open those boxes together. We're gonna show, you know, we're gonna show people who you are, Alex.
But then, we would have these moments where I would be like, hmm, wait a second.
Like, one night, when we were in Venice, we were like, trying to park our boat on the way to a restaurant. And, and like, this guy is like, trying to parallel park his boat. And Alex is kind of sitting there, like, chuckling at him. And, you know, you can hear like, David chuckling in the background. And so, the two of them are like, you know, joking about it. And then Alex says, like, he drives like a woman.
Like an old lady.
And I was like, bleh, you know, and kind of rolled my eyes at it. But then, later at the dinner, he was like, he was like, you know, though, like, I don't really think that like, a real woman could do this job. And he was like, all like, macho about it.
Yeah, I remember you were shocked that I was saying such a macho thing. I remember that. No, of course, you are very right. Women can do everything, but this job is gonna be very tough, because it's a, it's a real cruel community. Amiens is very cruel and rough.
But when you said that, I got so, I was like, I was so frustrated. And it was because I think I was attached to the idea of like it being equal, you know?
I mean, I was, I was just like super confused, like, I don't know. I just, I just wanted to know what you think.
No, tell me what you want to know exactly.
I don't, um... I'll admit, in the moment, I asked a kind of clumsy question.
Do you feel...
But it was just because you seemed to be almost like prodding me, you know? Having fun and winking at David and...
Do you feel like you're fundamentally on a different team from me?
Oh, okay.
I am on David's team. But you can't see that because you identify with me. But that is not, I can't help that. How can I explain it to you? Let's put it this way. When I'm in a group of women, for example, and they start to talk, I feel uncomfortable. The chattings they have, I call it chicken chat, is not really my cup of tea, you know? I like it, it can amuse me. But the minute they think that I am one of them, it doesn't amuse me anymore. And I feel uncomfortable.
And I don't, I'm a, I'm a little alien there because they think I am one of them and I'm not. When I'm with the boys, I feel comfortable. If it is a nice group of boys, which I like, then we have the same type of humor and, you know, the same stupid jokes about women.
For Alex, I think what was really striking is that whatever it is that makes him feel comfortable being seen as a man but not as a woman, it runs very deep.
For me, there is a difference between men and women.
Not everybody, or even every transgender person, would feel this way. But the way that he sees it, if there were no differences...
There would be no wish to do transition and there would be no transsexuality and things like that. If it would be the same, but it isn't.
So you were seeing him as like a gender doesn't matter kind of icon. And he was saying, actually, it does matter.
Can I just ask a simpler question? When, when does he actually become the first female gondolier?
Well, so Alex couldn't get one of these 400 or so special gondoliers licenses because he failed the test.
But-
In 2005, I opened up my own business.
He figured out that if he partners up with businesses in town, like hotels, he can actually row for them privately.
At the time, I was looking at all the laws and I found that it was possible to open up my own business without having a license. So I did.
And so for years, he was just kind of doing this quietly.
Then-
Alexandra, she's not a gondolier.
She's not a gondolier. Yes. He works for a hotel.
Some of the gondoliers began to notice that Alex was rowing passengers without a license. And of course, they didn't like it.
She didn't pass the test.
Saying like, you can't do that.
She's not part of our team.
Does not have a driver's license. You have to be a member of this organization. You have to have a specific license in order to practice.
What we can say, she's not a gondola driver.
I got some threats, verbal threats and damaging the gondola and things like that. All kinds of stupid little bullshit.
So when they understood they cannot threaten me this way, then they pressured City Hall to change the law.
City Hall basically said, like, you can't row, you can't row a gondola with tourists in it without a, without a license.
And the law passed and was signed and it became the real law.
Yeah. And so one day Alex is out on his boat and he just gets pulled over. And basically is told, you're breaking this new law.
And so-
I wanted to defend myself. So, we went on trial.
In court, it was Alex, his one lawyer, City Hall and the Gondoliers Association. There are four lawyers.
Four lawyers. I thought, you know, this is a lost case already. But City Hall lost.
City Hall fights back.
Case goes to the highest court in the land.
They're lost again. In front of a court with me, a little stranger from out of nowhere.
Now, technically, the decision just said, hotels can provide for their customers the way that they need to. So if they want to hire a chauffeur who happens to row in a gondola, they can do that. But what that actually meant was that now, for the first time, Alex could be considered a gondolier.
That was a huge deal, massive. Along the canals, a woman paddles against the tide. New York Times came in. Woman takes on Venice gondola cartel. Chicago Tribune came in. First female gondolier rocked the boat. And Le Monde came in.
So this is where we get all of those articles we read before we came to Venice.
The story went all over the world.
And, and every single one. Bravo, gondolier, brava. The message was the same. We have our first woman gondolier.
So that was something, it was unstoppable. I could not go in there and say, "Excuse me, you know, I'm not really, you know, identifying..." No, it was gone, okay? It was done.
Alex, a ponto nesse momento, em 2007, não tem nenhum outro rendimento exceto por ser capaz de marketar-se através de hotéis e eventualmente, online.
E assim, claro, eu preciso ter uma página web.
As pessoas estão ativamente procurando essa pessoa que tem quebrado o barulho de gênero e se tornou a primeira gondolira feminina em Venésia.
Então, seria estúpido tentar ir contra tudo isso. Já estava escrito.
Então, Alex decide fazer seu e-mail, sua página Facebook e sua página web.
Todas "Prima gondoliera", ou "A primeira gondolira feminina".
Eu me perguntei se criar uma página web com esse nome, se aquilo sentia que você estava controlando essa narrativa? Ou aquela narrativa estava controlando sua decisão sobre essa página?
Não tem nada a ver com o que eu quero. É uma etiqueta. Você sabe, eu não posso mudar uma etiqueta que tem, você sabe, 20 anos de história. Fechado!
Alex nos disse que estava falando com seu terapeuta um dia nesse centro de transgênero que eles têm perto de Venésia.
E ela disse: "Você está como em uma cova. Isso é como uma cova para você. Você não pode realmente sair disso, você sabe.
É uma situação difícil. É uma situação muito difícil. Mas...
Eu estou cansado.
Quando nós nos conhecemos, Alex tinha vivido quase 10 anos assim. Você sabe, apenas entre essas duas histórias. À noite, para seus amigos próximos, mas no dia, dando esses tours como a primeira gondolira feminina em Venésia.
E a cada pouco de mês, a cada nova temporada de tours, esses títulos simplesmente regeneravam-se. "Primeira gondolira feminina", "Primeira gondolira feminina", "Primeira gondolira feminina".
E quando nós deixamos Venésia, é assim que nós o deixamos. Tipo, ficando no meio disso.
E a impressão que nós recebemos é que talvez isso seja só como sempre foi para ele. Mas então?
It's quite a while we didn't see each other.
Fast forward six months, we get an email from Alex. He says he's in San Francisco.
Things have been happening in your life.
He had some news.
Well, you know, I remember when we were sitting, when we were last talking in Venice, when we were sitting on the terrace, I remember that
I was already in, I knew there was something coming.
But I wasn't sure what it was.
It was a very difficult year.
I was kind of depressed, which, you know, I'm not, I'm not a depressed person usually. And so I was hanging out, I was not moving much, I was hanging out on my sofa and I was trying to think. And I was
more and more, every day, I was unhappy about people telling me that I was a she and not a he. I don't know why, I got completely intolerant. Before I was like, I don't care what they say to me, I care that they are nice. And now I was like, I can't hear this anymore, this is so wrong.
Alex was about to turn 50 at this point. And it turns out that part of what was happening was that he was beginning to go through the early stages of menopause.
I was hot, I was tired, sweat breaking out for nothing.
After fighting with the gondoliers, fighting with the feminists, this was like a final insult.
I have this idea that hormones might help with how I feel. I start to take the testosterone that was on the 7th of November, which after six hours, I get the first smile on my face in nearly a year. Like, you know, felt good. And the mood swings, they stopped. Yeah, so I'm, now I'm like, I knew me. Because I was looking in the mirror every day and I was like, who's this monster?
He decided to fly to San Francisco, meet with a doctor.
Some people wait like two years or three years before they start to do a surgery. I wanted to do it now because for me, it was something like now or never. So now, I'm here in San Francisco. I've had top surgery on the 24th. That's about, yeah, four days ago. And I wanted to start this year with a body which is confirming me.
People see me as the first woman in Gondolier. And that means something for many people. It's not fair to them, so, you know, I need to, I needed to say something. I changed on the Facebook side, I changed the name. Now it's Alexei Gondolaturs. And I did already a statement on my, on my old website, there is a statement.
It says, "Dear guests, colleagues, and friends, after holding myself back for three decades, it's time for me to depart from my wrong body. I am not changing who I am, I am becoming who I am."
And is he back in Venice now?
Huh. And do you, any sense of what that's gonna mean for his job or his life?
I have no idea. I have no clue. I don't know how my voice is gonna be in a month. It should drop. I have no idea how my face is gonna look and my body's gonna look in three years, three years from now. We all leave it as a surprise.
No idea. That's scary.
Hi, hi. Hi, Uncle. Hi.
Thanks to reporters Kristen Clark and David Conrad. Also, thanks to Alexis Ungar and Summer. And of course, a huge thanks to Alex for sharing a very difficult story with us.
Are you worried about what the responses might be to it?
Oh, my God, David, I'm a warrior. You think this is boring me? I've been to worse, I guess.
I remember like when we were sitting out on the balcony, you had said something like, I don't want to do another battle.
Exactly. I don't want to do another battle. But if I have to, I will. Because I I hope that I can at least help one person out there.
Hey there, Soren here again. So we released that episode in 2017. Now, of course, it's 2026. And when we last had heard from Alex, we left him really in the middle of a moment of change.
And in the years since, we didn't hear much from him, but I have found myself thinking about him all the time. And I know other people on the staff have too. And then we heard that he'd written a book, which is actually being released here in the US today, the day this episode comes out, which is June 26. And we're going to get to that in a second. But we didn't really know anything about how his transition went for him, both professionally and personally. So I decided the best thing I should do is just get a hold of him.
Nine years it's been. I don't know where to begin, but maybe.
Exactly. That's the problem because it's nine years and a lot of things happened.
Turns out Alex has been through this sort of, honestly, mythic journey, starting where we left off in 2017, just as he's getting back to Venice after his time in San Francisco. He's starting a physical transformation, but it was at the very beginning and we weren't sure how that would affect his business.
No, business was really wonderful from 2017 until 2019. I really have had a blast in that period. It was a lot of fun. I've had a lot of fun at work.
I think I read that you were having like celebrity people wanted to come ride your boat and.
Yes. Well, I've had that before, but then, you know, also because I felt so comfortable finally in my body, not to underestimate how that is pushing you forward in a very happy spot. And so I was in a very good place.
And it was, was the body matching comfort level, like, was that immediate or did it take time?
Well, it takes time. That's why you have this period, which is called puberty, where you basically have a second one that is demanding, you know, obviously when you have a certain age, you do not want to get silly anymore and do silly stuff and think silly things. But that is exactly what happens because you need to basically reconsider everything once more.
From the colors you like, from the food you like, from your sexuality, you know, everything.
That's kind of amazing.
Yeah, it is a pretty amazing period of time.
What's happening at the same time to your relationships? How is it affecting the way you were relating to other people?
I remember one gondolier, you know, passing by and saying, hey, Alex, you need to cure this cold you have. I mean, you have this for weeks now, you need to cure the cold.
Because of the voice?
Because of the voice, yeah. And I was cracking up because that was very funny.
I mean, do most people know what you're doing? Or do nobody even know?
Well, nobody really knew because I didn't tell anybody, you know, I was just letting people guess. But then, you know, obviously, once somebody understood it, the whole city knew it, you know, it was like a wildfire. And so then I got, you know, funny questions, very, how you call it, questions you don't want to hear and you don't want to answer to it. But as I was the only out transgender at the time, obviously, you know, people asked me all kinds of question about it.
Is it an awkward but friendly curiosity or sort of like a?
No, it's a pervert.
Okay, yes, unfortunately.
Most of the time, most of the time. Obviously, there were also some nice questions and true interest, but that was maybe a five percent of it. The rest was being very interested in a very pervert way.
I find myself thinking back and being very interested in your relationship to the other gondoliers. Like before everything went bad with the test and the women rowers and the lawsuits. That group of men, you described it as a very happy community, a happy home, a happy place. And it was obviously felt like something that got taken from you. But I don't know if there were parts of it that you kept.
That question now becomes a little bit complicated. I was very surprised, does it work and how does it work? And is it longer than what I have and so on and so forth? So, you know, that was quite interesting.
Hmm, yeah. The business is okay, people are being perverts.
No, the business was wonderful. The business couldn't have been better, really couldn't. So I was really on my way up to the very top. And then I got stopped by the police in the eighteenth of October in two thousand nineteen. And I thought it was like a normal procedure of controlling something or whatnot. But then I understood that they want to confiscate the gondola. But they didn't told me why. So that's what happened. My gondola got taken away from me. And that for me was like, if you are a musician, you do not take the instrument away.
But it was not only the instrument they were taking away. They were taking away the music as well.
And the right to play on another instrument. It was like, there was nothing, all of a sudden, zero.
This was Pegasus, huh?
That was Pegasus, yes. He is now property of the state of Italy since two thousand and nineteen.
And but like, why, why did this happen?
I didn't know at the time what was happening, why it was happening.
Well, you weren't able to confirm what exactly went down with Alex's boat. But according to Alex.
I found out years later, years later, I found out that there was no reason whatsoever to do this, except for transphobia.
Just discrimination and hate.
Exactly.
Hmm.
Exactly. And so, you know, I needed to leave because the situation became harsh. Because City Hall allowed the request of the Gondoliers Association and executed the confiscation of the gondola.
The association felt very grabbed, like, you know.
They were proud.
Emboldened and.
Yes, exactly. It was becoming an unlivable situation because everywhere I was going by foot or by motorboat, I got screamed at and pointed on. And my friends were getting concerned that this may be gonna escalate into a physical violence.
I mean, as we know from so many examples, it's a very real threat.
Right. I wasn't really afraid of them being physical violent because they are such cowards. However, it was for me unbearable to be in Venice and not be capable of working. And so, you know, this was like just a losing game for me. So I decided to leave Venice. So I canceled my apartment, my bank accounts, everything. I canceled everything and I sold everything and I went to Switzerland for a while. And then Covid kicked in.
Oh, my God.
And basically, I was drifting, being without a proper home for six years. I didn't want to return to Germany. That was for me like to go backwards, which I hate to do. But somehow, there was no other option at a certain point because I spent all the savings I've had in those five years or four years. And then I needed to go back into my country, where I was born and where I have the passport from, and ask the government for support. And that was not an easy thing to do. That was another very shameful idea.
And I've done that only and exclusively after there was no other possibility or solution. But I couldn't find housing and I couldn't find a job. It was like I was stuck in the mud for six years. I will always be. A gondolier, in the sense of you're once a gondolier, you're always a gondolier. Because it is not a job, but it is a handcraft. And it's so few people in the world who are doing that. It's something so unique, you cannot just leave that away. All of this needs to be cancelled and forgotten.
That was very difficult to let go. That was the most difficult thing. And the second most difficult thing was Berlin. Because I did not like Berlin. And you know, from Venice, which is very tiny, to come into a big city, which is quite ugly, on the first sight at least. That was very difficult to swallow for me. And so I got depressed and didn't leave the house for quite a while. And then, you know, I needed to wake up from that. But it was incredibly difficult because I really was in such a black hole. And I couldn't find my way out. I didn't saw a light.
I didn't ask for help. And that was the most cruel thing I've ever done to myself. You know what I mean? In the end, it was not the enemy, it was myself. I destroyed myself.
By not fighting back?
Yeah, I felt I was tired. I was tired. Obviously, you ask yourself, what did I do wrong? Did I do anything which provoked this somehow? You think there is a partially a fault somewhere. You did something wrong somewhere. Otherwise, this wouldn't have happened. You cannot imagine that this, that people are so evil that they destroy your existence only because they hate you. I mean, that is hard to believe. And so I was searching my own fault in all this.
What let you or helped you or pushed you to climb out?
Good question. If you remember, the last time we talked, I said that I am a warrior. And then whatever happens, I'm gonna fight back. And so, you know, there was this little, tiny, little, very low voice knocking and saying, hey, you need to get the hell out of this situation. You are hurting yourself. Get your stuff together and find a way to snap out of there.
And I did.
What was your first move? To start writing, to start leaving the apartment, to start?
I needed to start moving my body somehow, just a little bit. You know, a shoulder or a foot or just to stand up and to sit down again. I was so tired. And then when I got better, my health really collapsed. When I thought now I'm better, like mentally I was better, then my health was saying, hello, I'm here too, and collapsed.
Very difficult situation, which I do not wish to nobody. Because to snap out of this kind of depression and misfortune is nearly impossible.
But at some point, you do start creating, like writing, I assume, or maybe thinking about film again?
Yeah, you know, when I lost my existence, the first thing I was doing, I knew I needed to stay in motion. So I made a small film, which was quite successful for what it was. But it didn't work out the way I wanted it to work out because of COVID. It was ignored in Germany, but it's shown now, next weekend in Hamburg at the Short Film Festival.
For the very first time, so it has still a premiere status and they are like four years late. But, you know, who cares? So that's gonna be funny because I studied visual communication in Hamburg. And it's shown in the cinema. I always dreamt that I wanted to show a movie there.
That, I, I, I, I just got goosebumps.
That is one of those magic crazy things which happened.
That's a nice return.
What's the name of the film?
Vini Etiam. That's a Venetian saying. It means, I shall come again. And so I was doing that little film and I was writing the book in the Covid time. I've had time, so I was writing this thing on my iPad with two fingers. Because you know, I'm a gondolier, I'm not a IT engineer or an author or whatnot. So I was writing this with two fingers on my iPad. And all this was not going anywhere. There was nothing coming out of what I was doing. And I couldn't find a proper job. When I came to Berlin, for me, my life was over.
And it was very interesting because Berlin was from day one, very, very kind to me. I've got support from people I didn't know and I've got some job proposals. And you know, things were moving in a better direction, but I was not ready for it. I was like, oh, you know, I just wanna die. Because I didn't, I didn't wanted to go back to Germany. It took me years to understand that Berlin is, how can I say? It's softer than you think it is. There's a lot of love here, there's a lot of community here, and there are so many different worlds here.
Are you now happy in Berlin?
Now I am happy in Berlin. And that is kind of new in the sense I'm like, I'm driving around, you know, in Berlin and I'm like, oh, this is not too bad. Or, you know, where before I was like, oh my gosh, this is unbearable, this is so ugly. And now I'm like, oh, it's not so bad, come on. There are beautiful places here, don't get me wrong, there are beautiful parts and sections here. But obviously, after Venice, everything is ugly.
Yeah. Do you still wanna go back?
I knew that question would come.
Yes, I would. I would.
Two, two row.
No, no, I, I think I'm physically not capable anymore to do that because I was really, really sick and it is
It's demanding.
Quite a wonder that I'm still alive. However, Venice is so much more for me than the Gondoliering.
It's my hometown. This is where I belong.
Yeah. I understand that.
However, Berlin was so kind. Even when I was rejecting Berlin, Berlin was not giving up on me and I, I have a big thank you in my heart for Berlin. Because Berlin really saved me.
Hmm. And then the book? When does the book come?
The book is coming out in New York on the twenty sixth of June.
I feel, it feels good. It makes me happy to hear this arc of life for you.
I can only tell people never give up. I really hope that the world is gonna come together and that the change is coming and that we move away from this hate. Because hate is absurd and so stupid and so unnecessary. There's space for everybody and I don't understand why this intolerance needs to happen. And I do not need to tell you that the transgender community is affected harshly
and deeply and extremely by it.
Yeah. I share that hope.
I just wonder why I need to pay such a high price just in order to be happy with myself. That doesn't make sense to me.
Because I became who I am and I paid an extremely high price for it. I nearly lost myself in it.
And I think that is something which I hope will not ever happen again to somebody else in my position.
One, one final note. Just a few days before we put this episode up, Alex was traveling to New York City to have a release party for his book. And he told me that he was pulled aside by border control, interrogated, and actually detained for a while in New Jersey. And he had to go back to Berlin, where he is again now.
Big, big thanks to Alex for giving us his time once again, for being so open and honest and direct. It's always a pleasure talking to him. You can order Alex's book on the Pegasus Publishers website. It's called "The Gondolier" by Alex Hae. That's H-A-I. Definitely go check it out.
One last note. If you're transgender and living in the US and you're struggling, or you need community, or support, or resources, always remember that you can call the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860. I'm Soren Wheeler. This is Radiolab. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Gabby. I'm from the Bay Area, California, and here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandback is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Blum, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gabel, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nainasambandhan, Matt Keelty, Mona Maudgauker, Alex Neeson, Sarah Kari, Natalia Ramirez.
Rebecca Rand, Joanna Strogatz, Anissa Vitza, Arianne Wack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young, with help from Gabby Santis and Maya Appleby Millamid. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Angeli Mercado, and Sophie Semai.
Hi, I'm Daniel from Madrid. Leadership support from Radiolab Science Programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John T. Ponte Foundation. Foundational support from Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Islam Foundation.
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