Lets Not Forget About Wendy Carlos In Kim Petras Historic Grammy Win

Kim Petras is the first openly transgender woman to win a Grammy. However, she is not the FIRST transgender woman to win. That distinction belongs to Windy Carlos, who was closeted at the time.

Last night, Kim Petras made history as the first ever openly transgender woman to win a Grammy. She gave an incredible speech (no seriously, go watch it and try not to cry), noting the historic nature of her win. In that speech, she thanked transgender music influences such as Sophie, a Grammy nominated artist who died in 2021. While Kim Petras victory was historic, and many outlets had reported that she was the first transgender woman to win such an award, it was actually the electronic artist Wendy Carlos - a woman who much of electronic music owes its existence to today - who first won a Grammy as a transgender woman.

Wendy Carlos, assigned male at birth, was born in 1939. She went to college at Columbia University to pursue a double major, focusing on physics and music. After graduating, she met engineer Robert Moog, who was working on new ways to synthesize electronic music. The two instantly saw potential in professional collaboration. Together, they developed the Moog Synthesizer, the first electronic music synthesizer to have a keyboard. It was portable, commercially viable, and very familiar to musicians who could learn to use it much easier than older experimental devices and circuitry. Without this innovation, electronic music as we know it would not exist.

Wendy Carlos took the synthesizer and began to create incredible works of music on it. It was on this synthesizer that she played Switched On Bach, the very first synthesized album to go platinum and the second classical album to go platinum, in 1968. The album was an immense success and was instantly recognized for how groundbreaking and influential this new music medium could be. There was one problem… Wendy Carlos was no longer comfortable going by her deadname in private life.

Two years earlier, she began seeing a therapist and began her gender transition. In early 1968, she began hormone therapy. However, for her public appearances, she still maintained a male persona. This all came to a head when her new album blew up and became nominated for three Grammys. She swept all of the categories, but accepted the award under her deadname. She used the financial success from her creation to finance her gender transition and has lived the rest of her life as her gender.

Wendy Carlos did not stop there, though. After transitioning, she saw much more success. She was invited to compose a soundtrack for an incredible new film by Stanley Kubric: A Clockwork Orange. Listen to her famous synthesized theme from the movie here:

She continued seeing success. She would go on to produce music for The Shining and Tron. Collectively, these soundtracks and her new device would change the music landscape as people knew. Electronic music is currently the 3rd most popular music genre in the world, listened to by 1.5 billion people. Her innovations helped create an entire genre and her contributions should never be forgotten.

Unfortunately, because Wendy Carlos was mid-transition and still presenting male for public appearances at the time, she is rarely recognized for her historic firsts. She saw immense success as both a woman and a transgender individual for the time in which she created her works. Videos of her post-transition rarely mentioned her transgender's status. See this lovely video of her describing her work:

Kim Petras does deserve some credit and celebration. She is the first openly transgender woman to win the award - a feat Wendy Carlos could not have done in her time. Petras winning this award in the year when we have the most anti-trans bills proposed in history - over 270 at the time of this article in 2023 - is so important. Trans youth need the visibility of a successful transgender woman who transitioned as a youth herself. Remember that so many of these bills would have made Kim Petras’ story impossible. Likewise, Wendy Carlos and the ground she broke both as a transgender woman and a musician made Kim Petras’ story possible. It is important that when we celebrate her, we listen to her when she said, “I just want to thank all the incredible transgender legends before me who kicked these doors open for me.”

Wendy Carlos was one of those legends.