Tracy Africa Norman is an American fashion model and the first African-American transgender woman to appear as a model on the box of personal-care product ‘Clairol.’ Clairol is a product that is produced by multi-national giant Procter Gamble that specializes in the hair care and hair coloring products. Born in 1951, Norman originally belongs to Newark, New Jersey and has been photographed for famous publications such as Vogue Italia, Essence, and Harper’s Bazaar India. She also got the opportunity to own a magazine cover and have a life story published in the New York Magazine.
According to Norman, she always felt different as far as she remembers and never felt a normal gender. In her interview with the New York Magazine, she mentioned that she was a soul who was living in a wrong body and always felt being a female. She never lived a normal life and encountered problems at home and in school. Her father was battling cancer and was afraid to involve her family in this decision. She kept her gender a secret for a long time until she graduated from high school. It was the time when she gathered the courage to break the news to her family, especially to her mom who was quite a stubborn person. But the reaction was out of her expectation, and luckily her gender was instantly accepted by her family and even mother.
Now the real transition was not easy, so she went through some serious treatments. She consulted one of her friends who also went through the same transition. Norman took hormone shots that gave her a proper feminine body and helped her reduce weight, and with a slow pace, she achieved what she always wanted.
Norman somehow started her career in 1975, when she was attending a fashion show and saw some Black models going for an interview in a hotel. Here only she tried her luck and got then opportunity to get signed for Clairol and Avon. Her greatest achievement was to appear on the box of the Clairol. Being in the modeling industry, she faced many difficulties but never left hope. She hopped the stairs of success by doing still and commercial modeling and just recently got a career revitalization when Clairol once again reached Norman and announced her as the face of their ‘Nice n’ Easy As Real As You Are’ campaign. In 2016, Norman became one of the first two Black transgender models to appear on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar magazine.
Source Article:
No comments