Beginning her transition at the age of 12, the story of Kim Petras was always going to be a controversial one. Not in the eyes of Kim, of course, who insisted from the age of two (when she was Tim) that she was a girl - and not in the eyes of her parents, who supported her decision every step of the way, convinced that this was not "just a phase".
The perfect storm of controversy came from the German press and the public themselves, who whipped themselves up into a frenzy when Kim was first interviewed for German current affairs program Stern TV. At the time she was 13 years old, and she was already planning to have the reassignment surgery by the time she was 16. There was only one problem: German law forbids it until you are 18.