# Caroline Cossey
**Caroline Cossey**, known professionally as **Tula**, is an English model and actress who appeared as a background [Bond girl](https://www.edgepedia.org/bond-girl) in *For Your Eyes Only* (1981), was outed as transgender by the tabloid *News of the World*, and later became the first transgender model featured in *Playboy* and a petitioner in a landmark European human rights case against the British government.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876302/bio/) • [2](https://www.avclub.com/read-this-playboy-interviews-the-first-transsexual-b-1798281092)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | Barry Kenneth Cossey, 1954, Brooke, Norfolk, England[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876302/bio/) |
| Medical background | A variant of Klinefelter's syndrome with the XXXY genotype rather than the usual XY chromosomes[3](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/life-as-a-transgender-model-in-the-80s-revealed/QMV7KESCMOQAZAT6TIJZQXJBJY/) |
| Bond film | Uncredited role as "Girl At Pool" in *For Your Eyes Only*, the 12th James Bond film, premiered June 1981[2](https://www.avclub.com/read-this-playboy-interviews-the-first-transsexual-b-1798281092) |
| Outed | *News of the World* exposed her past in 1981 under the headline "James Bond Girl Was A Boy"[4](https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=11779) |
| Playboy | First transgender model to appear in *Playboy*, with her own photo spread in September 1991[5](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/transgender-playboy-model-understands-caitlyn-jenner/) • [2](https://www.avclub.com/read-this-playboy-interviews-the-first-transsexual-b-1798281092) |
| Legal case | *Cossey v United Kingdom* (1990) challenged the UK's refusal to recognize her legal gender[6](https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/bitstreams/0e593943-d662-4549-8b4e-253df4e6fea6/download) |
| Marriage | Married the Canadian David Finch in 1992; they live near Atlanta, Georgia[7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/) |
## Early life
Cossey was born Barry Kenneth Cossey in Brooke, Norfolk, in 1954, to Robert and Doreen Violet Cossey.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876302/bio/) She was raised as a boy but had a distinctly feminine appearance, which her autobiography attributes to a variant of Klinefelter's syndrome, an intersex condition in which she possessed the XXXY genotype instead of the typical male XY chromosomes.[3](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/life-as-a-transgender-model-in-the-80s-revealed/QMV7KESCMOQAZAT6TIJZQXJBJY/) Her childhood in [East Anglia](https://www.edgepedia.org/east-anglia) was marked by bullying; in *My Story* she wrote that she was "forever getting beaten up" and often ended the school day with a black eye or a split lip.[3](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/life-as-a-transgender-model-in-the-80s-revealed/QMV7KESCMOQAZAT6TIJZQXJBJY/) She left school at 15, worked in a clothing store and a butcher's shop, and moved to London at 16.[3](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/life-as-a-transgender-model-in-the-80s-revealed/QMV7KESCMOQAZAT6TIJZQXJBJY/)
She initially expected her parents to reject her gender identity and avoided contact with them for several years, using her older brother as an intermediary before telling them directly; they were warmly supportive.[8](https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/618d1822-d3c4-4e20-ac28-218ea67f88c9/download)
## Showgirl and model
At 17 she left home and took a job as an usher at a West End theater, where a choreographer spotted her and asked if she wanted to become a showgirl.[7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/) Working under the stage name Tula, she performed as a showgirl and topless dancer in nightclubs in London, Paris, and Rome, and used the money she earned as a dancer to fund her gender reassignment surgery, which she underwent in the UK in 1974.[9](https://www.transviden.dk/caroline-cossey/) • [8](https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/618d1822-d3c4-4e20-ac28-218ea67f88c9/download) • [7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/) European regulations at the time prohibited strippers from revealing their genitals during performances, which made it possible for the pre-operative Cossey to work in the industry.[8](https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/618d1822-d3c4-4e20-ac28-218ea67f88c9/download)
She then built a successful modeling career. At the height of her career she appeared in *Vogue*, *Cosmopolitan*, and *Harper's Bazaar*, and on the covers of fashion and beauty magazines and calendars worldwide.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876302/bio/) She also advertised Smirnoff vodka.[9](https://www.transviden.dk/caroline-cossey/)
## For Your Eyes Only and the 1981 outing
In 1981 Cossey appeared, uncredited, as "Girl At Pool" in *For Your Eyes Only*, Roger Moore's fifth [James Bond](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-bond) film.[2](https://www.avclub.com/read-this-playboy-interviews-the-first-transsexual-b-1798281092) To promote the film she appeared with the other Bond girls in a *Playboy* pictorial alongside [Roger Moore](https://www.edgepedia.org/roger-moore).[4](https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=11779)
Shortly after the film's release, the British tabloid *News of the World* outed her as transgender under the headline "James Bond Girl Was A Boy".[4](https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=11779) This was not the first threat to her career: in 1978, after she secured a part on the television game show *3-2-1*, a tabloid journalist contacted her to say he had discovered she was trans and planned to write about it, and she dropped out of the show.[7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/) After the 1981 exposure she went into hiding, and her modeling career was, for the immediate future, almost destroyed.[8](https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/618d1822-d3c4-4e20-ac28-218ea67f88c9/download) She responded by publishing her first autobiography, *Tula: I Am a Woman* (1982), written to take back control of her own narrative.[8](https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/618d1822-d3c4-4e20-ac28-218ea67f88c9/download) • [7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/) In a later interview she said she attempted suicide after the traumatic episode.[7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/)
## Marriage and legal fight
After a period working as a masseuse, Cossey met the Italian Count Glauco Lasinio at a skiwear shoot. He proposed and urged her to campaign against UK laws that barred her from legally marrying a man, and she began the seven-year process of taking her petition against the British government to the [European Court of Human Rights](https://www.edgepedia.org/european-court-of-human-rights).[7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/) The case, *Cossey v United Kingdom* (1990), challenged the refusal to treat her as a woman in law.[6](https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/bitstreams/0e593943-d662-4549-8b4e-253df4e6fea6/download)
In 1989 she married the millionaire businessman Elias Fattal. *News of the World* covered the wedding with the headline "Sex Change Page Three Girl Weds"; his family had been unaware of her transition, and the marriage ended shortly afterward, with the annulment following the tabloid exposure.[10](https://www.independent.ie/style/fashion/style-talk/playboys-first-transgender-model-praises-magazine-for-forward-thinking-attitude-in-the-80s/31329266.html) • [1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876302/bio/) She also received death threats, and the brakes on her car were sabotaged.[7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/)
## Playboy and advocacy
In September 1991 Cossey became the first trans woman to appear in *Playboy* in her own photo spread, and she appeared on the cover of multiple international editions.[2](https://www.avclub.com/read-this-playboy-interviews-the-first-transsexual-b-1798281092) • [1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876302/bio/) She said she posed to "make a statement" while her legal battle was ongoing, and described being the first transsexual in *Playboy* as an honor; she was invited to the [Playboy Mansion](https://www.edgepedia.org/playboy-mansion) to meet [Hugh Hefner](https://www.edgepedia.org/hugh-hefner).[7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/) • [4](https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=11779)
Her activism brought her to talk shows including *Donahue*, [Joan Rivers](https://www.edgepedia.org/joan-rivers), Howard Stern, Geraldo, Montel Williams, Maury Povich, Arsenio Hall, David Frost, BBC's *Question Time*, and [Jonathan Ross](https://www.edgepedia.org/jonathan-ross).[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876302/bio/) She published her second autobiography, *My Story*, in the early 1990s.[8](https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/618d1822-d3c4-4e20-ac28-218ea67f88c9/download) Her account also appears in the 2005 anthology *Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs*.[11](https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=2284)
## Later life
On August 29, 1991, Cossey met David Finch, a 27-year-old Canadian engineering student, by chance at a restaurant in London's Brent Cross Shopping Centre; both had arrived at the wrong place. He proposed in November 1991 in Quebec, and they married in 1992.[12](https://www.advocate.com/current-issue/2016/11/03/how-transgender-supermodel-found-love) • [7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/) They live near Atlanta, Georgia.[7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/)
The legal position she had fought against changed decades later: the Gender Recognition Act came into force in 2005, allowing people in the UK to change their legal gender.[7](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/) In 2016 she appeared in the HBO documentary *The Trans List*, directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, among eleven interviewees including [Laverne Cox](https://www.edgepedia.org/laverne-cox) and [Caitlyn Jenner](https://www.edgepedia.org/caitlyn-jenner).[13](https://observer.com/2016/12/in-the-trans-list-marginalized-voices-tell-their-own-stories/) In a 2015 *Playboy* interview, her first in about 20 years, she reflected on the difference between being known as "Tula the transsexual international model" and "just a successful model", saying "I felt like a circus act."[5](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/transgender-playboy-model-understands-caitlyn-jenner/)
## References
1. [Caroline Cossey – Biography, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876302/bio/)
2. [Read This: Playboy interviews the first "transsexual" Bond girl, The A.V. Club](https://www.avclub.com/read-this-playboy-interviews-the-first-transsexual-b-1798281092)
3. [Life as a transgender model in the '80s revealed, NZ Herald](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/life-as-a-transgender-model-in-the-80s-revealed/QMV7KESCMOQAZAT6TIJZQXJBJY/)
4. ['For Your Eyes Only' Caroline 'Tula' Cossey interviewed by Playboy, MI6-HQ](https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=11779)
5. [Transgender Playboy Model Understands Caitlyn Jenner, CBS Sacramento](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/transgender-playboy-model-understands-caitlyn-jenner/)
6. [Gender Reassignment Surgery (research paper citing Cossey v United Kingdom (1990) 13 EHRR), University of KwaZulu-Natal](https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/bitstreams/0e593943-d662-4549-8b4e-253df4e6fea6/download)
7. [Meet Caroline Cossey: the trailblazing transgender Bond girl who fought tirelessly for equal rights, PinkNews](https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/02/transgender-james-bond-girl-caroline-cossey/)
8. [Chapter 2. The Narrators (section 2.1.22 Caroline Cossey), University of Waikato Research Commons](https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/618d1822-d3c4-4e20-ac28-218ea67f88c9/download)
9. [Caroline Cossey, Vidensbanken om kønsidentitet (transviden.dk)](https://www.transviden.dk/caroline-cossey/)
10. [Playboy's first transgender model praises magazine for forward thinking attitude in the '80s, Irish Independent](https://www.independent.ie/style/fashion/style-talk/playboys-first-transgender-model-praises-magazine-for-forward-thinking-attitude-in-the-80s/31329266.html)
11. [For Your Eyes Only transsexual 'Bond Girl' pens memoirs, MI6-HQ](https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=2284)
12. [How This Transgender Supermodel Found Love, Advocate.com](https://www.advocate.com/current-issue/2016/11/03/how-transgender-supermodel-found-love)
13. [In 'The Trans List,' Marginalized Voices Tell Their Own Stories, Observer](https://observer.com/2016/12/in-the-trans-list-marginalized-voices-tell-their-own-stories/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screen actors of the Anglosphere and Europe › English actors: 1970s to 1990s › Surnames C to D*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 12, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license