In 2011, Greek transgender activist, writer, and artist Anna Kouroupou published her deeply personal autobiography Γιατί δεν έχω σαν το δικό σου, μαμά (Because I’m Not Like You, Mom). More than a memoir, the book is an unfiltered journey through the highs and lows of a life lived in defiance of societal expectations, moving from the vibrant chaos of Athens’ nightlife to the political trenches of human rights advocacy.
Anna’s story begins in Pieria, where she was born before moving to Athens as a child. From an early age, she was aware of her gender identity, yet her path to self-realization unfolded against the backdrop of a society that, at the time, offered little understanding or acceptance for transgender people. Her memoir captures this journey in vivid, unflinching prose, charting a life that has been as much about survival as it has been about self-expression.
The title itself is both a statement and a conversation. Addressed to her mother, it encapsulates the core of her truth: that her life, body, and destiny are her own. It reflects both the intimacy and the confrontation that often coexist in family relationships when gender identity challenges entrenched norms.
Anna’s pages move between tenderness and rawness, laughter and pain. She writes of walking the streets and sidewalks of Athens, of beauty pageants, underground clubs, police cells, moments of joy, humiliations, “liberating” surgeries, red-light districts, and the slow march toward today. As she puts it, “When this mixed journey through streets, sidewalks, beauty pageants, dungeons, entertainment, laughter, joys, arrests, yogurt-throwing, liberating surgeries, red lights was over, I arrived at today. And for today, I couldn’t write much, because I was already at the bottom.”
The memoir doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of sex work, police violence, discrimination, and the social invisibility faced by transgender women in Greece, especially during the 1980s and 1990s. But it also celebrates resilience, beauty, and the moments of unexpected solidarity that sustained her. She writes with an eye for both the absurd and the tragic, crafting a portrait of herself as a woman shaped by hardship but unwilling to surrender to bitterness. What makes Because I’m Not Like You, Mom compelling is its refusal to sanitize the truth. Anna recounts her experiences without romanticizing or downplaying the challenges. In the interview, she shared how many young trans people draw strength from her story, even when she herself was unaware she possessed such strength. This duality, being both a source of empowerment and a person still wrestling with her own scars, runs throughout the book.
The memoir also touches on themes of self-image, fashion, and beauty, challenging the stereotypes imposed on transgender women while defending the right to embrace beauty without shame. Anna’s reflections on love reveal a complex relationship with intimacy, shaped by survival and self-preservation.
In the years since its publication, Anna has expanded her creative work into furniture restoration and interior decoration, yet the impact of her book continues. It remains one of the few openly transgender autobiographies in modern Greek literature, offering future generations a firsthand account of what it means to live authentically in a society still catching up with the idea of gender diversity.
Reading Because I’m Not Like You, Mom is like sitting across from Anna herself: a conversation full of sharp insights, unvarnished truths, humor that cuts through the heaviness, and an unwavering belief in the value of living one’s truth, no matter the cost. It is not just the story of a transgender woman in Greece. It is the story of a human being who refused to let society write her ending.
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