This is an edited extract from Nothing to Hide by Sam Elkin, Alex Gallagher, Yves Rees and Bobuq Sayed, RRP $34.99, published by Allen & Unwin, out now.

It is almost a cliché to say that life is a journey, but we are who we are based on a combination of our DNA and life events. Who is to say what combination made me, however, there are key events that have shaped me to this point, knowing that my journey will continue.

The clash between nature and nurture was dramatically played out in my early years with my mother.

My mother taught me that a woman should always be financially independent and self-reliant. She never neglected her household duties and proved a woman can have it all if she is willing to fight for it.

Like every kid, I threw tantrums about what I wanted to eat, where I wanted to go and troubled her in every possible way. She made me compromise and spent quality time with me every day.

My mother made many sacrifices for me, which I only realised much later in life. She worked so hard to ensure I had access to a better future. I still cannot imagine how she survived every day with just a few hours of sleep.

Book cover artwork by: Ruby Allegra, courtesy of Allen & Unwin

But being a mother is a tough job, and being a working mother is probably the toughest job in the world. There were times when she was the only breadwinner in our family because my papa fell really ill.

Yet I never saw her complain about it.

When I turned four, my papa sadly passed away and my mother toiled hard to make our family financially secure and gave me another reason to be proud of her.

She stood her ground whenever life threw challenges at her, and always looked for solutions rather than lingering on problems. She taught me that every woman needs to be her strongest self during any adversity. Backing out or giving up is never an option.

Today, if I need to drive somewhere in the middle of the night, manage my own expenses or respond to an emergency, I can do it without pressing the panic button.

This is only possible because I was raised by her.

I was born and raised in Singapore and grew up in a Muslim household. Trans people in Singapore are taught to just endure the discrimination they face because there are no laws to protect us.

I had schoolfriends who supported me when the boys teased me but mostly I was introverted. I walked away when I got hurt and cried in private. Holding on to my faith while realising I was different was a real struggle.

People made it seem as though I couldn’t be both Muslim and trans, and coming out was just too big of an obstacle for my family to digest.

My mother caught me wearing girly clothes twice and she beat me up badly. I was grounded after my high school exam while the other kids were out having fun on their break waiting for results.

It was then I knew I needed to fight for my freedom. Recognising there was no acknowledgement or support for my trans experience, I was forced to make the incredibly tough decision to leave home at the age of sixteen. I snuck out of my bedroom window in the middle of the night and never looked back.

With nothing but six dollars in my pocket, a backpack of women’s clothing and hope for a more authentic life, I ventured out into the world to find my place.

I had no idea what my new life would become after leaving home. All I wanted was to be me and be free. I was homeless. I slept over at friends’ places for a couple of months until I found a job in retail. I hated that job! People were so mean to me because they could tell that I was different.

Eventually, I was able to rent a room in a shared apartment. My new life was okay except I had to deal with transphobic people on a daily basis. My circle of friends were people I went to school with and I did not have any outside friends in the queer community until I met my mentor.

When I was eighteen, I joined a dance competition at a bar named Spartacus that was hosted and managed by Amy Tashiana, a transgender public figure in Singapore. Amy took me under her wing, where I finally felt I could safely start my transitioning process. Amy helped me to access legalised hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and taught me everything from fashion and makeup tips through to social skills.

Like me, Amy was a runaway. She had a parent who died when she was young and she was supported by older trans women mentors. I felt like I had a second mother. She taught me to work smart, not hard.

In time, I was on my way to becoming the strong and independent woman I knew I could be.

With my new-found confidence due to HRT kicking in, I started working as an erotic adult model for American and Japanese websites and magazines.

Under the pseudonym of Roxy, I soon realised there was bank to be made as a trans woman erotic model and I continued on this pathway for eight years. This work organically transitioned into full-service sex work when I learned that there was a high client demand for me in this line of work.

While this work was empowering and allowed me to enrol in tertiary studies and pay for my gender-affirming surgeries, there were also hurdles during this time in my life.

I’ve been beaten up by transphobic men and by older trans women who often felt threatened by new and young trans workers coming onto the Singapore sex worker scene. I never went to the authorities because I was so young and afraid they wouldn’t believe me.

There’s a double stigma that exists in being both transgender and a sex worker. Transgender women in Singapore are still considered illegal.

I have been thrown in jail multiple times simply for existing in public. I’ve become wiser and stronger because of my traumas. What didn’t kill me made me stronger.

After building both my financial independence and my life lived openly as a woman, I decided to move to Australia in early 2000.

I was majoring in fashion marketing and management at Raffles Lasalle Institute of Singapore and that brought me to Melbourne to do my internship. This was my first time being in Australia. I did not know what to expect but I was glad to have this opportunity to leave home.

I soon learned about transgender rights in Australia and I started to recognise my value and self-worth, much of which I never knew I could expect.

My first exposures in this country were to the rampant racism that exists here, and the booming brothel scene of that time. I had never been exposed to brothels before.

In regard to racism within my brothel workplace, the number of Asian trans workers were very few at that time. This worked to my advantage and I picked up lots of jobs, but the stream of racist remarks in the process made it hard to deal with. Comments like ‘fucking Asians’, ‘go back where you came from’ or ‘Miss Ching-Chong’ made the workplace a really toxic environment for me.

Prior to coming to Australia, I had already been working privately and had a website set up with a decent fan following.

Retrospectively, I can acknowledge that working privately from the internet wasn’t very common in Melbourne during the early 2000s: sex workers were still figuring it out. This made me more susceptible to abuse by the owner of my brothel, who’d accuse me of stealing his clients.

I have since ceased working in brothel environments but I have continued working as an independent sex worker. Because of my time sex working in Australia, my sex life has become very colourful; straight-forward sex doesn’t arouse me anymore and I have my clients to thank for this!

But while most of my experiences with clients have been respectful and professional, some sex workers within the trans community have been cruel to me at times. They’ve made fun of my voluptuous figure and called me fat.

It really messed up my mental health and led to me developing body dysphoria.

I recently made efforts to dissolve my body insecurities and take back my power through my participation in the 2020 fashion event ‘Th!s is Me’, a fundraiser project and movement for two Melbourne-based family violence support groups.

It was important to me because of the visibility of diverse bodies and genders. The media tells women to look a certain way: be better, slimmer, fitter, prettier and younger. Then the patriarchy tells us to behave a certain way.

The fashion industry often typecasts, objectifies and sexualises women.

Strutting the runway for ‘Th!s is Me’ alongside 33 other women, my story was one of resilience and courage in response to societal pressures around body image. I am more than my measurements.

I won’t fall into the trap of sacrificing my self-esteem for affection or acceptance. The cycle of body shaming needs to end! My body is my body! And I am a sexy goddess.

These days, I keep myself busy as one of the co-founders of Trans Sisters United, a not-for-profit community group designed to create projects that benefit trans and cisgender women, and representing trans and gender-diverse people in sex work on 3CR’s Behind Closed Doors radio program.

I enjoy giving a voice to my community via radio hosting and seek to create a space to focus on transgender issues, especially for more vulnerable trans sex workers.

Gender, sexual orientation and the connection to one’s own race or ethnicity play a pivotal role in all of our lives. But it is especially crucial to those who have to struggle to express it.

The right to one’s own identity is something still being fought for in many marginalised communities, and when something so precious is reduced to a thing desired solely for sexual pleasure, it can hurt in a very deep way. This is what can happen when a transgender person encounters a chaser, or someone who has a fetish for transgender bodies.

Those who fetishise transgender bodies are participating in a culture of transphobia that deems our bodies as important solely when they’re sexualised.

The act of trans chasing is rooted in a cultural assumption that the only reason someone would want to be with a trans person is because of a sexual fetish.

This sexualisation can also manifest as a damaging belief that trans women aren’t real women. I saw sex work as a business opportunity and I took advantage of it. Since me and other trans women are being over-sexualised every day, I thought, why not get paid for it?

I continue to have a career in and connection to sex work. After such a long time in the industry I have my craft fine-tuned, which has enabled me to feel confident in my skillset and prioritise maintaining my boundaries and privacy.

Although I’ve retired now, when asked to reflect on my time in the sex industry, I simply respond that I’ve lasted this long not because I’ve needed to rely on this work but because I’ve wanted to do it. It would be a waste of talent to stop doing what I’m good at!

Life is beautiful when you can harness the magic art of not giving a fuck.

I was so focused on the outside and how people perceived me instead of who I actually was on the inside. My personal journey, the lessons on self-love, living authentically and being true to myself were the keys to living my truth.

Sasja Sÿdek is a trans woman of colour activist and feminist and advocate who advocates for community and self-love with an empowering message of moving beyond gender expectations to live more authentically. Sasja was the founding member of Trans Sisters United, a community organisation based in Melbourne that creates projects that benefit the transgender and cis female, and is also that familiar voice and radio producer at Behind Closed Doors @3CR – 8.55 am. Sasja is no stranger to glitz and glamour. She lives for fashion! She studied at Raffles LaSalle Design Institute Singapore and progressed into the fashion world after college, and since then has been involved in a few notable assignments.

This is an edited extract from Nothing to Hide by Sam Elkin, Alex Gallagher, Yves Rees and Bobuq Sayed, RRP $34.99, published by Allen & Unwin, out now.