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Felicia Garza (born September 7, 1941, in San Antonio, Texas as Felipe Gil Jr.)[1] is a Mexican-American songwriter, musician, singer and actress. Starting her show-business career in 1961, Garza participated in movies and had a successful singing career that took her to places as far from Mexico and the United States as Argentina, where she lived at for two years from 1964 to 1966.[1]
In 2016, at the age of 74, Garza announced that she is transgender.[2]
Garza was born as Felipe Bojalil Garza in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of singer Felipe Gil (Felipe Bojalil Gil) and of bolero singer Eva Garza. She was assigned male at birth.[3] When her mother was pregnant, she decided to move to San Antonio, Texas from New York City, so she could give birth to her child there, but at the age of six months old, she and her mother traveled to the Northeastern United States city, where Garza lived until she was 11 years old.[1]
Garza has declared that, in New York, she had a difficult relationship with her father, who was usually away due to his tours and his lifestyle as a famous singer. Garza self-identified as female from a young age and she once wore her mother's clothes aged 4, but her father caught her and beat her up, which caused her mother to make her promise that from then on, Garza would try to look more like her father instead. At age 11, Eva Garza took her children (Felicia as Felipe Jr. and Corina, Felicia's sister) and moved with them to Mexico because Eva Garza was under contract with the XEW radio station. Felipe Gil Sr. and Eva Garza soon divorced.[1] As a kid, Garza dreamed about building spaceships in the future, and she read a book written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.[3]
She returned to New York aged 15. At that same age, her father died one day when he fell asleep with a cigarette, causing a tragic fire.[1] Garza did not enjoy a good relationship with him, so she did not feel too affected by his passing. Garza, however, found religion in the form of a Christian church in New York; she eventually became a member of that church's choir.[3]
Garza struggled with her identity. During that era, she played on an American Football team, hoping that experience would shape her inner-self into the man that she thought those around her wanted her to be; but she kept personally suffering.[1] She also practiced boxing.[4]
Having become a gospel choir singer, Garza launched a musical career in 1961, using the pseudonym "Fabricio".[5] Garza was known artistically as Fabricio from 1961 to 1967, when she began performing as Felipe Gil. She released albums from 1967 to 2009 using the name Felipe Gil. She released, according to Discogs.com, 12 albums and singles, including two singles, (1969's "Que Te Pasa, Vida Mia?" and 1971's "Quiero Ser", not to be confused with Menudo's 1981 album and song of the same name) released for Capitol Records.[6]
During this time, she reached teen idol status in Mexico, additionally launching an acting career. The movies she starred in were named "Buenos Dias, Acapulco"("Good Morning, Acapulco") and "Baila, Mi Amor" ("Dance, my Love"). Her fame reached Argentina, and she moved there from 1964 to 1966, hosting a television show named "La Hora Ye Ye" ("The Ye Ye Hour") in that South American country.[4]
In 1967, she joined a musical comedy television show named Cómicos y Canciones, alongside others such as Capulina and Chespirito. That show lasted on the air until 1969.[3]
In 1966, her mother died in Tucson, Arizona, stricken by pneumonia during one of her mother's tours.[4]
Festival OTI and other awards
She has won the prestigious Festival OTI three times as a composer: in 1973 for her composition "La Cancion del Hombre" ("Man's Song") sung by Gualberto Castro, in 1975 with "La Felicidad" ("Happiness") and in 1981 with "Lo Que Paso, Paso", sung at that festival by singer Yoshio. In 1975 also, she won the Puerto Rico International Voice and Song Festival (Festival Internacional de la Voz y la Cancion de Puerto Rico) with her composition "El Rio" ("The River") sung by Manoella Torres.[3]
In 2016, she came out as transgender. She announced that, due to her advanced age, she was not going to go through sexual reassignment surgery but live out as a woman instead. "i haven't used anything except hormonal replacement therapy, I'm not going to change entirely and become a transsexual, which is different from transgender; I am a man and a woman at the same time", she declared to the press.[7]
Her family had a hard time accepting her new identity; her nephew Marcos Valdés (son of comedian Manuel Valdés and of Garza's sister Corina) took on social media to declare his disapproval of his aunt's transgenderism by declaring that "I keep seeing my uncle as my uncle. Do his daughters see him as their father or their mother? (do I) see him as an uncle or aunt? He is my uncle, I love and admire him. I adore and respect him. Many say he looks better as a woman than he did as a man. (I hope everything) goes well for my uncle".[8]
On August 26, 2022, her daughter Dulce Maria Gil died at the age of 53 of multiple sclerosis.[9]
health issues
In 2021, she declared on a television show named "Sale el Sol" that she had suffered thrombophlebitis on the inner part of her left leg, which according to her, was due to her hormonal treatments. She suffered pain in the area, and was hospitalized a few days.[10]
Twice married, she considers herself a transbian. She has declared she hopes to find the love of a woman again in her life.[4] She has an unspecified number of daughters,[11] of whom, initially, only Dulce Maria accepted her transgenderness.
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