Icon and trailblazer: community mourns transgender pioneer Katya

The LGBTIQ community is mourning the death of “trailblazer and icon” Katya, a pioneering Maltese transgender model and performer.Katya, who died aged 63, was well known as a cabaret performer in clubs around Malta and London in the 1970s, and appeared as a model for Vogue magazine and several international agencies. The rights group Allied Rainbow Communities described her as a “trailblazer and icon” who “dared crossing very dangerous waters in a time where the island was still very conservative.”“Katie was a good soul who battled her demons by living the life of a star, well as well as she could, anyway,” close friend Anthony Sultana told Times of Malta, recalling a glamorous youth that included modelling with Karl Lagerfeld and partying with David Bowie and Mick Jagger.  But Mr Sultana also recalled his friend’s kindness and generosity: “I personally will be forever grateful to dear Katya for taking me in when I had no place to stay,” he said. “She was, for a while, the Mother Teresa to a group of us homeless, young, gay men.“She was also very witty, forever quoting lines from Bette Davis Gloria Swanson and Joan Crawford movies, like she studied the parts and played them...