The Gondolier
This Radiolab episode tells the story of Alex Hay, a transgender man who became internationally known as the first female gondolier in Venice's 900-year history, only to later publicly transition and face severe discrimination. The episode explores how Alex's identity was hijacked by media narratives and feminist movements, leading to his eventual loss of livelihood and a six-year period of homelessness and depression before finding stability in Berlin.
Summary
The episode begins with reporters David Conrad and Kristen Clark discovering the story of a woman gondolier in Venice through a chance bus conversation in 2014. Intrigued by this breaking of a 900-year gender barrier, they pitch it as a feminist empowerment story to a radio station. After extensive research and global media coverage, they contact Alex Hay to do a deeper interview. Alex's conditions for the interview are strict and demanding, suggesting he wants to tell a different story than the standard feminist narrative.
When they meet Alex in Venice, they quickly discover through his girlfriend's pronoun usage that Alex is a transgender man, not a woman. This revelation reframes everything they thought they understood about the story. Alex explains that he was born with a female body in Germany but identified as a boy from age three. His parents were unsupportive, leading him to run away at fifteen to Hamburg, and eventually to San Francisco where he worked in film before arriving in Venice in 1996 at age 29.
Alex became fascinated with gondola rowing's unique forward-facing rowing style and began apprenticing at a gondola station. He was initially seen as a curiosity—a woman mascot—but worked hard at the grueling job. Everything changed when journalist Consuelo Turin wrote about him in 1997, forcing a story into the public sphere that Alex wasn't ready to share. The article triggered a gender war narrative that hijacked Alex's personal journey.
When Alex failed his first gondolier's exam, suspicions of corruption arose. His lawyer negotiated a retake with female judges, framing it as a women's rights issue—something Alex never wanted. This transformed his personal struggle into a feminist battle, with women rowers supporting him and gondoliers opposing him, neither understanding his actual identity. The retake in 2004 was a nightmare of public scrutiny, hatred, and pressure that Alex describes as one of the worst days of his life.
Unable to get a license through traditional means, Alex opened his own business in 2005, rowing for hotels. When the gondoliers association pressured city hall to change the laws, Alex sued and won in Italy's highest court. This victory generated worldwide headlines celebrating the first female gondolier, but Alex felt trapped by the narrative. He created websites and social media under the name 'Prima Gondoliera' not by choice, but because the label had twenty years of history he couldn't escape.
By 2017, after living nearly a decade between two stories, Alex experienced depression and menopause simultaneously. He began testosterone therapy and underwent top surgery in San Francisco, then returned to Venice. From 2017-2019, his business thrived and he felt comfortable in his body for the first time. However, in October 2019, police confiscated his gondola, Pegasus, with no explanation given at the time. Later, Alex learned it was pure transphobia and discrimination.
The confiscation emboldened the gondoliers association, and the situation became hostile and unsafe. Alex left Venice, selling everything and drifting for six years between Switzerland, Germany, and Berlin. During COVID, without stable housing or employment, he fell into severe depression, didn't leave his apartment for extended periods, and contemplated suicide. He credits a 'tiny voice' telling him to fight back and the unexpected kindness of Berlin with his eventual recovery.
During his darkest years, Alex made a short film called 'Venetium' (a Venetian phrase meaning 'I shall come again') and wrote his memoir on an iPad using two fingers, despite having no writing background. The film is premiering at Hamburg's Short Film Festival after four years of delays. His book, 'The Gondolier,' is being released in the United States on June 26th, 2026. Though he still identifies Venice as his spiritual home, Berlin has become where he found healing and community. Alex remains grateful that Berlin never gave up on him, even when he was rejecting the city. He hopes his story helps others avoid paying such a high price for authenticity.
About this episode
What happens when doing what you love means giving up who you really are?
Key Insights
- Alex was born identifying as male but assigned female at birth, yet spent twenty years being publicly celebrated as a feminist icon and the first female gondolier, a narrative he could not escape despite it fundamentally misrepresenting his identity.
- When journalists initially met Alex, they assumed the story was about women breaking gender barriers, but Alex was trying to signal through demanding interview conditions that he wanted to tell a completely different story about his actual identity and experience.
- Consuelo Turin, the journalist who first publicized Alex's presence in Venice, used a coercive negotiation tactic—threatening to publish the story with or without Alex's cooperation—which forced Alex into a public narrative he wasn't ready to share and before he could disclose his true identity.
- Alex's lawyer negotiated a retake of the gondolier exam using women's rights law without Alex's permission, transforming a personal fight against corruption into a gender battle that Alex never consented to, demonstrating how institutions can co-opt individual struggles for their own narratives.
- The women rowers of Venice, who faced genuine discrimination in racing and prize money, attempted to recruit Alex as an ally in their feminist struggle, but Alex actively rejected solidarity with them because he identified with the male gondoliers and their community culture, not with women's movements.
- Alex's statement that 'a real woman couldn't do this job' and preference for male-dominated spaces and humor revealed his deep discomfort with being categorized as a woman, which contradicted journalists' attempts to frame his story as one of gender equality and box-breaking.
- After winning his legal case in Italy's highest court in 2007, Alex became unable to publicly claim his true transgender identity because the 'first female gondolier' label had acquired twenty years of historical meaning and commercial value that was unstoppable.
- Alex's transition beginning in 2017 involved a second puberty at age fifty, during which he had to reconsider fundamental aspects of his identity—colors he liked, food preferences, sexuality—challenging the assumption that transition is a single event rather than an ongoing process.
- Police confiscated Alex's gondola, Pegasus, in October 2019 without explanation, and Alex later discovered this was purely motivated by transphobia and discrimination, which emboldened the gondoliers association to make Venice an increasingly hostile environment for him.
- Alex's six-year period of homelessness and severe depression after leaving Venice was partly self-inflicted through his refusal to fight back, his rejection of help, and his failure to ask for support, leading him to describe himself as having destroyed himself rather than being destroyed by enemies.
- Berlin, a city Alex initially rejected as ugly and unbearable, became his source of recovery by showing unexpected kindness and community support even while he was actively rejecting the city, ultimately saving his life during his darkest period.
- Alex wrote his entire memoir on an iPad using two fingers because he identified as a gondolier and handcrafter, not as a writer or IT engineer, yet through this process created a book that documents a journey from international celebrity to homelessness to recovery.
Topics
Transcript
WNYC Studios is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. Radio Lab is supported by Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort, offering destination-focused small ship experiences on all seven continents with programs designed for cultural enrichment and a shore excursion included in every port. And every Viking…
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