'TS Superstar' Jessy Dubai Talks Trans Pride & Transformation

LOS ANGELES—If there's one transsexual actress whose star can unequivocally be said to be on the rise, it's Latina beauty Jessy Dubai, fresh from two wins at this year's Transgender Erotica Awards—Bob's Tgirl Model of the Year and the much-sought-after Best Hardcore Performer—and now TransSensual Productions' Nica Noelle has deemed her worthy of a star showcase. "Nica is so adorable!" Jessy exclaimed. "Before we did Jessy Dubai: TS Superstar, we had shot My Dad's TS Girlfriend, where of course I played the mistress, always ... That's how she got to see my acting and my performing and all that stuff, and she said she was going to give me a bigger part in her next shoot, but the next time she called me, she called me with a big surprise: 'Do you think you can come and shoot for me? We're going to do a showcase on you. I want a movie that's just you.' I'm like, 'Really?' 'Yes; I want a day of Jessy Dubai in the Hamptons, a day of Jessy Dubai in the forest—just a day of you.' And I'm like, 'Okay.' And that was it. I mean, with the chemistry that we have, and the way that she directs, she's taught me so much. She is one of my mentors. Although she yells a lot, sometimes, I understand. At first I was like, 'Is she mad?' But now I already know how she is. Like sometimes you have to yell to understand what everyone is saying, so I love working with Nica." Jessy also got rave reviews for her performance in Tranny Chaser 2: Confessions of a Poolboy, with her scene with Smith having been nominated for AVN's Best Transsexual Scene award. "I didn't know much about that movie when I said I would do it," Jessy admitted. "I know it had a storyline. When Buddy Wood talked to me about the project, of course, I wanted content, I wanted a scene, and I love working with him, so of course, no matter what he said, I told him, 'Yes, I'm in. I want to be part of it.' It was very fun. I could believe that that could actually happen to me. I was in my comfort zone at that moment in that scene. I guess that's why it was so good that it got nominated twice and so many people liked it." Jessy moved to the U.S. from Mexico with her father when she was 10, but she parted company with him when she turned 18, although she had been working outside the home since she turned 15, first at McDonald's, but she soon got a job at a bar, spending her evenings at a nightclub in drag, which she says is how she learned to do her own makeup. "I looked like an adult pretty early on, so I didn't have any problem finding work," she noted. One day, while working at the bar, she was approached by not one but two club owners, both of whom asked if she'd like to work for them—but when one of the owners, a woman, told Jessy, "You know, you're really pretty. I would like to hire you for my bar," that's what sealed the deal. "I started working there as a waitress," Jessy recalled, "and then I started working there at night as a bartender with a fake ID. I was 16 years old. By the time the owner of the bar found out, I was already 18, and I was already the manager of the pub; when she would go out of town, I was in charge of everything. So that's something that showed me how to manage a business, how to manage money, how to deal with people, how to be productive with people. She was like, 'Honey, I believe you, I trust you; here's the keys to the office,' and I was like, 'Ohmigod, what am I going to do?' But that taught me that I'm capable of a lot of stuff, you know. After that, I moved out of my dad's house, because he said, 'As long as you're under my roof, you'll be under my rules,' and I said, 'Here's your rules and here's your roof; I am out.'" But being on her own wasn't easy. She moved into an apartment with a friend, who took off one day, leaving Jessy with a lease and an $800 rent payment due. "I was like, 'Ohmigod! How am I going to do this?'," she wondered. "So I remember I started working at different clubs performing drag, doing makeup, doing all these types of things, and that's where I got pretty much all of my talent. I know how to do my makeup on cue for the shoots, my hair, everything I do myself; I don't have a makeup artist because I am one myself, so like I said, everything I've gone through builds who I am. If I had not gone to that bar, I don't think I would be like the successful person I see myself as. I would still be working at McDonald's, I think." Jessy shot her first adult movie in 2014, and it was an ex-boyfriend who got her started. Seems the pair were watching some porn on the TV one evening, and when Jessy complained that what they were seeing didn't appeal to her, the guy suggested, "Why don't you make your own?" "So I said, 'I'm gonna prove to him that I can do this, but at the same time, I need to be business-oriented and I need to do this well,'" the forward-thinking actress decided. "So of course, I did my research. I had the idea of becoming an adult model for years, but I felt I didn't have the looks for it, so my transformation came one-and-a-half years before I started doing porn: I lost tons of weight, I started taking good care of my skin, my hair, and really making the effort to look like I wanted to look on camera." Once she was ready, Jessy's first move into adult was a website offering free content "so people could start to get to know me." "At first, I was doing a lot of webcamming; I was doing Chaturbate, Flirt4Free; I remember I was doing JasminLive cam, so that's why I did that website, because I wanted to let people know where they could find me on webcam," she explained. "The next big thing that I did in porn was my first shoot for Kink, which was around August or September, 2013, but it was for TS Seduction, and that opened the door to everyone knowing who I was, because Kink is huge, worldwide, so a lot of people saw me, and I started getting calls from other companies like Grooby, Devil's, Evil Angel and so on, and I've been working with them." Jessy hasn't always been Jessy. "At first, my name was Valerie Hunter," she said, "but I had a friend named Jessica, and I thought her nickname Jessie was very sexy, very seductive, because of Jessica Rabbit, so I decided to call myself Jessy with a 'y.' 'Dubai' came one year after I started transitioning. I said I wanted something that resembles me, that talks about me, and I was learning about Dubai at that time, and I just realized I'm a Dubai. I could have said Vegas, but Vegas is too crazy for me. The way I see my change, I used to be a simple, little boy, no boobs, nothing. Dubai used to be nothing but a desert, just a few buildings here and there. But years passed and I became this beautiful stunning women, and years passed and Dubai became this beautiful rich city. I feel like Dubai: I have grown with time, and every year I get better." Indeed, Jessy has an issue with transgender people who deny their cisgender status. "I am a transsexual woman; I like to call myself that," she stated. "I know I was born a guy, but now I am this beautiful, stunning girl and one day I want to have a vagina and get a full sex change. One thing that keeps me sane, and I say this with all respect, is that I know I went through the change and that I went through everything that I went through to get where I am. There's a lot of girls that as soon as they get boobs, as soon as they look pretty, they're like 'I was never a man. Don't you ever say I was a man. Don't you ever treat me like a man. Don't you ever even mention you have a picture of me being a guy' because they will hit you and they will never help you. I feel like when they do that, they are hiding a little bit of themselves; they are suppressing what makes them. I mean, you have to enjoy all the stages. I have enjoyed all my stages going from being a gay boy to becoming a transvestite to becoming a transsexual. You have to enjoy what you're going through. One day I'm going to be a transgender woman and I'm going to enjoy that too, but everything takes time and everything I do, I recognize it and I cherish it. You will never hear me say, 'I was never a man,' and if somebody says to me, 'Well, you used to be a man,' I go, 'Well, I used to, and look how hot I am compared to your wife!'" On the other hand, Jessy is happy that transgender people are finally getting talked about in the mainstream media. "There's a lot of transsexuals saying Caitlyn Jenner is a role model, but I don't think she will be a role model because she hasn't experienced being raped, like some transsexuals have in the past; she's never experienced having to do sexual work for money; she's never experienced being mistreated in the streets or in school or anything, so right now, as soon as she came out, yes, people are talking about her, but she's not being molested, not being hurt in any way, other than just what people are saying about her, compared to other people that have real stories, and stories are what build you," Jessy opined. "Every transsexual has a little bit to offer to this community. Carmen Carrera has her way of seeing the way her life is. She has bettered herself. I am a transsexual; I can get naked on stage and look sexy and look flawless, but I still have the same morals my parents showed me, I still have the same beliefs and I have more values than some of the people here. "I think that now that people know transsexuals are here, we're here to stay and we're not going away, so people will eventually start to embrace it," she continued. "It's going to be a fight. I mean, the gay community has already won, so now it's time for the transsexual community to step up our game and show that we need  respect and that we want to be recognized. And by 'recognized,' I mean there's so much talent out there in transsexuals that's not being used because of prejudice and ignorance. We need to be able to say, 'This person is a doctor now.' I don't see anybody making a big deal about a transsexual who is a doctor, and there are a lot of transsexual doctors now, lawyers, but because people are transsexuals, they don't get the recognition they deserve." And what's Jessy herself up to now? "I have launched my modeling website, JessyDubai.xxx," She said. "It's a free site where I have all my social media, and basically my portfolio for producers, directors and others to contact me. I will be going to New York to appear at the Tranny Strip in a few months, which is very exciting. But the reason I made the website is that everybody has been trying to contact me all over the place, and I was just like, 'Okay, I'm going to put together a website for all you guys with pictures and everything so you're not looking all over the place.' And then of course, JessyDubaiXXX.club is launching this week, finally. It has amateur videos, behind the scenes footage from my shoots, and more of my personal stuff that I do behind the scenes. And then there's also my SMC website, which is JessyDubai.com." Bottom line: With everything Jessy Dubai has got going for her, can there be any doubt that she might just be (with apologies to Devil's Film) America's next top tranny?