A version of this feature appears in the February issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition.
LAS VEGAS — The 8-year-old boy with the short brown hair and hand-me-down jeans scribbled his secret onto a piece of paper.
“I feel like a girl inside. I must be gay.”
Cameron, a third-grader, folded the note just before bedtime and handed it to the only person he could trust: his 6-year-old sister Teagan, who was far too young to grasp the magnitude of his confession.
But there were no other options.
Cameron certainly couldn’t confide in his murderous father, who would soon begin a 13-year prison sentence for bashing in a man’s skull with a hammer. And he wouldn’t find support from his mother, a drug addict who’d abandoned him for pills and liquor.
Cameron also knew his secret would trigger heckling and bullying from the neighborhood kids in Miami’s Little Haiti, a community so crippled by crime that Cameron and his siblings often slept on the floor to avoid stray bullets that could shatter the window.
So he harbored his feelings inside.
For nearly 20 years.
Even now, Casey Kisses says that was probably best. To protect herself and prevent strain on her family, she had no choice but to suppress her spirit back then. She had to continue to live as Cameron, a male, instead of getting an earlier start on the gender transition that eventually shaped her into who she is today: a confident, walk-into-a-pole gorgeous woman with cascading brown hair, flawless olive skin and a smile that can change someone’s day.
“Every morning,” Kisses says, “I’d open my eyes and think, ‘I wish I was in a different life. I wish I was a different person. Maybe in my next life, I’ll get to live the way I want to live.’”
Two decades later—in what indeed feels like a new existence—Kisses is doing exactly that.
On this afternoon she’s lounging in a corner booth at Master Kim’s, a snazzy Korean BBQ joint a few miles from her home near the Las Vegas Strip. As her girlfriend arranges slices of marinated beef on a tabletop grill, Kisses pours a Coca-Cola into a glass and begins to describe her world in Sin City.
Smiling constantly as her eyes twinkle, Kisses’ voice radiates with energy as she zig-zags from topic to topic: cliff-diving, makeup, camping trips, gaming, Cadillacs, dogs, nail salons, money.
And, of course, porn.
Seeking a fresh start—and an escape from Miami—Kisses moved to Vegas in 2016 and joined the adult industry. Her only goal, she said, was to “blend in.” Yet five years later, with a six-figure income and nearly one million followers on social media, she’s blossomed into one of the top trans stars in history.
Only a small group of performers—in any genre—carry as much clout as Kisses, who has shot for nearly every major studio while working alongside some of the most recognizable names in the business. Kisses was voted Favorite Trans Cam Model at the 2021 AVN Awards, and this year she received a personal-record six nominations, the most of any trans performer.
Kisses’ biggest honor to date, however, came in September, when Adult Time released a biopic about her life. Bolstered by a star-studded cast, Casey: A True Story chronicles many of the themes that make Kisses’ turbulent journey toward acceptance not only impressive, but inspiring.
The parents who neglected her … and the grandmother who embraced her.
The motorcycle club that deserted her … and the car wreck that nearly killed her.
The career that saved her … and the partner who completed her.
In the end, it’s an emotional tale of perseverance that director Joanna Angel says rivals any script she’s tackled—fiction or non-fiction—in her Hall-of-Fame career.
“Casey’s story,” she says, “is unlike anything I’ve ever heard.”
***
Clutching his wicker basket, 11-year-old Cameron peered anxiously through the window as he waited for Dad. It was Easter Sunday in 2001, and Shane had promised to help hide the plastic, candy-filled eggs Cameron and his siblings had bought at the dollar store.
As soon as he saw his father running—sprinting—up the sidewalk, Cameron knew plans had changed. Bursting into the entryway, Shane hurried toward Cameron and his brother and sister, bending down for a quick embrace. One by one, he looked each of them in the eyes.
“I love you,” he told Cameron, kissing him on the forehead.
“I love you,” he said as he kissed 9-year-old Teagan, and then 13-year-old Bryce. “I love you. I love all of you.”
Shane stood up and darted out of the house, escaping through a back exit. Moments later a team of police officers kicked in the front door with such force that it flew off the hinges. Guns drawn, they ran through the home and chased down Shane in an adjacent field, tackling and arresting him.
The charge: attempted murder.
“It’s traumatizing to even talk about,” Kisses says now, “but that was my life back then—one big whirlwind of chaos.”
Agonizing as it was to watch Shane go to jail, everyone knew Cameron and his siblings were better off without their father—and their mother, Helen, too. By that point she had all but vanished, telling Cameron she’d contracted a disease through a blood transfusion and that she was leaving because “she didn’t want anyone to catch it.” While Helen was indeed infected, her bigger issues were addictions to alcohol and painkillers.
Shane was consumed by even darker demons. His dependence on weed and booze often ignited a vicious temper that caused sweat beads to form on his forehead as he paced back and forth with rage. Kisses said her father routinely used his fists to pummel his own mother, Martha—then in her early 70s—and that she once watched as he “picked her up by the throat, pinned her against the wall and screamed into her face.”
Kisses’ aunt, Dena, described Shane as “volatile” and “ill-adjusted.”
“He lived day-to-day back then and was very self-absorbed,” Dena, who is Shane’s sister, says. “He wasn’t the type of person to say, ‘How are you doing?’ because he probably didn’t care. He made very bad decisions with his life and with the people he chose as friends.
“Those kids witnessed way too much.”
Still, Cameron, Teagan and Bryce clung to their father when they were young and held out hope that he would one day love them equally in return. That’s why the memory of the night he deserted them has always remained so vivid.
Wearing cowboy boots, blue jeans and a plaid button-down shirt, Shane’s hair—already speckled with gray despite being in his early 30s— was slicked back for a night on the town. A snakeskin belt with an oversized gold buckle hugged the waist of his 5-foot-11, 160-pound frame.
Only 6 at the time, Cameron had grown accustomed to staying with his grandmother while his father combed the local bars and strip clubs. But as Shane led Cameron and his siblings up the sidewalk to her house, something felt different. His dad was quiet and seemed antsy, almost rushed. When they walked through the doorway and into the living room, Martha dropped her head and turned away.
“She had pain in her eyes,” Kisses says 25 years later. “We were all crying and screaming: ‘Don’t leave us here, Dad! Don’t leave us here! We wanna go with you!’ But he wouldn’t even look at us. He just walked out the door and drove away.”
Kisses pauses.
“We could just sense,” she says, “that he wasn’t coming back.”
It took a few months, but Shane eventually started popping in sporadically. Helen did, too—but with both parents, the circumstances were almost always turbulent.
One time Helen picked up the kids and told Martha she was taking them to the park. But instead they drove to a Miami Greyhound station and got on a bus to Arizona. No one knew where they were for two weeks.
On numerous occasions, Shane called and offered to take his children for the weekend. Bags at their side, they’d wait for him by the window, but he hardly ever showed up. On the rare occasion when he did, he’d drive them to the latest, rundown crash pad he was renting on a month-to-month basis.
Many times Cameron awoke in the middle of the night to screams from Shane’s girlfriend, a red-headed stripper whom he routinely assaulted. She’d call the police, prompting Shane to flee with his children. They’d spend the next few hours speeding through the streets, evading cops in Shane’s IROC Z28 Camaro, which was usually filled with so much marijuana smoke that Cameron, who has asthma, would go into violent coughing fits, agitating his father.
“Pull your shirt over your head if it’s bothering you that much!” Shane would say.
In 1999, Kisses said her father shot and killed a high-ranking Miami gang member in a parking lot altercation, but he claimed it was in self-defense and escaped charges. Two years later, though, Kisses said her dad returned to his apartment and discovered his girlfriend sleeping with their drug dealer.
Shane grabbed a hammer and bashed the man multiple times over the back of the head, fracturing his skull. The man survived, but a few days later, on that nightmarish Easter Sunday of 2001, Shane was arrested at Martha’s house and eventually convicted of attempted murder. He spent the next 12 years and nine months in prison.
Kisses tells the story matter-of-factly, scoffing at the idea that a “rough childhood” could’ve dampened her spirit.
“I mean … in those situations, what else can you do except keep on going?” Kisses says. “I always thought, ‘Someone has it worse than me. I’ve got to be thankful for what I have.’ Staying optimistic and keeping a positive mindset was key for me. I was like, ‘OK, I don’t have a mom and a dad. But I’ve got a grandma—and she loves me to death.’”
Indeed, as the school system began to catch word of the dire situation involving Cameron’s parents, a fear arose that state officials would order him and his siblings into foster care. It certainly didn’t help when a teacher drove by their run-down home and saw that the front door—the one the police kicked in during their pursuit of Shane—had never been replaced. Instead Martha affixed bed sheets to a shower rod and hung it across the frame.
When Child Protective Services looked into the situation, Martha refused to give up the children, choosing instead to retire from her secretarial job so she could legally adopt all three of them and act as their primary caretaker.
Martha didn’t have a car, so each day she walked the kids to elementary school, and she was there to escort them home in afternoon after the bell rang. Every Sunday night, Martha—who was in her mid-70s with “an old-lady afro,” Kisses says— trudged to the store to buy groceries for the week.
“I don’t know of any kids that were loved as much as they were loved by my mother,” Dena, the aunt, says. “Even at that young age, (Cameron) recognized what was being done for him. He recognized the sacrifices she was making. You could sense how appreciative he was, because he was very respectful.”
The trauma Cameron experienced with his parents hardly damaged his psyche or caused him to become withdrawn and introverted. If anything it was just the opposite. His elementary school report cards were filled with As and Bs—and handwritten comments in the margins from teachers. “Exemplary student” … “Hard Worker” … “A Pleasure to Have in Class!”
In middle school Cameron strutted through the halls sporting a green mohawk and painted fingernails. A few years later he arrived at his gang-infested high school each day on a motorcycle. Cameron was also known for the beautiful graffiti he’d paint on walls and surfaces throughout Miami.
With a steady girlfriend throughout high school, no one ever detected Cameron was conflicted about his sexuality.
“I was a very masculine boy,” Kisses says. “I had to protect myself. I couldn’t let anyone think that I was gay or trans or attracted to that type—even though I was. I didn’t want people seeing that side of me, because I knew how they treated people that did come out. People in my neighborhood got ridiculed and had the shit beat out of them for that. I didn’t want that to happen to me.”
So he locked away his feelings. Only now, years later, is his aunt able to decipher the cryptic message Cameron scribbled in one of his high school yearbooks.
“They laugh at me because I’m different,” Cameron wrote. “I laugh at them because they’re all the same.”
***
Seconds before he hurled a man through a window, Cameron was eating pepperoni pizza on the patio at the Sand Dollar Saloon.
Now his right fist—sliced by shards of glass—was dripping with blood. It all happened that quickly outside the popular biker bar in Miami, where a routine evening of beers and brotherhood escalated into a brawl that Cameron will never forget.
Now in his early 20s, Cameron was a full-fledged, bandana-wearing member of the Low Side Riders, a motorcycle gang that often cruised the Florida highways 50 deep. When he saw a group of men ambush his closest friend, Rico—pummeling him with fists in the parking lot—Cameron reacted instantly. Leaping over a railing, he raced toward the fight scrum, grabbed an attacker and slammed his head into the back window of a Range Rover.
“Glass shattered everywhere,” Kisses says, “but what I did was normal. We all had each other’s backs. We were more than friends. We were family.”
Indeed, the biker gang filled a huge void for Cameron, who was well-liked in high school but never quite found his place. With the Low Side Riders, every time he put on that leather jacket, with all of its patches, he was engulfed by a sense of pride—a sense of belonging—that he’d never experienced. Even better, Cameron was able to explore his new passion: motorcycles.
The infatuation had actually started during his junior year of high school, when Cameron’s girlfriend, Gabbie, inherited a large chunk of money and insisted on buying him a vehicle. Rather than a car, Cameron chose a motorcycle—a 250cc—because of the cheaper fuel costs.
Initially intimidated by the big piece of machinery, Cameron let the bike sit in his front yard for more than a week. But eventually he started “pushing all the buttons and twisting all the knobs” and taught himself how to ride.
“In a matter of days,” Kisses says, “I was cruising down the road, surfing the gas tank and doing all sorts of other stupid tricks. I loved the feeling that came from riding, the power and the adrenaline. It’s a unique type of rush, one you can’t feel anywhere else.”
Sensing he was becoming a financial burden on his grandmother, Cameron dropped out of high school only months before graduation and rented an apartment with Gabbie. He spent the next three years as a drifter, working everywhere from Taco Hut to the local gas station while growing and selling weed on the side.
Cameron’s life took a turn shortly after his 21st birthday during a chance encounter on “Penny Beer Night" at the Sand Dollar when he approached a member of the Low Side Riders and asked how he could obtain one of their jackets. “It’s not that easy,” the man said, and then he slipped Cameron his business card.
“You just met Rico,” it read.
Hispanic and eight years his elder, Rico was impressed when Cameron called the very next morning, so he arranged a meeting with the Riders’ president. Still driving the bike Gabbie had gifted him more than three years earlier, Cameron began joining the group on rides and soon became an official member.
“(Cameron) became my righthand man,” says Rico, the former Sergeant at Arms of the club. “When things went down—a rumble or whatever—he was right there next to me. He was like blood to me, like family … barrios. He had a lot of respect throughout the club.”
Cameron quickly ascended the ranks of the Riders’ hierarchy and earned the prestigious title of “Road Captain,” a job that required him to research, plan and organize all club runs. During group outings he was the highest ranking officer, deferring only to the President or Vice President.
After three years, the Riders leased a two-story home— “a clubhouse,” they called it—and invited Cameron and Gabbie to move in. Cameron showed his gratitude by crawling through the attic to wire the home’s elaborate speaker system, and he decorated many of the walls with his trademark, elaborate graffiti.
In the fall of 2013, the Riders demonstrated their respect for Cameron by allowing him to organize a fundraiser to benefit his father when he was released from prison the following January. Nike shoes, a cell phone, blue jeans, pants, shirts, underwear, socks and toiletries—and $500 in cash. The donations from club members surpassed anything Cameron could’ve anticipated.
“(My father) had spent 13 years in jail trading hand jobs for cigarettes and bags of Cheetos,” Kisses says. “Now he was going to walk out of prison and immediately have a wealth of new clothes and shoes. People really stepped up.”
Cameron looked forward to the day four months later when he could present the items to his dad in person—but he knew it was possible that Shane would never get to thank the people who donated.
As much as he was enjoying life in the motorcycle club, Cameron was still conflicted about his sexuality. He’d been dating Gabbie for nearly eight years; she was his best friend. But his urges and desires were getting stronger and stronger. When Cameron suggested new activities in the bedroom, including the use of a strap-on, Gabbie refused.
“I started being selfish and cheating on her,” Kisses says, “and it made me feel like shit. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to have secrets anymore. I was tired of hiding. You can bottle things up for a long time and try not to think about them. But eventually it starts eating at you—and you’re going to cave.”
For Cameron, that moment occurred after an intense bout of soul-searching during a 20-hour bike ride home from a November road trip to Texas. He arrived in the wee hours of the morning and asked Gabbie to come outside. They lit cigarettes, and moments later Cameron told her he was gay.
Disheartened, Gabbie moved out a few days later and agreed to keep Cameron’s revelation quiet, but she eventually leaked the news to a few members of the bike club, who told Cameron he’d be kicked out if things went public.
Cameron did his best to live in secrecy, but in December he began dating a transgender woman named Morgan. A month later, on Jan. 14, 2014, the couple camped for hours outside of the Broward County (Fla.) Jail, waiting for Cameron’s father to be released. As they waited, unbeknownst to Cameron, Morgan updated her Facebook status to indicate the two were in a relationship.
Members of the Riders were immediately notified that Cameron’s homosexuality was now public. A handful of them arrived at the jail within the hour, stripping the patches off of Cameron’s jacket and informing him he was no longer in the club.
He was devastated.
“You might as well have put a bullet through (his) heart and called it a day,” Rico says. “That bike club was all (he) had.”
Rico said he fought to keep Cameron with the Riders, but the majority of the group feared the club would lose respect by having a gay member on its roster. Members were told that anyone caught riding with Cameron from that point forward would be booted, too.
“I fought for him as hard as I could,” Rico says. “But they told me, ‘How would you like it if someone called you a pussy or a faggot because you let gay people or transgender people in your club?’ I told them it wouldn’t bother me one bit. But their decision was final.”
Shortly after Cameron’s patches were taken, his father walked out of jail excited to see him and thankful for the gifts he’d obtained from the fundraiser. When Shane said he wanted to meet members of the club and thank them, Cameron told his father what had happened and revealed he was gay.
Shane stood in silence for a few moments and then shrugged his shoulders.
“Well,” he said, “fuck them.”
More than seven years later, the pain of that day is still fresh.
“They all turned their backs on me,” Kisses says now. “And because of what? Because I was having sex with someone they didn’t approve of? It’s not like I changed. I was the same person.
“Those colors … they mean so much to you. It’s like the United States turning their back on a soldier that’s been fighting for his country. It would be like them saying, ‘Thanks for your service—but now get out of the United States. We don’t like you anymore because you’re gay.’ I literally went out and fought for them. I shed blood for them. And now it didn’t mean anything.”
Cameron moved in with Morgan and began working multiple jobs. Even without the motorcycle club, he was relieved his sexuality was out in the open and was more gratified in the bedroom than he’d ever been. Still, something was a bit off, and Cameron realized it that fall when he watched a YouTube video about the characteristics of being transgender and the process of transitioning.
“I just assumed trans people were really feminine gay guys without surgeries,” Kisses says. “I always thought, ‘I could never get those surgeries. I’m too tall and strong and lean.’”
Kisses said the video highlighted that being trans wasn’t just about putting on lipstick and a skirt. It was about what you’re feeling inside.
"It started making sense,” Kisses says. “I started understanding why I liked certain things and why I acted a certain way—and why I hated my masculine body. Everything just clicked.
“I was like, ‘Wow … I’m trans.’”
Cameron was excited to tell Morgan about his epiphany—and his plan to transition—but it backfired. Saying that she “didn’t want to date a woman,” Morgan packed her bags and moved to New York, leaving Cameron with an apartment to pay for all on his own.
Cameron’s grandmother—who used to complain about “all the Godforsaken gays” on her favorite radio station—was supportive of his decision to transition. And to his surprise, Shane was accepting, too. But others weren’t as open-minded.
So-called friends posted videos of themselves on Instagram, running and dancing in fields of flowers with scarves around their neck, pretending be Cameron. His mother, Helen, with whom he’d reestablished contact, told him he was sick and disgusting.
“Are you going to cut off your dick?” she said.
Depressed and confused about his future, Cameron started drinking heavily. He was working three jobs—including one as a bouncer at a trans strip club—and wasn’t sure what to do. One day he was determined to transition and then next he’d take the opposite approach, lifting weights to “get shredded” and stay masculine.
Cameron officially started the transition process on Nov. 11, 2014 when he received his first hormone injection. But even then, he wasn’t certain he was doing the right thing. Throughout each day, his mind raced. Am I making a mistake? Am I crazy? Am I going to regret this?
“It sucked,” Kisses says. “I didn’t have this sense of, ‘Oh, life is great. I should be enjoying every minute of this.’ My mindset was, ‘This sucks. Everyone sucks. Life … fucking … sucks.’ I didn’t know what to do.”
A few weeks later, just days before Christmas, Cameron experienced a moment of clarity in the worst place possible.
A hospital bed.
***
The seatbelt sliced his kidney, broke his left clavicle and fractured a couple of ribs. Still, moments after opening his eyes for the first time in two days and surveying his whereabouts, Cameron wanted out.
Out of the restraints that had him pinned to the bed.
Out of his gown.
Out of his room.
And out of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Refusing all medical treatment, Cameron demanded a nurse unfasten the straps across his chest and legs. But when he rose from the mattress and attempted to stand, he almost collapsed.
“My ankle,” Kisses says, “was complete mush. Apparently I’d broken that, too.”
Still, at least Cameron was alive, which was somewhat surprising to the paramedics who 48 hours earlier had used the jaws of life to pull him out of his mangled Honda Civic, a beat-up clunker he’d recently purchased from his sister for $800. Peppered with rust and dents, Cameron said the car had wires poking through the tread of its worn tires, which probably explains why one of them exploded as he drove through an intersection a few miles from home. Cameron crashed into a light pole with such force that the Civic’s engine was pushed back into the front seat. Knocked unconscious, Cameron remembered nothing about the wreck.
“They told me later that there was only one space left in the car where someone could’ve survived—and I was in that space,” Kisses says. “Most people assumed I was trying to kill myself.”
Although that wasn’t the case, it was no secret that the events of the previous year—getting kicked out of the bike club, losing his girlfriend and being ridiculed for his sexuality—had caused Cameron to spiral into a dark depression. But as he lay in that hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, a powerful sensation swept over his body. He felt pain, yes.
But he also felt peace.
“From that day forward,” Kisses says, “I wasn’t going to live with any more regret. I decided I was going to live full-time trans. I wasn’t going to die an unhappy person.”
Cameron was released from the hospital the morning of Christmas Eve, allowing him to spend the holiday with his family. For the first time since he was a toddler, Cameron’s mother, father, grandmother and siblings all gathered to eat dinner and open presents. “The only thing that could bring everyone together was me almost dying,” Kisses says.
Cameron wore makeup and “dressed feminine” for the occasion, and no one made a negative or snide comment.
“Who’s going to yell at someone in a wheelchair?” Kisses laughs. “Plus, I looked really cute.”
A month later, as soon as he could walk again, Cameron telephoned his aunt, Dena, who was now living 560 miles away in Panama City Beach. She owned a small rental home in the suburb of Youngstown that was vacant. Dena allowed Cameron to move in for free.
“(Cameron) was gearing up for a complete life change,” Dena says, “and getting out of Miami was the key to that. There were too many weeds in his garden there, too many things that were negative and holding him back.”
Throughout the next eight months. in that tiny, one-bedroom cottage at the end of a dirt road, Cameron became Casey.
She practiced putting on makeup and experimented with hairstyles. She shopped for clothes online and flirted with guys on dating apps. Casey also had a standing lunch date each week with Dena, who still remembers the first time she went to pick up her niece. Casey opened the door wearing makeup and a dress.
“She always had such great hair and beautiful skin and a beautiful face,” Dena says. “She revealed herself to me in that moment, and off we went.”
A few weeks later they made a trip to Wal-Mart. Dena, a school teacher, ran into one of her pupils. The female student looked at Casey and offered a warm smile. “Is this your daughter?” she said, and Dena knew the compliment made Casey feel good.
Another time early in her transition, Casey told Dena she’d put on a dress and ridden her motorcycle to Dusty’s, a video game and movie store located a few miles up the road near the Alabama border.
“I figured they were either going to beat me up or let me shop and take my money,” Casey told her, and Dena couldn’t have been more impressed.
“Keep in mind,” she said. “this is the deep South. It’s ultra-conservative here, and a lot of people are very close-minded. But Casey didn’t care. She’s so brave, such an inspiration. It’s hard not to adore her.”
Along with transitioning, Casey’s time in solitude also marked the beginning of another defining aspect of her life: a career in sex work.
Multiple hours each day, Casey logged onto cam sites such as Streamate and Chaturbate. She quickly built a loyal following. Some people wanted to watch her masturbate, and others simply enjoyed engaging her in conversation. Casey made $30 in two hours the first time she cammed and was thrilled.
“That’s what I made working at the gas station, and this was 100 times easier,” she says. “I thought, ‘I can lay in bed and masturbate all day!’”
Casey began watching other trans cam performers, drawing inspiration from Chloe Salpa, Danni Daniels and Vica TS—all of whom were earning six-figure incomes as full-time cam stars. Excited as she was that she’d stumbled upon a potential career, camming also allowed Kisses to experience the feeling of acceptance she’d longed for since deciding to become trans.
“When you first transition you have gender dysphoria,” says Kisses, who is 6-feet tall. “You don’t feel right. You see all these imperfections in yourself—masculine features, like your arms—that you assume other people are seeing, too. But those things dissolve when you get on cam. You’ve got 6,000 people masturbating to you all at once and saying the nicest things.
“Camming boosted my confidence. It made me feel beautiful.”
After eight months in Youngstown, Casey headed back to Miami in October of 2015 with a newfound swagger. Her hair had grown longer, down to the base of her neck, and she’d assembled a wardrobe of new clothes. The hormone therapy was causing growth in her breasts.
Casey moved back into her grandmother’s place in Little Haiti, but this time the setup was different. Still struggling to blend back into society after his release from prison, Shane was living in a small shed adjacent to the house.
Things went smoothly at first.
At night Casey would sit outside with Shane and listen to him tell prison stories as they smoked weed from a bong. To show he supported her transition, Shane painted half of his shed pink—and he did the same thing with a baseball bat he whittled from the lumber of a fallen tree in the backyard. Shane had used a bat to defend himself once during childhood, and he thought Casey may need one someday, too.
Unfortunately, as the months passed, the only person Casey needed protection from was her own father, whose unpredictable fits of rage only worsened after he got out of jail.
One afternoon, Shane was irate that AT&T had cut off his cell service. He threw his phone across the room and began screaming at Casey, demanding that she find him a cigarette lighter. When she couldn’t produce one, Shane punched her in the face. She fell to the floor and curled into a fetal position, and Shane began choking her until her cheeks turned blue. Casey poked her thumb into her dad’s eye socket, allowing her to squirm free and lock herself in the restroom. Shane ran out side and pushed over her motorcycle.
Casey left for a few weeks to stay with friends, hoping Shane would calm down. But she returned to discover he’d gone into her room, spit all over the mirror of her vanity and used her lipstick to write hateful comments on the glass. “Commits homosexual acts in her grandmother’s house” … “Lies" … “Rides stolen motorcycle …”
Shane began entering Casey’s room at all hours of the night, berating her and daring her to fight. When she tried to lock him out, Shane sawed a circular hole in the door. “Then he poked his head inside—a ‘Here’s Johnny!’ moment, say Kisses, referring to the famous Jack Nicholson scene in “The Shining.”
Casey hammered nails—with the points sticking upward—into her wooden window frame to prevent him from crawling in from the backyard. And she affixed a bell to her door so she’d wake up if he tried to enter in the wee hours of the morning.
“He’s a nut job,” Kisses says. “I kept thinking, ‘This dude is going to murder me. He’s going to fucking kill me.’ I was having dreams about it. It was no way to live. I couldn’t go anywhere without thinking he was going to come up around the corner and kill me.”
Kisses’ fear eventually turned to anger, and when Shane attacked her one afternoon while she was washing her bike—putting his hand on her breast and shoving her to the ground—she’d finally had enough. Flipping away her sandals and raising her fists, she challenged her dad to a fight. Shane scowled and charged at her.
“I’ve got this attempted murderer—my father—rushing toward me,” Kisses says. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to land this punch better than I’ve ever landed a punch before.’ And I did.
“It was the most immaculate blow. I broke three acrylics on his face. There was a lot of blood, but it was worth it. It put him in his place, and it taught me that I didn’t have to be afraid anymore.”
Unstable as things were at home, Kisses still had plenty of reasons to be excited early in 2016—most notably, her burgeoning career as a cam performer. As her online popularity grew, porn companies took notice. One producer, Mayumi Sparkles, asked Kisses if she’d be willing to film a scene with established trans star Korra del Rio, who’d be flying in from Las Vegas.
Kisses agreed. A few weeks later, she had a new career—and a new girlfriend in del Rio, who said she was infatuated with Kisses the instant they met. After spending a few days skateboarding and going to the beach, Kisses invited del Rio to stay with her for a week at her grandmother’s house.
The first night, they heard gunshots and slept on the floor. A few days later, del Rio witnessed Shane go into a rage while the three of them were smoking weed. And del Rio was taken aback by the graffiti on the walls inside the home.
“I guess it was kinda cool and artistic to see graffiti in the house,” del Rio said. “But at the same time, I’m thinking, ‘There’s graffiti in the house!’ I was scared for her. She was in a bad situation and she knew it.
“She needed someone to help her escape.”
Determined to help—and not wanting to leave her side—del Rio presented Kisses with the perfect opportunity. Within week, del Rio was scheduled to move into a five-bedroom home in Las Vegas with aspiring trans porn stars Natalie Mars, Sue Lightning and Robin Banks. She insisted that Kisses join them.
When Kisses told her grandmother about the proposal, Martha mistakingly thought she was asking if del Rio could move in with them in Miami.
“Grandma!” Kisses yelled. "She doesn’t want to live here! Don’t you get it? She’s trying to take me away from this shit!”
With Martha’s blessing, Kisses packed her bags and headed to Sin City.
***
As Casey Kisses toured her new home, she stopped in the kitchen and grazed her palm over the custom countertops, marveling at the high-end granite.
“I’d never seen something that fancy,” Kisses laughs, “I felt like I was in a movie.”
Nestled in a cul-de-sac, the two-story, five-bedroom house in the Vegas suburb of Henderson was a far cry from the busted-up shacks that dotted Kisses’ neighborhood back in Miami. Instead of witnessing gang fights and drug deals from her front lawn, Kisses watched toddlers ride tricycles on the sidewalk. Neighbors waved as they drove down the street, and Kisses always responded with a nod and a smile.
This was the “different life” Kisses had fantasized about during childhood. She was happier than she’d ever been—and her burgeoning career in the adult industry boosted her spirits even more.
Although she’d dabbled in camming back in Florida, Kisses took things to a new level after her move. Day after day, she and her four trans roommates isolated themselves in separate areas of the home and spent hours hosting chat and masturbation shows for thousands of strangers.
“We were all at the same point in our lives—just scratching and clawing, trying to find our way,” Kisses says. “We motivated each other and shared ideas. We were competitive, but we supported each other.”
After a few months, three of the models—including Mars, who went on to win AVN Trans Performer of the Year in 2020—moved out of the house. With the place all to themselves, Kisses and del Rio focused and flourished like never before.
Instead of ending shows once their tip goals had been reached, del Rio and Kisses began offering bonus sessions in private rooms. They also developed stages for each show based on tips: bra removal, panty removal, oral sex, masturbation and so on.
“Everyone would be all edged up, ready for me to cum,” Kisses says, “and then we’d make them all tip more to go into a private room to see it.
“Korra deserves all the credit for coming up with the model, the system. But then she let me run with it. It was like she handed me the keys to a Volkswagen Beetle, and I just ripped out the engine and replaced it with a Porsche 911.”
Kisses’ and del Rio’s popularity soared to the point that, in December of 2016, 30,000 viewers logged on to watch their Christmas-themed show.
“That’s more people that fit in entire stadiums,” del Rio says. “It was difficult to fathom. We were like rock stars.”
Kisses’ success sparked a financial windfall she never could’ve imagined back in Miami. The girl who once worked four jobs simultaneously simply to pay rent was now cruising down Las Vegas Boulevard in a shiny gray Cadillac. She could afford designer makeup and clothing and was never late on a bill. Days before Hurricane Irma ravaged South Florida in 2017, Kisses purchased a pricey first-class plane ticket to Nevada for Grandma Martha, rescuing her from potential danger.
Nothing, though, enhanced Kisses’ lifestyle more than her pivot into mainstream porn. Somewhat insecure about her appearance, Kisses was hesitant at first because she was still experimenting with makeup and hairstyles. But once she began visiting sets and getting advice from stylists and cosmetologists, Kisses’ reservations began to fade.
“Even before she figured out her ‘look’ she was still very pretty,” del Rio says. “But her confidence went to a new level after a few times in the makeup chair, and it translated on camera. She blew people’s socks off.”
After just one year in studio porn, Kisses was tabbed as a finalist for AVN’s Trans Performer of the Year award—her first of five consecutive nominations in that category.
Many of Kisses’ early scenes were with del Rio, her off-camera girlfriend for more than two years. The couple separated amicably in 2018, vowing to remain close friends, and Kisses began searching for partners on dating apps.
Kisses had just begun seeing someone in Hawaii when she received a message on Tinder from Kylie le Beau, a cisgender female in Las Vegas who was frustrated in a relationship with a man 31 years her senior.
“I hadn’t planned to date anyone,” Kisses says, “but she was so fucking beautiful. I thought, ‘There’s no way I can pass this up. I’ll feel stupid if I don’t at least go and say ‘hi.’”
A few days later, the two met at Brio, an Italian restaurant in Vegas’ Towne Square. “I am a hugger,” Kisses said as she opened her arms to embrace le Beau, who was seated at the bar. The two talked for hours over lunch before heading out for Dippin’ Dots and drinks at the Luxor. After stopping at a dispensary, they returned to le Beau’s upscale loft. A UC-Riverside graduate who grew up attending parochial schools, le Beau spent three years working in architecture before taking a job in production for a local magazine.
“Even before I met her, I could tell she was super affluent,” Kisses says. “I couldn’t understand why she’d want anything to do with me. Her place was so nice. I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to bag this one.’”
And Kisses didn’t. At least not on the first date. But within an hour of leaving her loft, Kisses received a text from le Beau saying she’d love to meet again. A few weeks later they took a trip to Hawaii and eventually moved in together. They’ve been inseparable ever since.
“I learned what love felt like when I met her,” Kisses says. “It’s not something you’ve got to force. It’s something that just happens. You meet someone and you just want to be around them all the time. Even when they piss you off—and you shouldn’t want to be around them—you still kinda do. It’s like, ‘Go away for a little bit—but not too far.’”
In 2019, le Beau began performing with Kisses during her cam sessions. A few months later she gave up her job and transitioned into studio porn. “Casey and Kylie” quickly became one of the adult industry’s most recognizable couples, and Kisses believes their pairing helped change the way countless people view trans women.
“We’re breaking down stereotypes,” Kisses says. “Cisgender women are seeing that trans women are viable options to date and have sex with. We’re not just gay men in wigs, or however they think of us. They’re learning that we’re not that much different than them.
“More and more women are watching our cam shows now. They’re coming in and tipping and rubbing themselves and getting off. They’ll say, ‘I never thought trans people were for me until I saw you and Kylie.’”
As pleased as she was with the direction of her career—especially after she met le Beau—Kisses’ insecurities would often resurface following interactions she’d have in public, when one comment or awkward stare could ruin her day.
“I’d be in line at the dispensary,” she says, “and someone would say, ‘I just want to let you know you’re so pretty. I’m so supportive of you.’ That’s like saying, ‘Oh, I have black friends, too.’ It’s fucking rude. Don’t walk up to me and say that shit.
“Or at the salon, women will try to validate you by saying, ‘Oh hey, girl … I’ve been waiting for you to get your nails done. Good for you!’ It was obviously just because I was trans. People love to remind you of that. I know it’s not coming from a bad place, but I hated that it was always the first thing in a conversation. I don’t have anything in common with a drag queen.”
Increasingly frustrated, Kisses decided to take the next—and final—step in her transition by undergoing facial feminization surgery (FFS). The procedure and ensuing recovery cost nearly $100,000, a large chunk of which Kisses raised through camming. le Beau helped with funds, too, and friends such as del Rio chipped in with loans. By the fall of 2019, Kisses was ready.
With le Beau and del Rio pacing in the waiting room, Kisses underwent a surgery that involved a tracheal shave, jaw conturing, rhinoplasty, forehead conturing and genioplasty. For the next few weeks, with le Beau and del Rio by her side, Kisses recovered in a San Francisco hotel adjacent to the hospital as doctors checked on her around the clock. She couldn’t eat solid food for 10 days and was in constant pain.
But by the time the AVN Awards Nominations show rolled around in November of 2019, Kisses was fully healed. She hit the red carpet at the Avalon nightclub in Los Angeles with the swagger of a Hollywood celebrity at the Oscars.
Kisses said one of her most satisfying encounters occurred a few weeks later during an introductory consultation with her new primary care physician. Kisses was asked about her menstrual cycles and whether she was on birth control.
“Ummm, m’am,” Kisses told the doctor, “I have a dick.”
The interaction will always be memorable for Kisses. In that moment, she felt normal. She felt complete—and the feeling only enhanced over the next few years.
A fan at the Coffee Bean asked for a picture. A man passed her on an aisle at Target and, without breaking stride, said, “You do great work!” A flight attendant knew her birthday was approaching and brought her free champagne and yogurt and airplane-shaped cookies throughout her trip to Hawaii.
Kisses had always yearned for acceptance, but this was even better.
She felt embraced.
Kisses’ soaring confidence paid huge dividends in her career. More comfortable than ever on camera, she elevated her performances to a whole new level and quickly became one of the most sought-after trans star in the business.
Elite studios such as Adult Time and Evil Angel called on Kisses more and more. Instead of just working with trans and male partners, Kisses now found herself paired with blue-chip cisgender female talent such as April Olsen, Jane Wilde, Lauren Phillips and Lacy Lennon. In 2021, Kisses landed a role in Black Widow XXX: An Axel Braun Parody.
Each time she reached a new milestone, Kisses couldn’t help but reflect on the first year she attended the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo back in 2015. She spent the entire weekend snaking through the crowd, handing out promotional fliers for a trans website.
“That’s the same shit I did when I was selling car wax back in 2005,” Kisses says. “I was a nobody.”
That’s why Kisses was simply happy to see her name on the list the first few times she was nominated for AVN’s prestigious Trans Performer of the Year award. But beginning in 2019, Kisses started believing she actually had a chance to win.
Each January at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, as paparazzi snapped photos, she’d walk down the red carpet in high heels and a dress, hoping that this would be the year she’d capture a trophy. Each time she left feeling dejected.
“But the next week I’d go right back to work,” Kisses says. “I kept telling myself, ‘My day will come. My day will come.’”
***
She’d jotted bullet points onto a piece of paper and rehearsed countless times in front of the mirror. But on January 22—when the time finally came to make an acceptance speech after winning an AVN award—Casey Kisses was at a loss for words.
“I forgot half of what I was going to say,” Kisses would tell AVN an hour later. “I still can’t believe what just happened. It all feels so surreal. That’s the best word I can come up with.
“Surreal.”
In the final and most climatic moment of last month’s virtual awards ceremony, Casey: A True Story was announced as the winner in the category of Grand Reel, which honors the top full-length production of the year. As eager as she was to win a trophy of any kind, nabbing one for a movie that chronicles her life story made the victory even more meaningful.
“To have people draw inspiration from what I went through, from my tough times, is really rewarding,” Kisses says. “This story is helping people—not just young trans women, but everybody.”
The trophy was one of five on the night for Kisses. Along with winning for Best Thespian - Trans/X—a nod to her acting in the biopic—Kisses won for Best Screenplay and Favorite Trans Cam Star. And, yes, she finally achieved the title that eluded her so many times before: Trans Performer of the Year.
Immediately after the announcement, Kisses received texts from colleagues Aubrey Kate and Natalie Mars. Kate, the most decorated trans performer in history, had won the award three of the previous five years and was considered Kisses’ top competition in 2022. And Mars is the one who welcomed Kisses into that Las Vegas home back in 2015, when both were just beginners, striving to make ends meet.
“I texted her back,” Kisses says, “and I said, ‘We fucking did it. We grew up in the same house and we fucking killed it.’ This award was for all of us. We’re changing the industry and we’re changing the way people look at trans women.”
Seated next to Kisses in her living room while she accepted her awards via Zoom—and looking stunning in a matching red dress—was le Beau. Two weeks before the ceremony, the two became engaged. The couple has already discussed buying a new home and starting a family.
Kisses and le Beau continue to host successful cam shows, including one recent session that lured 32,000 viewers at once. Kisses has taken a step back from performing in studio scenes while she explores life on the other side of the camera. Kisses produced and directed multiple scenes for TransAngels in November and December and plans to continue such work in 2022.
Whenever new challenges come her way, Kisses won’t flinch.
“Life,” she says, “has thickened my skin.”
No longer is she the timid child who revealed her secret in a private note to her sister, or the teenager who concealed her sexuality in high school, or the reluctant porn star unsure of her appearance.
Kisses is strong woman now and comfortable with who she is. She’s the person she always wanted to be.
***
Whenever they get a free weekend, Kisses and le Beau love to camp with friends at Nelson’s Landing, a semi-private alcove about 45 minutes southeast of Las Vegas. Other times they head to the bike track, where le Beau cheers for her fiancé while she races her motorcycle competitively.
One of Kisses’ favorite hobbies, however, is cliff diving.
Whether she’s in Hawaii on a vacation, traveling through California for work or at one of her favorite spots near Vegas’ Hoover Dam, Kisses can’t get enough of the adrenalin rush she feels after each jump. It’s not just about the accomplishment, Kisses says. It’s about about staring fear in the face and having the courage to overcome it.
“Sometimes you literally sit at the top of the cliff for hours,” she says. “The whole time, you’re trying to muster up the courage to jump. People are staring up at you, waiting to see what you’re going to do. Some people are yelling at you to do it, and others are telling you to come back down.”
Without realizing it, Kisses’ description of cliff diving is identical to how she explained the ultimate act of bravery she displayed all those years ago, when she made the decision that changed her life.
The decision to transition.
“Eventually,” she says, “you convince yourself to walk to the ledge and leap. You soar through the air and hit the water. It’s freezing cold but you don’t care. You come to the surface and clear your eyes, and you immediately hear everyone cheering for you. You’ve earned their respect, and you’re so relieved, because you did it, and now it’s obvious: You’re going to be OK.”
Kisses smiles.
“It’s a powerful feeling,” she says. “You feel alive.
“You feel free.”
Photography by @theedgeimage (1-6, 12-14)
