Raquel Reyes

(Active mid 1990s–2007)

American trans model, writer, and early internet figure noted for her pioneering role in online self-representation. Emerging during the first wave of personal web culture, she developed a distinctive digital persona under the moniker “The TS Goddess,” combining glamour modeling with autobiographical storytelling.Her work circulated across forums and early image-sharing platforms, positioning her among the first trans women to attain international recognition through online media. Scholars and commentators have since cited Reyes as a formative influence in discussions of digital identity, body politics, and trans visibility in the early 21st century.

Born: mid-1970s, Tampa, Florida, U.S.
Nationality: American (Cuban and Italian descent)
Occupation: Model, Writer, Artist, Internet personality (retired)
Years active: mid-1990s – 2007 (publicly active period)
Genres / Fields: Digital media, Erotic photography, Autobiographical writing
Known for: Goddess (2005); early trans digital visibility; pioneering self-representation online
Notable themes: Gender performance, Online identity, Self-mythology, Early web culture
Website: thetsgoddess.com

Early Life and Background

Raquel Reyes was born in the mid-1970s in Tampa, Florida, although some early online sources have alternately listed her birthplace as Las Vegas, Nevada. Of Cuban and Italian descent, Reyes grew up in a middle-class family marked by instability and secrecy. Her memoir, Goddess (2005), offers some insight into her family’s history, but alludes to a complex household shaped by addiction and volatility.While specific details remain obscured, Reyes’s biological father has been described in secondary sources as a member of a well-known Tampa-area crime family, part of a broader network involved in racketeering during the 1970s. He was reportedly incarcerated during her infancy, after which she was raised primarily by her mother and stepfather.According to Goddess, Reyes began her gender transition shortly after graduating from high school. Her formative years unfolded across Florida’s coastal enclaves—Miami, Key West, and later Boston—where she explored nightlife, art, and identity against the backdrop of the late-20th-century queer underground. These years would later serve as the foundation for her mythos and creative awakening.

Early Online Career

Reyes began sharing images and journal entries online in late 1999 and continued throughout the early 2000s, during a transitional period for web culture that predated social media algorithms and platform-based branding. Through self-curated photo archives and a personal website, she cultivated a following that blurred distinctions between performance, documentation, and self-mythology.Her online presence combined elements of glamour photography, diary-style confession, and digital artifice, reflecting a new form of authorship emerging in the early internet era. This hybrid approach allowed Reyes to control both her image and narrative at a time when trans visibility was largely mediated by mainstream or adult-industry gatekeepers. Her work paralleled—and in some respects prefigured—strategies later associated with influencer culture, positioning her as an early architect of trans digital aesthetics and online self-creation. At the height of her fame, she was widely described as “the most downloaded transsexual model in the world,” a title that underscored both her pioneering reach and the internet’s growing role in shaping new modes of celebrity.

Goddess (2005)

In 2005, Reyes began sharing excerpts from her personal journals with online subscribers, offering an unfiltered glimpse into the experiences that had shaped her public persona. These writings, often intimate and introspective, revealed aspects of her life that complicated—and at times contradicted—her carefully curated image. Later that year, she published Goddess, an autobiographical work chronicling her early life, transition, and ascent within the emerging digital landscape. Blending personal narrative, social commentary, and erotic autobiography, Goddess was among the first self-authored works by a trans woman to address internet-era visibility and sex work as interconnected forms of self-expression and power. The book gained recognition within LGBTQ and academic circles for its candid portrayal of gender transition, erotic labor, and digital self-creation.Although Goddess sold out quickly and went out of print soon after its release, it has since acquired the status of a cult classic. Scholars and readers alike continue to cite it as an early articulation of trans identity and media authorship unconstrained by the clinical or confessional frameworks that dominated mainstream narratives of the time. The work remains a touchstone in contemporary studies of trans representation and early internet culture.

Cultural Context and Legacy

During her active years, Reyes became closely associated with evolving conversations about gendered performance, online creation, and the commercialization of identity. Her visual and literary work occupied a liminal space between art and persona, challenging distinctions between authenticity, visibility and control. Scholars have since noted that her use of the early web anticipated the dynamics of social media—where self-presentation, audience engagement, and brand identity merge into a continuous performance of self.Reyes’s later withdrawal from public life—often interpreted as a deliberate act of digital disappearance—has been analyzed as an extension of her broader project of autonomy and creative control. Rather than an erasure, her exit is now viewed as a form of self-determination, reclaiming power over image and narrative in an era defined by perpetual circulation. This act positioned her not only as a pioneer of trans digital culture, but also as one of its earliest critics.In subsequent years, Reyes’s legacy has resurfaced through academic research, digital preservation initiatives, and online exhibitions examining early-internet histories of trans representation. Her influence is now cited across fields including media studies, gender theory, and visual culture, where her work is recognized as foundational to understanding how trans femininity, erotic labor, and digital technology intersected at the turn of the twenty-first century.The Twenty-Fourth Hour by Paris Whitman and Its Place in Reyes’s Cultural Legacy
A defining thread in Reyes’s cultural legacy emerged through Winter Hours: Stories from Boston in the 1990s, particularly the widely analyzed short story “The Twenty-Fourth Hour.” In it, author Paris Whitman recounts a real encounter with a trans woman named Raquel—an experience readers soon recognized as aligning unmistakably with the known contours of Raquel Reyes’s life during that era. Whitman’s account did not fabricate a legend; it captured the moment he stepped into one. His writing makes clear that the night marked him deeply, the kind of encounter that imprints itself so firmly that memory and meaning continue to echo years after the fact.
Whitman’s framing is charged with a quiet, lingering awe. He describes the instant shift in atmosphere when she entered the room, the way conversation faltered, and the way the night seemed to hinge on her presence. His prose suggests a man who never stopped replaying those twenty-four hours—not because he misunderstood them, but because he understood them too well. Scholars now read his account as a rare, contemporaneous document of Reyes’s early impact: evidence of how even a single meeting could leave someone altered and reflective, as well as an external, unprompted testimony to the unmistakable charisma and emotional force she embodied.
“The Twenty-Fourth Hour” endures because it reveals something larger than the event itself—it shows how Reyes’s presence worked on people. Whitman writes like someone who never fully came back from that night, carrying its atmosphere into the rest of his work. Far from a footnote, the Paris Whitman linkage demonstrates how Reyes’s legacy operated beyond her own creative output, influencing the interpretive frameworks through which trans presence was understood in late-20th-century urban and online subcultures. The resonance of “The Twenty-Fourth Hour”—its cold streets, warm interiors, and a night that feels half-memory, half-legend—mirrors how readers have long navigated the distance between the woman Raquel Reyes was and the mythic figure the internet made of her.

Later Life and Current Status

Public information about Reyes’s life after her withdrawal from the internet remains limited. Following the release of Goddess and her subsequent retreat from public visibility, she has largely avoided interviews and declined requests for commentary.Sources close to her artistic circle suggest that she has continued to live and work quietly, reportedly married and involved in creative pursuits within the arts. However, no verifiable public appearances or statements have been made in recent years, and Reyes herself has offered no formal confirmation of her present activities or location.
Her absence from digital and media spaces has contributed to the enduring mystique surrounding her legacy—an intentional silence that, for many observers, feels consistent with the themes of autonomy and control that defined her earlier work.

2025 Reemergence

In the final months of 2025, a verified Medium account appeared under Raquel Reyes’s name, publishing material that many believe to be her first public writings in nearly two decades. Around the same time, her long-dormant website, thetsgoddess.com—once listed as her official domain of record—was quietly reactivated. The site presently contains only a minimal landing page featuring a concise synopsis of her career.The coincidence of these developments has prompted speculation among followers, researchers, and former fans that Reyes may be preparing for a renewed public presence. Some have linked the reemergence to rumors of a forthcoming revised 20th-anniversary edition of Goddess, her seminal 2005 autobiographical work.
Whether these online traces signal a full return or a controlled act of reappearance remains uncertain.In November 2025, Raquel Reyes agreed to a limited collaboration with the Trans Wiki Project and Signal Found Productions, an academic initiative dedicated to preserving the internet's earliest queer and trans voices. Through a curated series of spoken-word recordings, the foundation revisits her early internet origins, tracing the evolution of her digital self and the mythology that grew around her image. These recordings are scheduled to begin in December 2025 and will stream on iHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts, and various other platforms.

References & Related Projects

Primary Source:
thetsgoddess.com — curated archive and official domain of record.Stream Raquel Reyes and The Goddess Recordings on iHeart Radio
•Raquel Reyes and the Goddess Recordings by Signal Found ProductionsStream Raquel Reyes and The Goddess Recordings on Apple Podcasts
•Raquel Reyes and the Goddess Recordings by Signal Found ProductionsSecondary Projects: Not Affiliated with Raquel Reyes
•Raquel Reyes Legacy — archival and preservation initiative
• Trans Documentarian Project — digital research and scrapbook curation
• Trans Raquel Reyes Index — catalog of documented references and reexaminationsFurther Reading
•Raquel Reyes: The Trans Woman the Internet Can't Forget by Marjorie Ali-Rojas, critic and writer at Illico
•In Search of the Transsexual Goddess by Riley Haven, cultural essay tracing Raquel Reyes’s early internet mythology
•Becoming the Mirror: Raquel Reyes, Trans Aesthetics, and the Myth of the Self-Made Woman by Jonathan Erickson, PhD, academic analysis of digital identity and impact
•The Ballad of Raquel Reyes How a trans siren of the early internet era became the blueprint for today’s social media stars
•Raquel Reyes vs Angelyne: Media, Gender, and the Art of Self-Creation — From Billboard to Browser, Across Decades and Technologies, Two Media Icons Reimagined What It Means To Be Seen
•Winter Hours: Short Stories from Boston in the 1990s by Paris Whitman, a collection of eight personal non-fiction stories chronicling a decade defined by cold nights, warm encounters, and private awakenings
•Reading Raquel Reyes: Critical Essays on The Twenty-Fourth Hour and Related Narratives, Gender & Media Analysis
•The Tampa Bay Times: The Wild Life of a Transsexual 'Goddess'