Male model Andrej Pejic is now a woman.
Pejic, whose androgynous appearance has been seen on the catwalk for Jean-Paul Gaultier and Marc Jacobs, has undergone sex reassignment surgery and legally changed her name to Andreja.
The Melbourne-raised model, who achieved international fame after being photographed for the cover of Vogue Paris wearing women’s clothes in 2010, told People that her journey to womanhood began aged 13, when an internet search helped her to process the feeling of gender confusion she had been experiencing her entire life.
“I went into the library and typed ‘sex change’ into Google and my life changed,” she said. “The Internet gave me the sense that there were words to describe my feelings and medical terms.”
Pejic began taking puberty blockers, planning to graduate high school as Andrej, and then transition.
However, as her career as an androgynous male model took off, Pejic put transitioning on the back burner. It was only a year and a half ago that Pejic realised that she needed to be honest with herself and take the next step,
“I was proud of my gender nonconforming career. But my biggest dream was to be comfortable in my own body,” she said. “I have to be true to myself and the career is just going to have to fit around that.”
During the interview, Pejic endorsed the words of transgender activist Orange is the New Black actress Laverne Cox, who has spoken out against society’s fascination with the intimate details of an individual’s sex reassignment surgery. “What’s in between anyone’s legs is not who they are,” Pejic said.
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