Supermodel Andrej Pejic, who broke out in the fashion industry in 2011 as a model who could wear both men’s and women’s clothes, revealed in a new interview that he underwent sex reassignment surgery earlier this year. He will now be known as Andreja Pejic.
The Serbian-born model broke the news in an interview with People. Pejic, 22, said that she needed to share her story with the public.
“I want to share my story with the world because I think I have a social responsibility,” she told People. “I hope that by being open about this, it becomes less of an issue.”
Pejic said that she had always dreamed of being a girl, but had to hide that when her family moved to Australia when she was 9 and she put away the skirts and dolls. Then, she tried playing sports with boys and hung out with them.
“I wanted to be a good kid and I wanted to please my parents,” she recalled. “I kept my dreams and my imagination to myself and became pretty good at acting as a boy. But I was hiding who I was.”
By age 13, she began looking into sex change operations and started taking medication to stop puberty. Thankfully, she had the support of her mother, brother and grandmother.
After she became a world famous male model that could also model women’s clothes, she started accepting her special position. However, a year and a half ago, she “reevaluated things.”
“I was proud of my gender nonconforming career. But my biggest dream was to be comfortable in my own body,” she continued. “I have to be true to myself and the career is just going to have to fit around that.”
Now that she has had the surgery, she is incredibly happy with her body and starting a new, more comfortable life.
“Every day is like a new revelation," she told People. "I'm more comfortable than ever. I feel at a 100 percent."
image courtesy of Alberto Reyes/INFphoto.com