✍ = 中文翻譯In early 2014, Pejic completed the transition from male to female — and subsequently made the transition from avant-garde curio to blonde bombshell. Now represented by Storm Management, she has become the first (openly) transgender model to be profiled by American Vogue; the first to front a cosmetics campaign, for Make Up for Ever — ‘That was before Caitlyn Jenner, thank you!’ — and a campaigner for trans acceptance at a time when gender fluidity is in the spotlight.
She seems so comfortable in her skin, it’s hard to imagine her as the shy teenager she describes. She is 6ft 1in, and has long, blonde hair that brushes the sides of her pale, open face. She turns up in a monochrome ensemble — ‘I’m in a Seventies vibe at the moment but I like to keep it quite classic’ — complete with a white feathery jacket and round Kurt Cobain-style shades. Her voice is a warm alto, and she speaks with a rising Melbourne accent, so every statement could be a question. As she talks, she waves her long fingers theatrically. What’s the best thing about being a woman? ‘Power.’ She doesn’t miss a beat.
‘I never imagined I’d be so public about it,’ she says of her transition. ‘Perhaps if I was in a different profession, I wouldn’t have worn “trans” on my forehead. But there’s a difference between not wanting to make a big deal of something and fearing the effect it will have on my life. But it’s all out there now. If I go on a date, I don’t have to worry about that moment when he finds out.’
As with many apparently swift transformations, this one was long in the gestation. Even before Pejic’s arrival in Australia, she knew something didn’t fit. ‘There were a lot of pressures growing up working-class, with a single mum who had been through so much — I didn’t want to stress her out. My mum would say sometimes: “Do you think you might be gay?” But it wasn’t that. When I imagined myself in a romantic setting, it was heterosexual, but I was just always a girl.”
Australia was a great place to grow up, she says, safe, sunny, socially progressive towards refugees, but she spent long periods of her childhood ‘living my life for other people’, pretending to like football, hiding her Barbie dolls. Suburban Melbourne wasn’t particularly progressive in gender terms — teen culture was more about Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears than gender fluidity. It was only at the age of 13 that she found out who she really was, ‘with the help of Google’, she smiles.
She secretly ordered illegal medication online to delay puberty, and while she doesn’t recommend that course of action, she says it spared her unnecessary trauma. ‘It helped me to be a much happier person today bystarting early. At the time, there wasn’t a lot of medical support for young people. I knew that if I went through a full male puberty, it would have been a lot more difficult for me to be comfortable in my own skin later in life.”
In 2016, transgender issues are much more widely discussed, thanks in part to celebrities such as Caitlyn Jenner, the singer Anohni, the political prisoner Chelsea Manning, and the food writer Jack Monroe. ‘It’s become a trendy topic,’ Pejic admits. ‘I think the internet has helped connect people who were previously isolated and then they become a force. And the categories are breaking down, too. It used to be so important to choose what you were. Gay or straight. Male or female. I think the new generation is more fluid.’
It’s led some to panic that impressionable youngsters might subject themselves to alterations they later regret. ‘I understand how difficult it is for parents when a child wants to do something so drastic, especially if they’re under 18. But the percentage of people who go back is very small. And you have to ask, are people really going to see psychiatrists, take medication and undergo complicated, expensive surgery just to be on-trend?”
As a teenager, Pejic compromised with an androgynous look, inspired by David Bowie, Boy George and the New Romantics. Her plan was to leave school, earn enough money for reassignment surgery, and then study law or economics at university. As it was, she was scouted at 16 while working in McDonald’s, and found herself living in London in 2010. Her ethereal looks attracted attention but she was reluctant to become known as a boy. ‘I wanted to earn enough money to go back home, finish my transition and move on with my life.’ However, as a model, a high profile is what gets you the money, and gender reassignment surgery is not cheap; her operation cost around £21,000, and she estimates she’s spent around £35,000 on transitioning.
When she emerged from surgery she ‘felt complete.’ Was there, erm, any nostalgia for her discarded body parts? ‘God, no!’ she laughs. ‘I was like: “Throw it away!”’
‘I’d planned on a pussy shower, but actually the time afterwards wasn’t easy as I had to work out what to do with my career.’
Her intention at first was to give up modelling. ‘But then I thought: “You may as well own this.” I’ve invested a lot in this career. And now amazing things are happening, which are testament to the times we live in.’
Short of being defined by her new gender, she feels for the first time in her life she has moved beyond it. ‘It’s been a very freeing process.’ She has assembled 150 hours of footage for a documentary on her transition. And having never felt comfortable on the gay scene, she is now dating a straight New York real estate agent. ‘It’s been great. And the best part is that he sees me as just another girl he has a special connection with. It’s nice to have that connection to a world outside activism and fashion.’ She feels that dating a trans woman in 2016 is a little like a white man dating an African-American woman in the 1960s. A little edgy, a little cool. ‘But I would like to look beyond that. There’s more to me than this experience.’
She has little time for the internecine warfare that often overwhelms identity politics — in particular the ongoing arguments between second-wave feminists and transgender activists. ‘It’s strange to be progressive on one issue and so regressive on another, but this is what happens a lot. Radical feminists are often highly conservative in many areas except for women’s rights, and LGBT activists can be the same. Real change happens when people unite across those divides.’
But then again, this aversion to divides is written into Pejic’s background. Her father is Croatian, her mother Serbian, and she was born in Bosnia — her family split up as a result of the Yugoslav wars. It pains her to see people displaced by war again. ‘I’ve seen people who lived happily together for 50 years suddenly go to war over identity. At the time, everyone was like: “How can this happen?” But with the right conditions, anything can happen. She still speaks to her father: ‘He did take some time to get his head around the sex change, but for a Balkan man I have to say he’s not so bad.’
Growing up between so many categories of gender, nationality and culture has given her a sort of panhumanist perspective that’s at once universal and singular. Gender, she now believes, is just one part of who you are.
‘My dream was: start young, take hormones, live as a woman, try and become as passable as possible, bury your past, change your friends. Now I’ve realised that I don’t have to be ashamed of my past. I can still own my story and it doesn’t make me any less of a woman. I was born a girl, it just took me a little while to become one fully.’
And with that she heads out smiling into the English rain.
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