• 9 months ago
A woman who transitioned to become a man aged 22 says people now tell him he looks like Tom Hardy.

Leo Macallan, 32, was born a female and called Liz but came out as gay to his friends and family in June 2010 - before realising he was transgender in May 2014.

Liz started transitioning a month later - starting on testosterone which gave him body hair and lowered his voice - adopting male pronouns and changing his name to Leo.

He had top surgery a year later in 2015 and has never looked back.

Leo said his friends and family were "happy and relieved" when they saw him for the first time after his surgery.

Leo lives happily with his girlfriend, Rebekah Bauer, 36, in Savannah, Georgia, US, and says he now often gets compared to actor Tom Hardy due to his ripped physique and facial hair.

Leo, a content creator, said: "When people say I look like Tom Hardy, it is very validating and very affirming.

"It feels like a dream come true.

"Coming from a place where I didn't even think it would happen to now it is a really beautiful thing.

"I love getting Tom Hardy, it happens all day long."

Leo said for as long as he can remember he realised he was different.

Throughout high school, Leo said he tried to be "girly" as he was sick of being picked on and wanted to fit in.

He said: "I remember being on a boat looking at my dad with his top off and thinking 'wow, I should be doing that'."

Leo said he came out the day before he graduated high school. He then revealed he was trans in 2014 while undergoing therapy.

He changed his name to Leo straight away which was inspired by Leonardo DiCaprio after his performance in the Titanic.

Leo said: "I was a little kid when Titanic came out.

"I remember looking at Jack and I had a connection to him.

"I knew that he was what I associated myself with and I used to go to bed every night and wish I would wake up as him

"I was walking home after watching Titanic one night and realised I should call myself Leo.

"It was a little gift to my former self to be like 'yes, we finally got here'."

In June 2014, Leo started hormone treatment - where sex hormones and other hormonal medications are administered.

A year later he had top surgery, which was paid for after fans and friends donated $8000 after seeing his story online.

The first time he saw his body post-operation, Leo said he felt "free" adding "it was one of the best days of my life".

Leo said: "Predominately everyone was like 'finally' - it didn't feel like much of a surprise for people.

"I was just like 'I can finally calm down and start living'.

"This was when I was able to really start navigating the world myself and breathe."

Since then, Leo said that life has really picked up for him and he is sharing his journey on social media - @thegravelbro.

Leo said: "Things really started to pick up for me.

"It was a long working progress, I have always known I was going to be a public figure, it was just the path of getting there.

Category

😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00 when I was a little girl. My previous name was Elizabeth, but I went by Liz.
00:03 I was always cognitively aware of being male, but when you're young, you don't really get it.
00:08 Like, you don't really get gender, obviously. Like, when I was six, I was six years old,
00:13 starting connecting the dots of being like, "That's me, but I don't look like that. Uh-oh."
00:17 Titanic came out, and I saw Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jack, in it. I was just like,
00:23 "That's what I want to be. Everything about that is what I want to be."
00:26 I was brought up Catholic. Not a fun religion. Aesthetically pleasing, yes. Morally fun, no.
00:32 Every night before bed, I would pray that I would wake up and be Jack from Titanic.
00:38 And I did that for a very, very, very long time. I don't know if it was because he was blonde,
00:42 or I was just already into the cinematic swelling of emotion, the love story, and him,
00:49 and being very masculine. He was everything that I wanted to be and look like. And that's when the
00:56 wheels began to turn. And I was like, "I'm not that, but okay, it's time to do something about
01:01 it." And naturally, my six-year-old brain was like, "God will fix it. Let's ask God."
01:05 Fast forward all these years later, I was starting to take hormones to transition,
01:10 and I was trying to think of a name. No, no. A lot of times, people will talk about how they
01:14 pick the name for their kid, and they'll say that it's just a windswept feeling of, "That's it."
01:20 So one day, I had just went to see a childhood friend I had initially watched Titanic with when
01:24 I was a kid, and I was walking home from her house, and I just had this like, "Phew." And I was
01:29 like, "Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo." To me, it would be a gift to six-year-old me. It would be like,
01:36 "Here's your prayer being answered. You get to be him. We're going to get to be him now."
01:43 I'm officially 10 years on testosterone as of November 25th, and then my birthday is November
01:48 30th. So there's a lot going on. And I just wanted to say that that doesn't mean that I've reached
01:53 my full potential. I don't want you guys to be thinking that where you're at isn't where you're
01:57 supposed to be, because where you're at right now is perfect. Life is nuts, dude. You don't reach a
02:02 certain point, and then it's all done. I didn't have a linear path. A lot of people that are queer
02:06 don't. While other people were doing the school to the internship to the job to the additional job
02:11 to the promotion to the next job, my life has been crazy. I lived overseas for a lot of it. I lived
02:17 in Arkansas. I was working as a cowboy. I was traveling all the time. I was running away from
02:21 myself. I was drinking too much, and it taught me so much. My pain is the journey that brought me to
02:26 heaven, but does it look good on paper? No. Does it look good to people that don't understand what
02:32 it's like to have a non-traditional existence? No. My full-time job then was just being alive
02:41 and trying to navigate being the right gender and trying to acclimate to living with someone's
02:46 trauma and having really bad habits because I didn't understand myself emotionally or spiritually.
02:51 I was just in a lot of pain.

Recommended