Credit: SWNS / Leo Macallan
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.
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.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00When I was a little girl, my previous name was Elizabeth, but I went by Liz.
00:03I was always cognitively aware of being male, but when you're young, you don't really get it.
00:14When I was six, I was six years old, starting connecting the dots of being like,
00:18that's me, but I don't look like that. Uh-oh.
00:21Titanic came out, and I saw Leonardo DiCaprio's character Jack in it.
00:26I was just like, that's what I want to be.
00:28Everything about that is what I want to be.
00:43I was brought up Catholic. Not a fun religion.
00:46Aesthetically pleasing, yes. Morally fun, no.
00:49Every night before bed, I would pray that I would wake up and be Jack from Titanic.
00:54I did that for a very, very, very long time.
00:57I don't know if it was because he was blonde, or I was just already into the cinematic swelling of emotion,
01:04the love story, and him, and being very masculine.
01:07He was everything that I wanted to be and look like, and that's when the wheels began to turn.
01:14I was like, I'm not that, but okay, it's time to do something about it.
01:18Naturally, my six-year-old brain was like, God will fix it. Let's test God.
01:22Fast forward all these years later, I was starting to take hormones to transition,
01:26and I was trying to think of a name.
01:28No, no, it's like, a lot of times people will talk about how they pick the name for their kid,
01:32and they'll say that it's just a windswept feeling of like, that's it.
01:37So one day, I had just went to see a childhood friend I had initially watched Titanic with when I was a kid,
01:42and I was walking home from her house, and I just had this like, and I was like, Leonardo DiCaprio.
01:48Leo.
01:49To me, it would be a gift to six-year-old me.
01:52It would be like, here's your prayer being answered, you know?
01:55Like, you get to be him. We're going to get to be him now.
02:15My life has been crazy.
02:17Lived overseas for a lot of it.
02:19Lived in Arkansas. I was working as a cowboy.
02:21I was traveling all the time.
02:23Running away from myself. I was drinking too much.
02:25And it taught me so much, you know?