NEW YORK – As a male model, Andrej Pejic blazed trails with an androgynous look that saw him walking the runway in women’s fashion shows.
Now Pejic is Andreja.
“I always dreamt of being a girl,” Pejic revealed to People magazine about her recent gender reassignment surgery. “One of my earliest memories is spinning around in my mom’s skirt trying to look like a ballerina.”
The Serbian-born model said that growing up she was “hiding who I was.” At 13, she told People, “I went into the library and typed ‘sex change’ into Google and my life changed.”
The aspiring actress has appeared in a David Bowie video short and has snagged a small part in Sofia Coppola’s upcoming film, “The Little Mermaid,” according to the Internet Movie Database.
Pejic is taking a cue from another transgendered celeb, “Orange Is the New Black” star Laverne Cox, opting not to share the details of her surgery.
“What’s in between anyone’s legs is not who they are,” she said.
The model said she is happy and settling into her life months after her surgery. She is speaking out, she said, because she feels a sense of social responsibility. She now feels “100 percent,” she tells People.
“I was proud of my gender nonconforming career,” Pejic says to the magazine. “But my biggest dream was to be comfortable in my own body. I have to be true to myself and the career is just going to have to fit around that.”
