Over the winter, MTV's Real World: Brooklyn introduced Katelynn, a transgender woman, to its welcoming viewers. And now, ABDC would like you to meet Leiomy.
Leiomy is part of Vogue Evolution, a crew that prides itself on its four openly gay members and one transgender woman. While every transgender person's story is different, Leiomy explained to us that she was born a male but always identified as a female.
"At the age of seven, I knew something was different. I wasn't happy when I looked in the mirror," she said. "I started wearing dresses at 15 ... and by 18 I was taking hormone pills." Leiomy's family, including her four brothers, are fully accepting ... but it wasn't always that way. "My older brothers had issues with me at first and thought it was a phase," she told us. "But after some time, they came to accept who I was."
Now 22, Leiomy dates straight men who are interested in woman, not gay men like many people assume. She's been in a serious relationship with her boyfriend for the past seven months and is in the process of saving up the money to complete her transition.