World’s first transsexual model Lea T shakes up fashion world

French fashion house Givenchy has caused quite a stir after it announced that a transsexual model Lee T is working for the brand. Read on for more.

French fashion house Givenchy has caused quite a stir after it announced that a transsexual model is working for the brand.

According to the Observer, Lea T, 28, who was a backroom assistant at Givenchy, is appearing in its fall/winter advertising campaign, as well as modelling for

Italian Vanity Fair

and posing naked for

French Vogue

.

The Brazilian, who was born Leandro Cerezo, said her ongoing transition from man to woman angered her Catholic family and brought her extreme loneliness, but she said the “war in her head” was worth fighting.

“The choice is between being unhappy forever or trying to be happy,”

News.com.au

quoted her as saying in an interview in Italian

Vanity Fair

The model, who is undergoing hormone replacement therapy ahead of a sex change, said her father, former soccer hero Toninho Cerezo, was unhappy about her transformation.

“She’s a true goddess. She’s always been very feminine - super-fragile, very aristocratic,” Riccardo Tisci, the creative director of Givenchy told

WWD

.