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.
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.
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.
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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?