RedTracker| The world won’t hear transsexual model Lea T speak for the first time on her upcoming Oprah show. Model.com delivers an excellent interview with Lea T, as we wait for her LOVE Magazine #5 Angrogyny issue images to probe our thoughts and impressions around transsexuals.

For starters, Lea T is elegant, soft spoken and absolutely charming in her Models.com interview by Wayne Sterling. The ground breaking model is relatively well known now within the fashion industry, and interest in her is intense. I’ve written that this interest in Lea T has gone beyond purient voyeurism to a deeper desire to understand the nature of transsexual and transgender psychology.

Lea T models.com Interview

There’s not a dull 30 seconds in this 11 minute interview in which Lea T — called just ‘Lea’ by Wayne Sterling — talks about her journey to the world stage and soon to Oprah. In her quiet voice, Lea says “I am a transsexual. It’s the most important thing for me.”

Lea says that Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy asked her how he should talk about her with the press. Tisci was choosing her as a model for her beauty, attitude and elegance, not to call attention to transsexuals. But Lea was ready, saying that her identity is defined by her being a transsexual and she is prepared to talk about the challenges of being born in such a state of gender ambiguity.

Former Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld receives high praise for how she handled Lea T’s Vogue Paris Fall 2010 editorial. In talking about Lea’s physicality, Carine Roitfeld said that “for me you are beautiful like the other girls. You have a penis, but you look like the other girls.”

While not referring specifically to the just released report ‘Injustice at Every Turn’ report that surveys 6.450 transgender participants, Lea talks about about her personal experiences having people look at her and saying “you should die”. She speaks of transgender people gradually going crazy and of a trans person trying to commit suicide with a wrist cutting in front of people.

The new report by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) reports that the transgender population in general is four to five times more likely than the general population to live in extreme poverty.

The most shocking statistic in the ‘Injustice at Every Turn’ report is that 41% of those surveyed say they had attempted suicide. The American Prospect writes an excellent analysis of key kindings in the report.

The Lea T interview articulates in Smart Sensuality intelligent words the findings in the new report. 80% of respondents say their lives improved significantly after their sexual change operations, and that bodes well for Lea, who is in the midst of her own metamorphosis from man to woman.

I am glad that the person who has lived in the center of this Internet sensation can speak so calmly and with such warmth. The pain that she has experienced are well concealed not only by her calm, steady voice saying “I am a transsexual. It’s the most important thing for me,” but also by her beautiful hands, which rarely stop moving in this excellent Models.com interview. Anne

Lea T is represented by Women Milan. Photography by Carlotta Manaigo and LURVE magazine.

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