About people attended the event, which featured an address by Talleen Abu Hana, an Arab Christian from Nazareth who won the first Miss Trans Israel beauty pageant in Abu Hana spoke about her experience as a transgender woman in Israel. One evening while hanging out with new friends, a transgender woman was talking about her transition. Abu Hana was taken aback and insisted she was not. In an interview before the Pride event, Talleen emphasized the importance of moving to Tel Aviv, where the support she found as a Christian and an Arab facilitated her transition. After winning Miss Trans in , Abu Hana quickly rose to fame in Israel, where she is often mobbed by fans eager to take a selfie. Abu Hana now lives with her boyfriend, who she met before her transition on a night of dancing at a Tel Aviv club. JTA Jun.
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We spoke to Haiffa about how she refuses to let societal standards silence her.
I came here to share my story and the journey I have taken from being a small Arab boy, to becoming a woman representing Israel in the world. I was born in Nazareth. To me, my parents had a baby girl, but to everybody else I was a boy. I was simply born in the wrong body, and as a baby it was something everyone adored about me.
Caroline 'Tula' Cossey, Playboy
An advertisement for traditional Indian jewellery starring a transgender model is winning hearts in India. The one-minutesecond video charts the story of transition of a trans woman - an awkward teenager with facial hair and self-doubt who transforms into a beautiful confident bride. With year-old Meera Singhania Rehani in the lead, the video by Kerala-based jewellery house Bhima depicts the love and acceptance that the protagonist receives from her family - each milestone in her life is celebrated through the gold jewellery they gift her. Titled Pure as Love, the ad has been viewed more than , times on YouTube and 1. Meera, a student of sociology at Delhi University and part-time model who came out to her family two years back, says when she first heard about the ad, she "was very sceptical". I was also nervous since the film involved transition and as a pre-transition person I'm shown as a man with a beard. And I'm glad I did. Doing this has also helped me become more comfortable with myself," she told the BBC.
While the fashion industry still has long strides to make in terms of inclusivity and equality, recent years have seen the kind of progress that trans people once only dreamed of. The decade since has seen a number of milestones for trans people in fashion: Major agencies like Next, IMG, and HEROES have grown their trans rosters by degrees, and in recent years, a number of major industry players, from Vogue to Marc Jacobs , have made history by including trans people in major public-facing covers and campaigns. View on Instagram. A fierce advocate in the trans community with beginnings in the Chicago ballroom scene, Leyna Bloom moved to New York in her late teens to dive into the world of modeling. Recently, she led a viral social media campaign to become the first trans woman of color to walk for Victoria's Secret. Her next step?
