12 Hottest Women Who Were Actually Born Men

In the past few years identifying as trans has become part of the national and international conversation. People who identify as trans do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. A lot of people who identify as trans feel like they were born in to the wrong body, a body that doesn't express who they truly are. This is called body dysmorphia. Some people who identify as trans do not experience body dysmorphia or experience very little body dysmorphia. They believe that their gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth.

Most people who identify as trans decide to change their appearance to match the gender that they identify with. For some this means just dressing as their identified gender. For others this means changing their bodies with hormones or surgery. For even others, fully transitioning to the gender they identify as means undergoing sex reassignment surgery.

The experiences of being trans are widely varied and highly individual. One person's definition of transitioning is not the same as another person's definition. And these definitions of transitioning don't get to be defined by anyone other than the person identifying as trans.

As the conversation has increased around identifying as trans a lot of people have challenged a person's right to identify as their chosen gender. Prejudiced people insist that identifying as a gender means having the body parts that 'go with' that gender. They argue that trans women are not 'real women' and trans men are not 'real men.' This is bull. Anyone who chooses to identify as a man is a man. Period. Anyone who chooses to identify as a woman is a woman. Period.

Some trans women have fully embraced their femininity and chosen to alter their appearance to be hyper-feminine. There are actually multiple trans women who are currently working as models and actresses. Here are just a few trans women who are hot AF:

12 Jenna Talackova

Jenna Talackova had a really public experience with being outed as trans when she competed on Miss Universe Canada. She was kicked off the show when the organizers, including America's Most Hated Cheeto, found out that she was trans. The pageant's organizers insisted that the show's rules were very specific that competitors had to be female assigned at birth to compete. Talackova sued the pageant saying the rules were discriminatory and she won. After an intense legal battle, she was allowed to compete.

Now Talackova is a successful model and was the star of her own Canadian reality show, which chronicled her move from Vancouver to Toronto to take the next steps in her modeling career. She has modeled for “Elle” and many other magazines. Talackova is also an LGBTQ activist. She has marched in multiple Pride parades in her home country, Canada, as well as in the US. She is a vocal advocate for LGTBQ rights.

11 Amelia Maltepe

Amelia Maltepe says that from a young age she believed that she was in the wrong body. She grew up in a Bangladeshi family that was strictly Muslim, so the idea of identifying as trans or transitioning was something she knew nothing about. She didn't even have the language for what she was feeling. It wasn't until she moved to Toronto that she began to understand what her feelings meant and that she could do something.

Amelia decided to undergo surgery to get the body she'd always felt like she wanted. She talks openly about spending a fortune on her breast implants and laser hair removal, but she is adamant that she regrets nothing because it was all part of becoming the woman she was meant to be.

Amelia ran in to some serious prejudice when she modeled for the local paper, the “Toronto Sun.” People circulated a petition saying the paper should ban transgender models. Amelia said she was “disappointed,” but “realized it was their problem, not mine.”

Amelia's strictly Muslim family initially rejected her, but have since accepted her for the woman she is. Amelia's story is incredibly important because it demonstrates that being Muslim and South Asian is not at odds with being trans. She has a deep belief in God and believes that God loves her as she is.

10 Andreja Pejic

Andreja Pejic had a particularly interesting transition because she did it completely in the public eye. Andreja was already a famous male model before she transitioned. Back then she was Andrej, and she was photographed for “Paris Vogue” as a man in women's clothing. Andrej's androgynous look was adored by the modeling world and Andrej was featured in multiple magazines identifying as an androgynous male.

In 2014 Andreja came out as transgender and underwent sex reassignment surgery. She explained that she'd known that her body didn't fit her gender identity since she was a teen, but she chose the androgynous identity for a long time because it seemed easier for others to understand. Then she found success as a male model and knew it would be harder to transition, but the whole time she knew she would eventually have sex reassignment surgery.

Andreja has expressed feeling so much more comfortable now that her body matches her gender identity and now that she's known as a female model. She's still an extremely successful model. The team at her agency was actually very supportive of her transition and she hasn't had any trouble booking gigs.

9 Laverne Cox

Laverne Cox exploded in to the public consciousness with her role in Netflix's “Orange is the New Black.” She plays a trans woman in a women's prison who experiences continual harassment because of her identity. The show portrayed her character's backstory, including the transition, and Cox has spoken openly about how important it is that stories like this be told in popular media. She has also been very public about her own story and her own transition.

Cox is an outspoken activist for trans rights. She is involved in many organizations that champion trans rights and has been very vocal about her opposition to the Trump administration. Cox also speaks frequently about the importance of representation. She believes it's incredibly important for trans people to get roles in television and movies so that people can see trans people as people.

Cox has also spoken frequently about the importance of trans people playing trans characters. So often, trans characters are played by actors that are the gender the character was assigned at birth, like a male playing a trans woman. Cox says this contributes to the idea that trans women are just men dressing up as women. She asserts that allowing trans women to play these roles will normalize them as women, which they are.

8 Isis King

Isis King is most well known for being the first trans person to appear on the popular show “America's Next Top Model” in 2009. Overnight, she became one of the most recognized faces in the LGBTQ community. She praises Tyra Banks, the show's producer and host, for being ahead of her times by allowing her to compete on the show. It was one of the first times a trans model had been featured so publicly.

Before her first cycle on ANTM, however, Isis was living in a homeless shelter for LGBTQ youth. Isis moved to NYC so she could transition and, at the time, she didn't have the support of her family. She didn't have enough money to live in NYC, so she found the shelter, which actually offers robust support programming to homeless LGBTQ youth.

As a trans woman of color, Isis has been very vocal about the challenges she faces. She is frank about the fact that trans women of color experience violence at a particularly high rate. She has been active in educating the public about this and has spoken about the need to protect trans women of color.

Isis has a wildly successful modeling career and has gone on to design her fashion line.

7 Juliana Huxtable

Juliana Huxtable's story is a perfect illustration of the individuality of the trans experience. Juliana is intersex, which means that she was born with both male and female body parts. She was assigned male at birth despite the fact that she is intersex. She was raised as a boy in a conservative, religious home. Growing up in Texas she experienced intense racism, and was bullied for being intersex as well.

When she hit puberty she began to develop breasts, a normal part of being intersex, but since she'd been raised as a male, this caused a lot of tension in her home. She eventually developed an eating disorder to try and lose her breasts. She'd never heard of being trans, so she figured she was just a freak.

Not all people born intersex identify as trans. Some of them agree with the gender identity they were given at birth and some choose to identify as non-binary, which means their identity doesn't fit either gender. For Juliana, it became clear that she was a trans woman in college. She eventually came out and changed her last name to Huxtable, after “The Cosby Show.” She saw it as a nod to normal black woman experience that she wanted to live.

Today, Juliana is a successful artist. She has also been the subject of multiple art projects, including an exhibit that is a literal 3D printing of her naked body.

6 Janet Mock

Janet Mock is a journalist, writer, and now television host, whose story of transitioning was the subject of a feature in “Marie Claire” in 2011. Janet is a media powerhouse. She started her career in digital and print media working at People.com and “Marie Claire” and then transitioned to television. She was a correspondent on “Entertainment Tonight” and a host on “MSNBC.”

In 2014 she released a book about her transition. Her book has been widely praised as a raw, honest story of transformation, and an uplifting saga of self discovery. Janet has been interviewed about her experiences as a trans woman on multiple popular shows, and has written about her experiences for a wide range of print and digital publications. She has also received multiple awards for her activism within the LGBTQ community. She is a champion for LGBTQ rights and is widely considered one of the most influential trans woman in media.

5 Carmen Carrera

Carmen Carrera rose to fame when she starred on “RuPaul's Drag Race.” She went on to appear on VH1's “Couple's Therapy.” Despite her success in television, Carrera still has trouble booking work. Companies say they're not quite ready to feature a woman like her. And make no mistake, they mean a trans woman. While some of the trans women on this list are extremely successful and have no trouble getting work, Carrera's story shows that a lot of prejudice against trans people still exists, even in media.

Carrera says she hopes there will be a time where being trans doesn't factor in to her work. She's proud to be trans, but she wants to get booked because she is the right woman for the job, without her trans identity mattering at all.

But she's not doing nothing while she waits to get work. Carmen is currently on a crusade to expose the extreme prejudice against trans people that exists in Brazil. Carmen was born in South America, but her parents moved to New Jersey and she says she's glad they did. She has struggled as a trans woman in the States, but she's quick to say that it's nothing compared to what trans woman face in Brazil, where there is currently an epidemic of violence against trans people.

She is using her fame to educate people about the plight of trans people, and all LGBTQ identifying people, in Brazil. She believes that one of the reasons the problem is so out of control is that it isn't given international attention, so she's raising the conversation to the international scale.

4 Geena Rocero

Geena Rocero started her journey to her true identity relatively young. By 15 she was already competing in beauty pageants as a trans woman. At 17 she moved to the States and got a driver's license as a woman, which she couldn't do in her home country of the Philippines.

Geena underwent sex reassignment surgery at the young age of 19 and her transition was complete. She hustled like heck and built an extremely successful modeling career without almost anyone knowing that she had been assigned male at birth. She was always afraid that her secret would come out and that her career would be ruined. She feared that she would be told by her agency that she wasn't a 'real woman.' Her nightmare was that she would see her identity as a headline in a trashy gossip magazine.

Finally, Geena embraced her fear and decided to take control of her narrative. At age 30, Geena came out as trans in a TED talk. On stage, in front of thousands of people, she said out loud for the first time that she was assigned male at birth and shared a photo of her as a little boy.

Geena's TED talk was extremely well received and she was praised for her phenomenal bravery. She says she felt so much relief finally having the world know her story. She no longer had to fear that her story would be told for her. Geena's modeling career is still fantastic and she spends a lot of her time with the organization “Gender Proud,” which helps people around the world change their gender on their legal documents.

3 Arisce Wanzer

Arisce Wanzer is best known for appearing on the runway reality show “Strut” on Oxygen Network. She's also been featured in many print magazines, including “Vogue.” Wanzer has never been shy about her trans identity. She's loud and proud and she wants everyone to know it. She has talked about how, in the past, trans women were asked to hide their identities in order to book gigs. When Wanzer began modeling she made it clear she wasn't down for that. She felt like it was lying and she refused to lie about her identity.

Her openness certainly hasn't hurt her career and its made her an icon for the transgender community. She does acknowledge that many trans women before her did lose everything when they came out and she speaks about her gratitude for the trans people who have laid it all on the line so that she could be open about her identity and still be successful.

Wanzer also speaks frequently about how the fashion industry needs to diversify, in all aspects, but especially when it comes to trans women. She wants to see trans women in every form of media, and she's going to keep talking about it until it's a reality.

2 Ines Rau

Though French model Ines Rau has been open about her trans identity, she's typically a very private person. She's not a social media junkie and she prefers to live her life in reality instead of digital media. But she's pushing her comfort zones in order to show the world what it's like to be a transgender model.

She was featured on an episode of a popular French show that followed her around and chronicled a day in the life of a trans model. She is also working on a documentary that seeks to encapsulate her experiences as a trans woman and as a model. Her goal with both of these projects is to help people understand what her trans life look like, which is mostly like any other model.

Ines transitioned relatively young and hid her former identity for years. Even after she came out as trans it took her a long time to accept who she was and to find acceptance from others. She has spoken about how she hung back from activism in the trans community because she needed time to process for herself, which highlights the struggle that famous trans people face when they come out in the public eye.

Now Ines is at a place where she's very comfortable with her identity and her life. She's grateful that she gets to be part of what she calls a “revolution” for trans women in fashion.

1 Hari Nef

Hari Nef broke down barriers in 2015 when she became the first trans person to be signed to IMG modeling agency. IMG is one of the most powerful and recognized modeling agencies in the world, representing models like Gisele Bündchen and Gigi Hadid. Nef started modeling as she was transitioning, so modeling is as much a part of her identity as her gender identity.

She describes her journey as “creating, re-creating, meta-creating.” Instead of seeing herself as 'fully transitioned,' Hari sees herself as in a constant state of flux. She is always becoming another girl. She is very outspoken about the different experiences of trans people, constantly reminding people that her experience is just one of many types of experiences trans people have.

Nef made a deliberate choice to walk through her transition in the public eye. She says she could have 'fully transitioned' and then began her modeling career without anyone knowing, but that felt inauthentic. She wanted to be “in the world” and be seen while she was transitioning. She believes that her representation in the fashion industry is a political statement and she wants to make that statement loud and clear.

These amazing and gorgeous transwomen are showing the world a kaleidoscope of experiences. They are showing the world that there is no single trans experience, or one way to be trans, or one way to be a woman. They are breaking down borders and looking amazing while they do it. Slay ladies, slay.