Andreja Pejic has compared the fight for refugees to the fight for transgender rights.
The supermodel announced her transition in 2014 after undergoing male to female gender reassignment surgery.
Born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Pejic and her family fled to Serbia during the Bosnian war when she was a child, eventually settling in Australia when she was eight.
Pejic burst onto the fashion scene aged 19 after being scouted while working in a McDonald’s. Her ascension to supermodel status soon followed and Pejic became a gender fluid icon, gracing the covers of high end fashion magazines such as the French and Italian editions of Vogue.
Speaking to iD magazine about what it means to transition, Pejic said: “It’s old prejudices and accept differences. Just realising that I’m not an alien. I don’t believe that the fight for trans rights or African American rights is different from the fight against war, or the fight for refugees.”
Pejic, who has recorded her journey for a new documentary, said she hoped transition could reassure others scared of doing the same that their lives will be just as fulfilling.
“As a transgender woman I hope to show that after transition (a life-saving process) one can be happy and successful in their new chapter without having to alienate their past,” she said in 2014.
“I think we all evolve as we get older and that’s normal, but I like to think that my recent transition hasn’t made me into a different individual. Same person, no difference at all, just a different sex.”
