![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() A lot of things changed very quickly for me and in my personal place at that time. I stopped probably a month before I was cast, so I didn’t stop intentionally just because I knew I was going to New York to compete –- it was a series of events that happened in my life. Why did you decide to stop your transition and how did it personally affect you throughout the competition? You previously stated that you started your transition prior to your initial appearance on season eight and then you decided to stop before the competition. Because I don’t think that has happened very often or at all in the past in the way that it has for me. But I think it also was, for me, much more of a question that I asked myself - if I was ready to come back as something physically different than what the world has seen before. That’s really what I’m most proud of when I see my other transgender colleagues, actors and models all doing this. So I’m actually really excited to start seeing more transgender individuals come forward and really take their talents and not so much be focused on the fact they they’re transgender but the fact that they are gifted, great people and doing great things in the world because we exist. You know, we still have a long way to go as a community but it’s on the right path. It’s such a great movement that I feel is necessary -– I think it is going to help people to welcome it and to accept it and for people to also feel confident that they can actually achieve something that maybe they didn’t believe could ever happen for them before because opportunities were always limited and acceptance wasn’t always there. I think there are other transgender role models and people who are actually making their careers happen in the form that they want to and really living their lives and pursuing their dreams as who they are, like Laverne Cox in “Orange Is The New Black” and Carmen Carrera with the showgirls. In the past we’ve seen a few examples of transgender models come out but not necessarily transgender fashion designers. So it’s been really, really great to see people’s reactions and minds being changed and hearts being opened up to things that they never knew about before - which I think is the most gratifying thing I could ever ask to come out of this. I am also much more than just a business owner and it’s almost as if my role as a role model has become a part of my purpose here and my role in general. But I think what has really been the outcome is my fans have banded together and shown full support because I am much more than just a fashion designer at this point. The main question for me, though, was because I had already started the business and already started the line and people were following me as Andy South, as a male, I did consider that I could possibly lose a few fans - or many. It hasn’t been as bad as it could have been and I’m also based in Hawaii and generally I feel a lot more comfortable to be here -– it’s part of the culture and the respect is upheld. But I think, fortunately, the fashion industry is so welcoming of people who fall in very different points of this grey area in the LGBT community. The Huffington Post: What was it was like for you to come out as transgender in the fashion world after you had become a household name following season eight of “Project Runway”?Īri South: There were a lot of questions that I had to think about before I made the decision to make it public. ![]()
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