A former bodybuilder has spent $110,000 to transition from male to female.
Allie Rose Keeler is a former bodybuilder from Montana and spent majority of her life hiding behind masculine muscle and an alpha male personality. But after 30 years of living as a man, she finally accepted her true identity and transitioned to a woman.
As reported by DailyMail, over the course of her transition, former bodybuilder Allie Rose Keeler spent $110,000 of gender reassignment surgery to achieve her deepest desire of being a woman. But she knew that she was different as early as four years old. By the age of 14, she realized that the “different” feeling within her was specifically that she was trans. She just didn’t have a word to put to it before then.
According to the story and also a personal essay she posted on Medium in 2018, she was raised in a conservative family and felt forced to hide her true self from everyone around her.
Not only did she hide her true self, she forced herself to become what the people around her and in her community expected her to be – an alpha male and masculine person. She started training at the gym and building up massive muscle. She became a bodybuilder and personal trainer.
She lived this way for over 20 years, doing everything possible to suppress her true self and focus on being the most extreme and masculine “man” she could possibly be.
It wasn’t until her mother survived a heart attack in 2016 that she realied how short life could be. It was in that moment that she started to accept herself for who she was – and began to start her transition into a woman.
In April of 2017, Allie started seeing a gender identity therapist. She started hormone therapy and has since undergone three surgeries and 15 hair removal sessions. These surgeries ended up costing her about $110,000.
Despite finally accepting herself, she still finds passion in fitness, strength training, and her muscles. She’s still a personal trainer, still trains at the gym regularly, and is able to do so as a proud woman.”
Allie’s story is simply one of many in the fitness space. There have been many reports and stories of athletes who transition from a man to a woman, which has also brought up controversy in professional sports. What category should these trans women compete in? Should they compete in their gender identity or their born identity.
While many pro leagues have pushed for progress allowing trans athletes to compete in their category of choice, many fans have expressed concern over the fairness of the competition. Does a trans woman have an advantage due to being born a man?
We’ve asked this question to various athletes in our sit down interview sessions, our GI Exclusive videos, which you can browse through at our official GI Exclusive page here.
*header image courtesy of Instagram.