With Olympic champion Bruce Jenner’s transition to a woman making headline news across the world, Amazon’s trans-centric series Transparent winning a Golden Globe award as the year’s best comedy, and actor Laverne Cox stealing the hearts of critics for her groundbreaking role on Netflix’s ratings hit Orange Is the New Black, transgender individuals are entering the mainstream and becoming more understood, admired and relevant than ever. But none more so than transgender female-to-male bodybuilder and model, Aydian Ethan Dowling, who is on-target to become the next “Ultimate Guy” on the cover of Men’s Health magazine.
The 27-year-old from Eugene, Oregon, is currently the leader in the contest to become the magazine’s November cover model, in a competition won last year by former sergeant Noah Galloway, who had his arm and leg ripped off by a landmine in Iraq.
In applying to the magazine, Dowling said, “The way I enjoy to stay fit and healthy is keeping with a bodybuilding-style routine, as well as some light cardio on my normal every day. On days “off,” I love to go with my wife, Jenilee, out on hikes around the Pacific North West. Although I also love my day-to-day routines, smashing through thresholds and sculpting the body, there is nothing quite like the beauty being outside can do to a person. I always have this sense of discovery and drive through my hikes that is unlike anything in the gym or the track.”
There is nothing in his application that mentions that at 16, he had come out as a lesbian to friends and family, and was exclusively dressing in men’s clothing by the time he turned 21. There is little to alert the voting public that he began taking hormone replacement therapy in 2009, and has been injecting 1/2cc of testosterone into his buttocks every week since that time.
A faint scar is the only sign that he had his breasts removed in 2012, the same year he got married to Jenilee. He has yet to alter his vagina, even though he refers to it as a penis.
Currently, Dowling is far ahead in the public voting portion of the contest with 60,178 votes. His closest competitor out of the hundreds of candidates tallies in at 12,361. And while the public vote accounts for only 10% of the final ballot to win the contest, the magazine is making it clear that it is taking Dowling seriously as a contestant.
According to the magazine, it is “looking for a guy who’s physically fit, who lives a healthy lifestyle, leads by example, has overcome some challenges in his life, and somebody who our readers can learn something from.”
According to his Facebook page, Dowling identifies himself as an Entrepreneur, and says, that he is a Transgender Vlogger known as ALionsFears. He is the creator/owner of Point 5cc, a Trans Style Clothing Company, which gives some of its profits to fund transgender surgery.
In Eugene, Dowling is a fitness trainer to other transgender males to help them develop a sense of body and self. It has been a struggle that Dowling has had to overcome himself.
In an early video that he made when first beginning his transformation, Dowling addressed his greatest fears.
“I’m afraid of looking in the mirror and not being able to recognize myself; of waking up, taking a shower and looking in the mirror, and being like ‘Who the f*ck are you?’
“I’m afraid of just being different, of being in a room of everyone and knowing that I am the different one. That I will always be the different one in that room.”
“I’m afraid of being everyone else’s entertainment. You know, something to look at for everyone else.”
Now he says, the world is an easier place, as more transgender come out, and the media reports the fact.
Dowling will add to that media coverage when he makes an appearance on the Ellen show on Tuesday, May 26.
“It’s so nice to know there’s a community out there,” he says.
