-> 

v

“If you happen to be young and transgender, then you’re used to people being hateful toward you when all you want to do is exist. Through all the insanity in my life, there was only one thing I could control: myself. On the outside, obviously, but on the inside, too. I focused on not letting other people’s opinions have any effect on me whatsoever, and that’s how I’ve lived my life ever since.”

 -> 

v

Heralded as “the goddess of queer New York nightlife” and for her part in paving the way for the “trans revolution,” Amanda Lepore is a multi-faceted transgender model. She has been described as everything from a “moving sculpture” by filmmaker Joel Schumacher to “the missing link between old New York and the current prominence of transgender divas,” by nightlife columnist Michael Musto.

Lepore is known all over the world for her extravagant plastic surgery and for inspiring the work of photographer David LaChapelle. But how did Lepore get from her childhood as a young boy growing up in New Jersey to her current star status as an internationally known transgender icon whose many fans include everyone from Christian Louboutin to Lady Gaga? Here’s a closer look at Lepore’s fascinating journey of personal reinvention.

 -> 

v

Dreaming of Different While Growing Up

Amanda Lepore was born as Armand Lepore in Cedar Grove, New Jersey on November 21, 1976. (She celebrates her birthday on December 5, however, because the real date is “way too close to Thanksgiving and too hard to celebrate.”) Lepore’s father, Herman Lepore, was a chemical engineer, while her mother, Frances Lepore, was a housewife. Lepore’s upbringing lacked the glitz and glamour associated with her life today; her mother struggled with mental health issues, and Lepore had a recurring dream of being stuck like Rapunzel in a tower. In her 2017 memoir, Doll Parts, Lepore suggests that this was as much about the fantasy of having long blonde hair and nothing to do all day but look in a mirror as it was about escaping her life.

During that time, Lepore was also struggling with her sexuality. “Ever since I can first remember, I knew I was a girl,” she recounts. “I couldn’t understand why my parents were dressing me up in boys clothing. I thought they were insane.” After watching a television show on gender reassignment surgery at the age of 10, Lepore started to secretly live as a girl. Looking back, she’s grateful to her grandmother for acceptance in those early days. “My parents in New Jersey weren’t exactly encouraging, but my grandmother was very open-minded. She had lots of costume jewelry and big chests of purses and things, and she would let me play with all of it -- even her makeup and perfume. She just didn’t care. Everything was okay until I started having gym class in school, and they separated the boys from the girls. I started to feel punished when I would be made to do stuff with the boys. When my parents cut my hair, when they wouldn’t let me take ballet classes, I felt like I was being tortured, and I felt ugly. I really envied the girls in my neighborhood,” she recalls.

 -> 

v

In her teen years, Amanda learned to sew, and began working at a gentlemen’s club in New York. There, she met a stripper named Bambi, who gave her hormones in exchange for Lepore’s handmade sparkly bikini tops and G-strings. Amanda’s late-teens were full of challenge and change, including gender reassignment surgery, her mother’s death, a brief marriage, and a final meeting with her father and brother. In her early 20s, Lepore packed up a suitcase, left for New York, and never looked back.

Sharing Amanda with the World

“I was always Amanda, even when I went by a different name,” asserts Lepore. In New York, she was able to fully embrace the woman she’d also identified with being. She first worked as a dominatrix at an S&M club before landing a job at the makeup counter at Patricia Field, a downtown Manhattan boutique known for its unconventional staff. Reflects Ms. Field, “I used to say, ‘Amanda sits in the makeup department and looks at herself all day long. It was a loving joke.’”

 -> 

v

But Lepore would not toil in anonymity for long. She burst onto the New York Club scene in 1992, and was soon spotted by party promoter Michael Alig and publicist Claire O’Connor. They hired her on the spot to become a club regular at the Limelight, which led to similar gigs around the world as well as an appearance on the “Joan Rivers Show.”

Lepore's life changed forever, however, when she met David LaChapelle at Bowery Bar in 1998, and the photographer-muse relationship was born. Since then, her likeness has appeared everywhere from the cover of Rolling Stone to the face of a Swatch watch.

 -> 

v

No discussion of Lepore is complete without mention of her extensive cosmetic alterations, including everything from more common surgeries like breast enhancement to traveling to Mexico to have her bottom ribs broken to create a smaller waistline. And while some people object to Lepore as an “inconvenient spokesmodel” for LGBTQ rights, others argue that her fearless self-expression broke through many boundaries. Activist Denise Norris contends: “The only way we can judge Amanda is through the eyes of 1987. Doing that, she becomes a bookmark to how much we’ve changed in 30 years.” Says Lepore of such criticism, meanwhile, “I’m sure every girl doesn’t want to be a politician and activist and wear Birkenstocks. I’m sure they want to have fun and wear high heels and saturate themselves with makeup and perfume and enjoy that part of being a girl.” Indeed, this is what Lepore has devoted her life to doing, and what she continues to do today to the delight of her many fans and admirers, including Miley Cyrus, who once famously said, “I hate everyone but Amanda Lepore.”

The magnetic individuality that got Lepore noticed nearly 30 years ago still captivates the public today, and Lepore remains busy making public appearances all over the world, clubbing, and recording music. Enthuses veteran club promoter Susanne Bartsch of Lepore’s ongoing appeal, “Every time she takes off that dress, people love it. Roaring. Screaming. And I think that’s an art. She’s the ultimate sex symbol. Move over everybody.”