Laith Ashley

Ashley grew up in a Dominican American household[2] in Harlem, New York. Always athletic and competitive, he practiced individual and team sports and by age 9 was already into boxing, baseball and particularly basketball his preferred sport. He continued playing sports into high school including competitively sometimes in the boys' team. He was named top athlete both boys and girls by the school's athletic director.[3]

Ashley was raised in a church-oriented family, his father being Roman Catholic and his mother Pentecostal Christian which influenced some of the attitudes held by family during his coming out. First, Ashley came out as homosexual when he was 17 years old,[4] although he never called himself a "lesbian." He explained, "Being assigned female at birth, I thought I was a lesbian, even though I hated the word.”[2] Later, he realized that he was transgender at 19 years old, after watching videos produced by transgender people on YouTube. This prompted him to come out as a transgender man in 2013.[2] Ashley began the female-to-male process in January 2014 with hormone therapy. His voice deepened and he quickly grew a beard. About a year later, he had a double mastectomy.[2] Ashley adopted the name Laith (meaning "lion" in Arabic) having admired the works of Laith Hakeem. He didn't however drop his name Ashley keeping it as part of his stage name as Laith Ashley.

Ashley attended business school and studied psychology at Fairfield University in Connecticut.[5] He subsequently worked at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, where he worked with LGBT homeless youth as a social worker.[2] He explained in an interview, "When I was a kid, I’d always wanted to be a performer, singer, dancer — but as a guy. But then, I didn’t think it was possible. I did what my parents said: went to college, got a 9-to-5 job... and people would always tell me, 'You should model!'"[6]

Laith Ashley is an activist particularly in transgender issues. He worked with FLUX, a division of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is dedicated to raising awareness and providing support to trans and gender-nonconforming people,[23] actively takes part in Pride parades, and has talked on numerous occasions of the dangers of transphobia and visibility of ethnic minorities.[24] He has also appeared in a great number of LGBTQ public awareness campaigns including a high profile campaign by T-Mobile,[25][26] the "We Are Bold" campaign by AT&T and GLAAD[27] He has also talked about challenges of transitioning, about bullying, racism and very notably the visibility of transgender people in the modelling industry.

In a lengthy interview with The Huffington Post titled "I Am Trans, But It’s Not All I Am", Laith Ashley said he aspired to be more than just a transgender man. "I try to be open, more open than others may be. I try to think of it as a cis gender person who is looking at their gender as another other than their own, and if this is something they have never thought about or researched. It’s normal that they will have a lot of questions, it’s just how you ask them. You have to at least be sensitive. I think it’s important to talk about it but we want to let people know we are people just like everyone else. Don’t put us on display and under a spotlight and make it uncomfortable. I want to show everyone that yes I am trans, but its not all that I am. The same goes for all trans people. Everyone’s transition is their own; my story, my transition, my identity is my own. Everyone’s identity, trans or not, is their own... There are people that went male/female or female/male and people that are in between. I think before I was in the industry and working with the LGBT industry, I was very on the masculine spectrum; Now I feel more fluid."[28]

• Laith Ashley Official Facebook page
• Laith Ashley VEVO YouTube channel
• Laith Ashley Instagram Channel
• Laith Ashley at IMDb