“I actually wanted to be a singer before Jackie did,” Juliet Evancho confided to Nightline reporter Juju Chang. And Juliet performed and recorded with her sister Jackie, notably on the song “I See the Light.” But Juliet is not the same person now as when she sang that song at age 13.
“I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to sacrifice who you are in order to be loved and accepted,” Juliet wrote in an op-ed for Teen Vogue. “On my 17th birthday my life finally began.” Juliet used that 2015 birthday to reveal to her family that she was transgender. Assigned male at birth, Juliet always knew she was a girl. “I can remember talking to my mom about my feelings,” she wrote. “I told her I don’t think I’m gay — there’s more to it than that. I feel like I really am a girl.” At only 11, she recognized she was “a girl trapped in a boy’s body.”
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Now, Juliet is a model represented by CC3 Entertainment. She walked in the dapperQ show at New York Fashion Week and has frequently shared photos on her Instagram page. She also uses her platform to fight for transgender rights, and her modeling is a big part of that. “I’m not your average cut-mold model,” she told The Cut. “Obviously everyone knows I’m transgender, so I see modeling as a way to show people that trans people are in every industry, they’re doing their jobs — they’re people, too.”
