Although Laith Ashley De La Cruz came out as gay at age 17, he came out as trans at age 19, after watching videos made by transgender people on YouTube. He has since become quite possibly the only out trans male Hispanic model ever to appear in mainstream US media.
“When I was a kid, I’d always wanted to be a performer, singer, dancer — but as a guy,” he said in a 2016 interview. “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!’”
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He began transitioning around age 24, and the following year he posted images from a photo shoot with friends on Instagram. The pictures reportedly went viral after trans actress and model Laverne Cox shared them. His career then picked up when he appeared on Strut, a 2016 TV docuseries about trans models, produced by Whoopi Goldberg.
By spring 2014, he got his break in Barneys New York’s landmark ad campaign, “Brother, Sisters, Sons & Daughters.” He has now modeled for international fashion brands like Calvin Klein and Diesel, and has appeared in the pages of high-profile fashion magazines like British GQ and Vogue France.
In 2019, he became the first trans member of the hunky and helpful Pit Crew in RuPaul’s Drag Race; and he even played the love interest in the 2023 Taylor Swift music video “Lavender Haze.”
Despite De La Cruz’s prominence and seemingly quick rise to fame, it’s rare to see transgender men, let alone ones of Hispanic heritage, in media at all.
Gay trans male author Grayson Bell estimated that trans men only make up 15% of all trans characters in media. A total of seven trans male characters appeared in mainstream movies, and a total of 23 appeared in TV shows between 2022 and 2025, according to the LGBTQ+ media watchdog group GLAAD.
While there’s no official count of how many trans male models are working in the US, it’s rare to see them on runways or in magazines.
Queer fashionistas may be aware of the few trans men working in fashion, like Marc Jacobs model Nathan Westling, Canadian model Krow Kian, American fitness model Aydian Dowling, runway model Casil McArthur, deaf Jewish-Asian model Chella Man, and Black actor and model Brian Michael Smith. But the first four trans men on that list are white, making Hispanic trans men virtually invisible in the worlds of fashion and media.
Even though Hispanics and Latine people grew from 12.5% to 19% of the US population from 2000 to 2022, they made up only 5.5% of speaking characters in mainstream films during the same period, the University of California reported in 2023. A 2021 count conducted by the Los Angeles Times found that Hispanic and Latine characters made up approximately 5% to 6% of broadcast TV roles in the US.
As an Afro-Latino trans man of Dominican-American descent, Ashley’s visibility is a relative rarity. Of course, other Hispanic trans male models exist — evidenced by the existence of trans-focused modeling agencies like Trans Models NYC, ZBD Talent, and Slay Model Management (the all-trans agency that represents Ashley) — but they’re fighting for a limited number of jobs in a highly competitive industry that is largely dominated by Eurocentric, cisgender, and size-ist beauty standards; a preoccupation with social media follower counts; and a fear of transphobic backlash from politicians and online activists.
“Even with all I’ve accomplished, I still feel there’s tokenism and I’m offered [opportunities] simply for being trans. But I have to take it because I need to make a living,” Ashley said in a June 2023 interview. “There’s so much nuance because there’s also me not being visibly trans, so if they want to show someone that’s trans, they want to show someone who’s visibly trans. In those cases, I lose opportunities because then I just become just a regular guy. Either I’m too visibly trans, or I’m not trans enough.”
But just as he was inspired by other trans people sharing their stories, De La Cruz’s presence in mainstream media can inspire upcoming generations of queer Hispanics.
Luckily, his star has only continued to rise. He played a recurring role in the 2022-2025 queer comedic family series Unconventional, appeared in the 2025 sci-fi action film Absolute Dominion, and has even acted in the massively popular HBO Max medical drama series The Pitt.
In an October 6 Instagram video, he noted that he was recently able to visit the Dominican Republic for the first time in 14 years. It gave him the opportunity to learn about life in his family’s country of origin, and to teach his family and friends about his identity and experience.
“Learning about and remembering our past, connecting and being present, and forging a future that is as inclusive, diverse, and full of love and growth as our communities are is something I will stand for as long as I have breath in my lungs,” he said. “Singa historia no hay futuro. Without history, there is no future.”
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