Alex Consani Says Trans People Have a “Really Beautiful Connection,” Even in the Face of Trump’s America

Reported by Harper's Bazaar.

Alex Consani didn't arrive at fashion's upper echelon by accident — she got there by being undeniable. The model, now a cover star, came out to parents who had little framework for understanding trans identity and watched them build one anyway, supporting her through hormone replacement therapy during puberty. That foundation shaped everything. And now, at the height of her career, it's the foundation she's offering to others.

According to Harper's Bazaar, the shift in who approaches Consani at events tells you everything about where we are politically. Early on, it was trans youth seeking connection. Now it's their parents — frightened, searching for proof that their support matters. "They say, 'I support my child because of the stories that you've told about your parents supporting their children and how much that has shaped you,'" Consani explains. Under an administration that has made dismantling LGBTQIA+ rights a signature project, that kind of mirror — someone who made it through, visibly intact — carries serious weight.

Privilege Has a Shape, and Consani Sees Hers Clearly

What distinguishes Consani from a lot of celebrity advocates is her willingness to interrogate her own position in the story. She transitioned when gender-affirming medical care was more accessible, and she knows that visibility — passing, in the bluntest sense — affords her a legibility that others don't have. "I'm considered more acceptably trans than someone who just transitioned, even though we're the same type of trans," she says flatly. The political gutting of healthcare access doesn't just restrict options; it creates a hierarchy of whose transness gets recognized. She's aware she sits near the top of it, and that the people coming to her for hope are often navigating far steeper terrain.

Still, she doesn't let the complexity collapse into despair. The trans community, she argues, has something that cuts across every other axis of difference — race, class, how long you've been out, how you read to strangers on the street. "No matter what privilege you have within it... you're still trans. Ultimately, you're seen as trans people before anything else that you are." In a political moment designed to isolate and fragment, she calls that shared ground — deliberately, without sentimentality — "a really beautiful connection."

When the world gets hostile, community doesn't dissolve — it densifies, and Consani is betting on that compression to outlast the current climate.

Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.