October 27, 2025 |
At Sunset Studios in Peckham, the atmosphere buzzes with a heady mix of creativity and camaraderie. Cameras click, clothes are strewn across rails and laughter echoes between takes. It’s a photoshoot, yes, but also a gathering of 10 trans men, each bringing their own story, energy and artistry to the room.
They are musicians, poets, athletes, models and more – a constellation of identities that resist easy labels. Ask them what they do and you won’t get a single answer. You’ll get 20, and they’ll be layered, surprising, poetic and proudly contradictory. What emerges on the day is more than a portrait of individual excellence – it’s a collective declaration. A living collage of ambition, vulnerability and defiant trans brilliance, all told on their own terms.
Noah Granville, 29
“I’m just an ADHD kid,” says Noah Granville, a Brighton-based actor and model.“They had to put me somewhere to burn that energy off.” Cue: dance and drama. That energy never left, it just found purpose. He’s played the non-binary lead in Autofiction, a 2022 short film directed by Katie Lambert to accompany the Suede album of the same name, and has other hush-hush projects brewing. “Acting is all I’ve ever really done since I was little.” Coming out at 21 was a reset, professionally and personally: “It flipped what jobs I go for, so now I home in on trans representation.” He’s acting for the kids who don’t yet see themselves on screen. “I didn’t see a lot of trans people growing up, so I’m trying to be that for the next generation.” Mission accepted.
Oscar McGregor, 30
Oscar M – aka Hot Boi Yo – is here to take up space. “I do everything from modelling and performing to being sex-positive in events and queer spaces,” he says. Raised in Australia and now based in London, Oscar found a gap in the cultural landscape back home and filled it with style, grit and glitter. “I wanted to be the first trans [model] in Australia, and I fucking was,” he says with a laugh. “I got into all of this because I wanted people to see how amazing we are, so even though I’ve been terrified to do some things, I always push myself.” His aesthetic is power, his mission is visibility and his vibe is unmistakably main character.
Samuel Moir-Smith, 26
Academic, educator, speaker: Samuel Moir-Smith is shaking the foundations of how medicine thinks about sex and gender. “I specialise in studying trans health and medicine,” he says. “A lot of my work critiques the concepts of biological sex, gender and trans identities in medicine and science – that’s my day job.” Born and raised in Essex, Moir-Smith transitioned in school – “had a great experience with that, super fortunate” – and has since turned his focus outward. “We know that healthcare experiences are really bad… So let’s trace that back.” Now, he’s challenging the curriculum itself. “I’m trying to get the students to see sex as socially constructed as gender is. That’s the struggle.”
Freddie Lewis, 25
Meet Freddie Lewis: a songwriter, producer, sound designer and musician. Genre? “Pop with influences from jazz, soul and maybe indie.” Think: smooth sonic storytelling with a Bristolian soul and a London postcode. When we speak, Lewis has just returned from SXSW London, and is floating between two cities. “I record and release music, I tour, I perform live – I love performing.” He’ll have already done a show at The Libra theatre-café in Camden by the time you read this and, if the stars align, a few new singles might be in the world too. What’s consistent? Lewis’s devotion to the moment. “I’ll know loads more by the end of July,” he says. He probably already does.
Elliot Douglas, 26
“Hi, I’m Elliot Douglas, an actor, musician, climber… and proudly deaf and trans,” he says. “I believe in in-person community spaces where there’s room for everyone,” he adds, pausing to tap his red hearing aids. “I like making my disability visible. If I take them out, it’s practically silent – so I wear them loud and proud.” After nearly snagging a part in Sex Education (“getting to the top two taught me my transness and deafness aren’t barriers, they’re unique selling points”), Douglas landed his first proper gig on Heartstopper in 2023. “Doing that one-minute scene was a revelation,” he says with a grin. His journey is stitched together by bold cuts, like having short hair to show off his hearing aids, auditions that defy drama-school dogma and getting to the top of peaks, literal (he regularly scales climbing walls) or metaphorical. “Taking ownership of what once made me feel like shit – and turning it bright?” he says. “That’s powerful.”
Tanaka Fuego, 25
“My name is Tanaka Fuego, my pronouns are he/they and I’m a poet, songwriter, musician… just a lover of language.” Tanaka doesn’t speak so much as unfurl verse. Each thought is measured, rhythmic, as if he’s halfway between a conversation and a performance. “I’ve been a writer for the past eight years.” He began writing at 15 after a suicide attempt and the unexpected discovery of a poetry course. “Poetry saved my life,” he says. Since then, the page and music have been his compasses. “I make alternative hip hop, but in the expansive sense.” In 2024, Fuego flew to Paris with his brother Eliad, an “incredible producer”, and they recorded 22 demos in four days. “It was so urgent, just the need to share.” He creates with emotional precision, wielding vulnerability like a sharpened tool. His art is diaristic but generous, drawing from personal fracture to create something communal, healing and defiantly beautiful. Fuego isn’t just a performer, he’s a conduit. You don’t just listen to him, you feel him.
Jill Leflour, 28
Jill Leflour is the kind of guy who can box your ears off and build you a neural network. “I’m a model, boxer, coach and AI engineer,” he says breezily, as if that were a perfectly natural résumé. Born in Normandy, France, he’s been working in machine-learning and data science since graduating from the engineering school Isae-Supaero in Toulouse in 2020 with two master’s degrees. His athletic beginnings were more karate kid than coder, though – “I was reading this book series by [young- adult fiction writer] Robert Muchamore and they taught karate in it. I was like, ‘This is really cool, I want to do that!’” A Muay Thai detour and some shin damage later, boxing stuck. Leflour has been at it since 2017, skating in between. “I’m an amateur,” he insists. But we see a champion in the ring and at the keyboard.
D Mortimer, 36
Are you a poetry fan on the hunt for brilliant wordsmiths? Look no further than Marlo. The London-born writer and performer – publishing under the name D Mortimer – spans mediums and meanings, zines and stages, books and communal connections. “I make books and zines, and I perform my work around London in communities with other trans writers and performers,” they explain, packing decades into a single breath. Why write? “There’s this writer I really admire called Robert Glück and he said that writers become writers because they never got over the fact that other people are different from them.” For Marlo, writing is about not understanding. “Language has always been the way I work things out… although with the awareness that you can never really understand other people.”
Finn Buchanan, 23
“Trans is what I am rather than who I am,” says Finn Buchanan. “Other aspects of what I do are more defining of me as a person than my gender history.” Still, he’s proud because everything he is now was earned. His home with girlfriend and fellow trans creative Charley Dean Sayers is his sanctuary. “I feel that I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of.” Testosterone, he says, has been “a priceless tool” and his moustache – finally coming in – is joy incarnate. His icons? A full house of trans brilliance, from the internet personality Cookie Tookie to the late, great musician and producer Sophie to Charley herself, whose photo diary is a touchstone. Buchanan’s message is clear: visibility matters, representation is vital and there is no shortcut to becoming yourself. “I’m a result of my mistakes,” he says, “and my responses to those have made me who I am.”
Tai, 30
Tai, half-Thai and born in Thailand, is an eyewear whisperer at Kings Cross Eyes in North London, where he restores and sells vintage designer glasses. “I really needed work and I was kind of into fashion anyway, so I thought, why not?” he says. What started as curiosity turned into something skilled and soulful. “The oldest pair I’ve seen is maybe from the 1920s. We polish them, bring them up to scratch and sell them.” Call it optical archaeology or just great taste, Tai brings life back to forgotten frames – with just a little polish and a lot of style.
Taken from 10 Men Issue 62 – BIRTHDAY, EVOLVE, TRANSFORMATION – out on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
IN ALL THEIR GLORY
Photographer DEREK RIDGERS
Talent FINN BUCHANAN, SAMUEL MOIR-SMITH, OSCAR MCGREGOR, D MORTIMER, FREDDIE LEWIS, NOAH GRANVILLE, TANAKA FUEGO, TAI, JILL LEFLOUR and ELLIOT DOUGLAS
Text EMILY PHILLIPS
Hair TAKUMI HORIWAKI using ORIBE Hair Care
Make-up MARI KUNO at Saint Luke Artists using GLOSSIER
Photographer’s assistant VLADY VALA
Fashion assistants TALIA PANAYI and BEA ALLISON
Hair assistant LEE PATRICK
Casting JACK BATCHELOR
Production ZAC APOSTOLOU and SONYA MAZURYK
