Ruby Rose has been very outspoken about her gender fluidity, noting that she doesn’t fully identify with one gender (male or female).

The last couple of weeks, this story that has flooded mainstream media outlets, with many news outlets running with the headline of how she once wanted to be a boy.

Also read: 13 Women Who Dare To Challenge Gender Stereotypes in the Media

The model-DJ-actress went on to Access Hollywood to explain what it actually means to question your gender. Something many of us can identify with through those tough coming out years.

When I was younger, for sure I [thought about transitioning]. I had this jar that I would collect dollars, in fact, we were so poor, it would have been cents, so I probably had 19 cents to go towards this surgery that I really didn’t know a lot about. I think I’d seen like a daytime documentary, probably something on ‘Oprah,’ and I was like, ‘That’s what I’m going to do.’ So I started saving from probably the age of five. When I got to 15, [it was] when I kind of decided to get more into my body. I shaved my head and my mom was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on right now, but if you are happy, then do it.'”

Rose said that shaving her head, altering her appearance, and changing the way she spoke made her see she didn’t actually want to transition.

I realised I didn’t want to transition, I just wanted to be more comfortable in my own skin.”

Which is actually something a lot of queer women struggle with – feeling comfortable in the way we look. We grow up seeing the ideals of a hetero-normative lifestyle, which we don’t truly fit into.

We haven’t grown up with many positive role models. Female gender and sexuality is perceived to be one way – the Disney princess, the Kim Kardashian.

What Rose is doing is saying actually there is something alternative out there and its ok. And she is doing it in a big way, and without fear.

It took her years to conquer Hollywood, and 24 hours to become a massive success once season 3 of Orange is The New Black hit our screens.

Rose, who is launching a gender-fluid brand, goes on to say that gender is sometimes complicated.

Gender fluidity is not really feeling like you’re at one end of the spectrum or the other. For the most part, I definitely don’t identify as any gender. I’m not a guy; I don’t really feel like a woman, but obviously I was born one. So, I’m somewhere in the middle, which — in my perfect imagination — is like having the best of both sexes. I have a lot of characteristics that would normally be

Watch Rose on Access Hollywood below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB-orSX0mWY