{"id":59967,"date":"2025-02-24T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outthere.travel\/?p=59967"},"modified":"2025-02-26T10:34:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T10:34:21","slug":"jill-leflour-the-challenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outthere.travel\/jill-leflour-the-challenger\/","title":{"rendered":"Jill Leflour:
OutThere cover star shares his story of finding community in London’s LGBTQ+ scene"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Born and raised in rural Normandy, Jill Leflour \u2013 data scientist, amateur boxer and OutThere cover model<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 credits his adopted home of London with helping him discover who he was destined to be. And it\u2019s here he\u2019s making a muscular contribution to the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIn London, it\u2019s easy to find your people\u201d, says Jill Leflour. \u201cWhen I moved here from Normandy, I started skateboarding with the queer skate collective Sibling. I met many trans-masc people there, and then the cogs started turning really quickly for me. Within a few months, I figured out I was trans\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Jill, a machine learning engineer for Deutsche Bank and model with Brother Models<\/strong><\/a>, sports have always been a way to find community. Inspired as a 14-year-old to learn karate by Robert Muchamore\u2019s teen-spy book series Cherub<\/em>, he graduated after a couple of years to Muay Thai. That was followed by boxing at women\u2019s clubs when he moved to London in 2018 to study for an MSc, and after his return the following year to his home in the small, conservative coastal town Gouville-sur-Mer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing quite an intensive sport, boxing shapes my body in a way that makes me comfortable\u201d, he says. \u201cIt\u2019s also a very psychological sport, and I think it teaches you that you can do a lot more than you think you can. It\u2019s helped me get past a lot of barriers that were in my head, and which I think I\u2019d absorbed from the negative things people say about trans men in sport \u2013 that we can\u2019t do it, we can\u2019t be competitive\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jill transitioned in 2020, and, moving back to London that October, started looking for a new boxing club. \u201cI\u2019d had top surgery, and passed as male, but I was still very uncomfortable with the locker room situation in mainstream clubs. So I looked for LGBTQ+ clubs \u2013 at the time there were three \u2013 and joined Bender Defenders in east London\u201d (billing itself a \u2018community empowerment movement\u2019, Bender Defenders teaches queer and trans people martial arts and self-defence in a joyful, supportive environment).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today he trains at Knockout LGBTQ+ boxing club, and at trans masc weightlifting classes run by Pecs Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve made probably 90 per cent of the friends I have in London through sport. And beyond sport, London is a place where it\u2019s comparatively easy to feel part of a community as a trans person. There are just so many of us here, your friendships with other trans people don\u2019t have to just be based on the fact you\u2019re both trans. I guess the same is true in some other cities like New York, but it feels like a pretty rare thing\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n
\"Jill<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Jill<\/a>
06<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Jill<\/a><\/figure>\n
A man who can do it all: model-meets-amateur-boxer Jill Leflour poses for pictures in London’s St James’ Park and at The Corinthia London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

And while Jill has much to say about the toxicity of the debate around trans identity and rights in the media, he says he has found the vast majority of people he has met in his professional, social and sporting circles \u2013 which today include mainstream boxing clubs as well as Knockout \u2013 \u201cso supportive. Clueless, often, so many people have still never heard of trans men. But when they do, they\u2019re supportive. So in London, I think it\u2019s easier to be out, and to be out earlier, and to be out in all facets of your life\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by the people who set up clubs like Knockout and Bender Defenders, Jill puts a lot of time into volunteer work. Now an England Boxing level one-qualified coach, he teaches a weekly class at Knockout and serves as a diversity support officer on its operating committee. He\u2019s also a mentor for Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons’ Trust, has completed volunteer training for Gendered Intelligence, and has spearheaded multiple projects for Deutsche Bank\u2019s dbPride programme as its trans representative, work that won him a Stonewall Changemaker of the Year award in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m in a position that\u2019s quite comfortable. My family has been great the whole way through, as has my partner, who I\u2019ve been with since I was 14, and a girl, in high school. And in public, I\u2019m never read as anything other than a man, and when you pass as a trans man, people generally just don\u2019t compute you whatsoever, so I have the privilege of safety in that regard. I get hatred a lot more because I\u2019m gay and hold my partner\u2019s hand on the street than for being trans. But of course, there is a lot of fear in my community. The people who set up my LGBTQ+ clubs created spaces to make people like me feel comfortable. I want to be part of making space for others too\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another project close to Jill\u2019s heart is to challenge England Boxing\u2019s rules which currently don\u2019t allow licensed amateur fights between boxers of different birth genders. He\u2019s working on it with support from Knockout, which 18 months ago became England\u2019s first LGBTQ+ club to achieve affiliation in the governing body\u2019s 144-year history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an advocate for trans people in sports, Jill has appeared on Channel 4, ITVX and in the documentary shorts Bender Defenders<\/em> and Come Out Fighting<\/em>. As a model, he has amassed impressive credits including editorial for Arena Homme+, a campaign for Asos and a runway show for Fred Perry. Of his cover shoot for OutThere\u2019s latest print edition, he says he felt especially relaxed to be part of a team put together by our creative director and photographer Martin Perry that included the queer, trans, non-binary stylist Namal Lanka. \u201cI think there was a kind of unspoken understanding between us that let the creative vision come together very naturally. Their ideas really made sense to me\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I find shoots quite affirming in general \u2013 the client\u2019s hiring me because I look good as a man, which is all I ever wanted. And, on the OutThere shoot, the evening wear and glamorous settings and stuff? I\u2019m a massive Bond fan, so\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jill Leflour was photographed by Martin Perry for The Experientialist Awards Issue Volume II<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Born and raised in rural Normandy, Jill Leflour \u2013 data scientist, amateur boxer and OutThere cover model \u2013 credits his adopted home of London with helping him discover who he was destined to be. 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