Starting the world's only transgender bodybuilding competition

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http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/10/living/transgender-bodybuilding-competition/index.html

(CNN)Four years ago, Neo Sandja decided to get drunk and throw himself in front of a speeding car.

"I went out to a bar with my friends," he says."When I left, I told them, 'Goodbye, you'll never see me again.' But they were just as drunk as I was and didn't take me seriously."

He found himself stumbling along the side of the road in his Georgia college town in the middle of the night. Headlights were speeding by.

"I kept thinking, 'This is it. I'm going to do this. I just can't be here anymore. Why did I suffer so long?"

He thrust himself into the road, and a car stopped just shy of his leg. Out stepped a cop.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" the cop asked.

"Yes," Neo replied.

"Do you need help?"

"Yes."

Neo explained that he had just realized he was transgender and that his father back in Africa would never accept him as a man.

The officer responded: "My sister is a trans woman."

From hatred to hope

The prevalence of suicide attempts among transgender and gender-nonconforming people is "exceptionally high," according to the 2014 National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Forty one percent of respondents said they had attempted suicide in their lifetime -- a far cry from the overall U.S. prevalence rate of 4.6%. Many in the transgender population face a severe sense of isolation as they struggle to express their own identity, which may go against their community's idea of gender.

In an effort to encourage transgender people to embrace their bodies, Neo founded "FTM Fitness World" in 2012. FTM is an acronym for "female to male." The organization hosts the world's first, and so far only, transgender bodybuilding competition. As CEO, Neo promotes diversity and the idea that there's strength in vulnerability. The bodybuilding competitors aren't necessarily the most confident people, he says, but they own their identities.

Neo Sandja is the CEO of FTM Fitness World, host of the world's only transgender bodybuilding competition.

Growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Neo knew nothing about the LGBT community. But he says he has always known he was a boy.

Neo was born female-bodied, but he says he never identified as such. He never wore dresses or skirts. He wore his hair short and looked to other boys for friendship. He went about his life assuming he was a lesbian, but he was always attracted to straight women.

When Neo hit puberty, he started to look different from his male friends.

"My body was changing. My chest started growing. I got my period, and I thought I hurt myself on a bicycle. I rushed home and I was crying and freaking out."

The only person who really understood him, he felt, was his sister. She died when Neo was just 16.

"She was the only one who had been calling me her bigger brother," he says. "I never really thought about what that meant."

At church, people would ask his mother, "Why is she always dressed like a boy?" It was difficult for his mother to explain it to herself, let alone to other people.

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Neo was not a he when he hit puberty

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Where do I sign up?

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Neo was not a he when he hit puberty

Possibly childhood female circumcision/mutilation could have cause the confusion.