I chanced upon this gem of an interview shared in the sgbutterfly facebook group by the admin. I watched a bit of it without too much expectations and ended up making it through the whopping 3 hours long interview (broken into 3 separate episodes based on the themes and because it was too long). Kudos to the host for asking many interesting questions and for Aerie to share her story, along with giving well-balanced and thoughtful answers about many topics that transwomen and crossdressers face. Even though it was a long interview Aerie was pleasant and even slightly positive sounding, which was easy on the ears for sharing what could have very well been a heavy topic.

Aerie Rei is quite an interesting character, with a growing up story that I think many crossdressers and baby-transwomen can relate with, and a bit more. She came from a staunchly Christian family, spent 10 years in an all boy-school, started being drawn to everything female in Primary school, went through the phase of over-compensating by embracing toxic masculinity before snapping out of it, went to army, university, had a few girlfriends, worked in the Government, came out to her friends, colleagues and her parents, got kicked out of the house by her dad. She started her transition in 2020, at some point chose to be a porn star because it is something she loves doing and even flew to America for her first professional porn shoot. She was also fortunate enough to find love and married a Transman in Singapore (they have a polyamorous relationship). 

You could say, she had the typical middle income Singapore guy experiences and life trajectory before doing a major direction change. 

I think the interview is well worth the watch, especially if you're starting out or in the middle of your journey. If you've got no time, you can skip along to the parts that you are interested in. The host conveniently put a whole bunch of chapter links for each of his questions. 

Part 1 of the Youtube video is embedded below, while Part 2 and Part 3 are linked. Do have a watch! Alternatively you can also hear it as a podcast.