A trans model has shared his story of growing up trans, and Mercedes have turned it into their newest ad.

The German car manufacturer’s new campaign is called A Guide to Growing Up.

For the first episode in a series of clips, they worked with trans model Benjamin Melzer – the first trans guy to make it onto the cover of Men’s Health.

The video sees Melzer interviewed by Heiner Lauterbach, a famous German actor, about growing up trans.

‘I never considered taking my own life, I never had those kinds of thoughts,’ Melzer says.

‘But I knew I couldn’t take it anymore.’

Melzer talks about how he did not know there were ways and options to help him when he was struggling with his identity.

‘You would have thought I was a little boy,’ he said.

‘I stopped going to the public pool at some point. The girls would stare at me and I was mortified.’

Melzer said it was like being trapped in a room – you can see the world outside, but you are unable to fully participate.

‘And now it’s up to you do decide,’ Melzer said.

‘Will you stay in that rom and watch or will you go for it and walk through that door?’

The model came out to his friends and family at the age of 23. It was not always easy, he said.

‘You have to fight for who you really are

‘I expected everyone to understand overnight and call me Ben straightaway,’ he said.

‘But I was forgetting that people had been calling me Yvonne for 23 years.’

Coming out to his parents, Melzer tells Lauterbach, also involved a lot of tears.

‘I cried when I told my mother, and she immediately cried with me,’ he said.

‘And the same night I said: “We need to tell dad”. The moment I said the words I knew, it’s now or never.’

But his family and his girlfriend always stood by the model’s side, from his coming out through his gender confirmation to today.

‘I asked myself for the longest time, why me? Why is this happening to me,’ he said.

‘And I told myself: It doesn’t matter now, you have to fight for who you really are.’

In the end, his interviewer asks Melzer whether he ever regretted transitioning.

‘Not for a second,’ he said.