Zackery Torres is sashaying into a new chapter of their lives.
On May 30, the former Dance Moms star, who uses both they/them and she/her pronouns, took to Tiktok to announce their big "life update."
With Dua Lipa's hit song "Levitating" playing in the background, Torres revealed their news while dancing.
"I'm transitioning!" the reality TV personality shared. "That means I'm transgender if you didn't know. My pronouns are they/she, which means that they or she are totally fine, and I'm just hopping on here to tell you that I'm going to be posting more on Tiktok and I'm excited about it!"
Torres was previously the first male-born contestant on Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition with coach Abby Lee Miller. They went on to compete with instructor Cathy Stein and the Candy Apples team for Dance Moms.
Since their reality TV fame, Torres graduated with honors from the University of Southern California in 2021 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in dance. According to their Twitter page, Torres is enrolled in a Masters of Arts program in public relations and advertising to be completed in 2022.
The trans non-binary dancer came out their sophomore year, and revealed to USC student newspaper The Daily Trojan that their time in the spotlight with Dance Moms affected their coming out.
@zackery_torres LIFE UPDATE! #fyp #foryou #dancemoms #viral #update #clasof2021
? Levitating - Dua Lipa
"I started seeing all of the expectations that teachers—well-known dance teachers, and well-known choreographers—had for me as a male dancer growing up and at the time identifying as a boy," Torres explained in October 2020. "'Oh, you're too feminine, you need to dance like a man.' Just having teachers tell you that on national television, all this stuff, it kind of really got to me."
Torres continued, "Everyone always talks about how inclusive the arts communities are. But I'm just not really feeling it. I'm not seeing it on an everyday scale."
They wrote an instructional guide, An Evolving Conversation on Gender: Dance Edition, in August 2020 to advocate for change and guide communities in discussion topics. The book was published in conjunction with the organization Continuum Community, in which Torres is a founder and CEO.
"My goal in some way is to keep growing, keep pushing, so that any little young dancers out there can look up and see a non-binary dancer who went through the convention circuit, who went to college, who is trying to do something better for the community," Torres previously explained in a conversation with ballet teacher Francisco Gella.
"When I think about gender inclusivity and I think about how we can best move forward as a society and how we evolve and grow, I think about compromise...It's not about us compromising our identity; it's about those who feel strong enough and feel comfortable enough to meet in the middle for a minute to then bring everyone over to the side of inclusivity."