( JUSTIN MIN. HE/HIM. TRANS MALE ) Did I just see ( SUNGMIN âMOONâ GWON )? This ( TWENTY-SEVEN ) year old ( RACE CAR DRIVER ) has been living in LA for ( NINE YEARS ). Some say that they are ( AFFECTIONATE + BRIGHT ) as well as ( DEFENSIVE + CRITICAL ). If they had a theme song, some might say that it would be ( FORMIDABLE BY TWENTY ONE PILOTS ).
Name: Sungmin âMoonâ Gwon
Nicknames: Moon, Minsu
Occupation: Race Car Driver
Height: 5â˛9âł
Birthday: March 25, 1993
Gender: Trans Male
Sexual Orientation: Pansexual
TW: transphobia, car accident, surgery, bipolar disorder | please let me know if there are more so I can tag them!
Moon was born in Seoul, Korea to wealthy parents-- he was born into old, rich families with traditional values. His parents were absent his whole childhood so he grew up around nannies the whole time. Even though he was part of a rich family, his nannies tried to bring him up with a close to normal childhood.
The moment he was the right age for schooling, he was immediately shipped off to the US to the best boarding school they had to offer. It was hard for him because he was that one Asian kid in a room full of rich, spoiled kids. But he made the boarding school his home and eventually he has made friends there. It was through them that he discovered racing-- his classmates would get cars on their 16th birthday and race them out in the countryside. Thatâs where he learned how to drive and start racing himself.
Driving was never something that interested Moon before-- he was taken to and from places using a chauffeur. There was a thrill to it that he never understood. The feeling he would get would give him a high for days, even weeks, and when the feeling stopped, he would crash. There were days when he couldnât even get up his bed or he would just completely lose all focus and go through motions of his day, only to realize days had passed and he couldnât remember anything. That had happened to him before and he never questioned it.
Graduating from high school, Moon decided to go to UCLA. He lived Downtown, closer to where drag racing was being held. Moonâs first year of drag racing, at the age of 18, an agent approached him and asked if he had ever thought about modelling before. He never thought about it and decided to give it a try, if only to start supplementing himself. Even though his parents have been giving him money, he only ever used it for the apartment and for the car that he used for racing.
By his second year of studying in university, he finally declared his major as both physics and engineering. Moonâs parents decided for him that he would be running the US branch of their business and would be pursuing business studies. This warranted a visit from his parents-- a surprise one where they say and discovered Moonâs âsecret.â They discovered that he was trans. His parents didnât know because Sungmin rarely saw them-- he always hid it from them because he knew he wouldnât be accepted.
The visit did not end well-- Moon was disowned by his parents because they didnât accept who he was. Luckily, he already had the foresight to plan that it would end up that way. Since he started modelling, he had been using his money to support himself since his modelling career took off and made him enough and much more. He happily cut ties with his parents and lived his life the way he wanted it.
While his modelling career proved lucrative, he still wanted to get into professional racing. Once he graduated, he had the chance to do so in the Indy 500 races. In his first year alone, he was already proving to be a great rookie with sponsorships just coming and coming. His racing was promising and people took a gamble at him which paid off in the end. On his second year, he placed podium. His third year went exactly the same-- him placing second compared to the third he received last year.
Fourth year was proving to be the same when, on his very first race, he was in an accident on the track that he couldnât avoid-- it was unavoidable and even though it wasnât his fault, he was caught in the crossfires of it which took him out of the races for a year. The accident had left him bed-ridden for quite some time, if only to rest his upper body which was bruised and banged up. It was around this time, that he finally decided to get his top surgery. He had all the time during that year to rest and recuperate without the outside world trying to look for any other reason why he would have surgery. He lived quietly and out of the public eye then until the race the following year which he won podium again.
Moon has been training in the UK, using much faster cars that the Formula-One racers use. Half a year spent in the UK and he was back to Los Angeles again where he had much needed time off.
Bonus facts:
Sungmin has undiagnosed bipolar disorder-- he still has manic episodes and depressive episodes but they are less severe than when he was in high school. He goes untreated because it was something that was never given importance while he was growing up. It was just taken with a grain of salt. Moon is oblivious to this and doesnât see any reason why he would have to go to the doctor to have it checked.
Moon still isnât outâ he has told the organization and his sponsors that he is trans and theyâre all supportive. He canât say the same for the people and even his fellow racers. He prefers to keep it quiet because he didnât want all the focus to go on his gender or sexuality. At some point, he does plan to come out but for now, heâd like to focus on establishing himself as a good racer first and figure out the rest later.
