Meet Aliza Ivy Jade Johnson.

A woman whose sheer determination for change is seeing her enter a career in an industry she can understand through first-hand experiences.

She's educated on pretty much every aspect of the mental health realm and can reel off facts and figures about drug and alcohol reform, homelessness, depression and LGBT+ acceptance.

She's a green thumb, animal lover, beauty expert and self-confessed drama queen.

But most of all, Miss Johnson is a teacher. She's willing to open up about anything you want to ask her because she acknowledges her role in society to educate others.

While she's lived in Warrnambool for almost her entire life, you might not know Miss Johnson. Instead, you might know her by her dead name.

Because Aliza Johnson is a transgender woman.

Having suffered through a roller coaster of experiences and emotions to be the confident woman she is today, Miss Johnson is an open book sharing her story to anyone who asks - so long as it's done politely.

"I'm OK with people genuinely being curious about the transgender process and I'm more than happy to answer those questions," she said.

"But if you ask anyone what they have between their legs they'll sock you in the mouth."

Growing up in Warrnambool, the 20-year-old began her transgender journey two years ago.

"It's kind of a really warped story," she said.

"It's hard to pinpoint pivotal moments because there's lots of things I look back on that mean a whole lot more now.

"I was volunteering with YUMCHA and I started doing the drag shows and that's what started me wondering about my gender.

"I knew I was into men from the start but there was another side of it. I didn't understand where I fitted in.

"I grew up watching Priscilla and I knew what drag queens were but I didn't know what a trans person was. I think if I had of known that my whole life would've been a bit different."

After moving to Melbourne on January 1, 2017, Miss Johnson began exploring the city environment.

It was in the concrete jungle where the penny dropped.

"When I came out as gay I still didn't feel in my skin," she said.

"The more I did the drag shows, I began to realise I didn't want to have this feeling just one night every two months - I wanted to be this person all the time.

"My friend Jackson and I were doing our make up to go out and he asked 'why don't you go out wearing the drag?' and I said 'because I don't want to look like a man in a wig I want to look like a woman'.

"Then he asked me 'are you drag queen or are you living in a fantasy?'

"And that's all it took.

"I just sat on that question and stirred.

"Two weeks later I went back to his room and said 'yeah I'm a woman, I'm trans'."

After realising her gender was what was preventing her feeling comfortable in her own skin, Miss Johnson began to tell her friends and family the decision she'd made.

"I came out on my 18th birthday. I came out to my mum the day before my birthday and then I came out to everyone else at my party," she explained.

"Coming out to my friends wasn't hard, it wasn't something I was worried about. Fifty per cent of my friends are part of the LGBT+ community and the other 50 per cent are well aware of who I am as a person.

"My mum was good and then she wasn't good and it was hard for a while but now we're close and I have a really good relationship with my little sister."

In July 2017 Miss Johnson began the transitioning process - one which has a serious lack of information easily available and comes at a great financial cost.

After visiting her doctor and being referred to a hormone specialist, Miss Johnson stopped the process after discovering it would cost her $300 for a general specialist appointment.

After much research, she found a bulk-billed clinic in Fitzroy and was able to secure her hormone prescriptions on the PBS.

But what Miss Johnson soon realised was while the big city lights of Melbourne seemingly are the ultimate place of comfort for the LGBT+ community, it wasn't for her.

She soon realised the support network she'd built throughout her childhood and teenage years in Warrnambool was what she needed to escape the dark abyss she was falling into and she moved back home in September 2017.

"Even though Melbourne is such a livable city, I was living in a bedsitter by myself and I immediately became isolated and shut myself off from everyone else," she said.

"I was struggling with drug issues. I was working in the beauty industry on weekends and I didn't have to do anything through the week, it became so easy for me to spend my money on drugs.

"That was a big part of moving back to Warrnambool because I knew it was not something I could continue doing.

"When I moved to Melbourne I realised how far the rest of Australia and Victoria are out of tact.

"We are so supported in Warrnambool. There are 12 mental health services I could name off the top of my head. But then you go to Timboon and they have one.

"We are lucky with how many support services we have here."

While she may have moved to Melbourne being called by her dead name, when she returned to Warrnambool it was Miss Johnson who presented herself.

"Aliza Willow was my drag name.

"Aliza was a name I didn't like when I was younger. I associated it with really gross middle-aged smoking women - I have no idea why I just had it in my head. I wanted to change my perception of the name so I thought it would be funny to have it as my drag name.

"And by the time I came out, Aliza represented me and I was comfortable being Aliza. I changed my middle name to Ivy-Jade because I love plants and I wanted it to be something flavourful.

"I felt it embodied me and it was a part of the creation process."

The 'creation process' Miss Johnson describes, is becoming the woman she was born to be.

While it is difficult for some people to recognise the logistics and ethics behind transitioning, Miss Johnson isn't here to change people's mind, she's simply wanting more education and acceptance for her to live her life as she was meant to.

A key change Miss Johnson wants to see is light shed on the transgender community so people like herself are no longer seen as peculiar people they have been portrayed as.

"The way the media portrays me and portray 'trannies' - you think of Rocky Horror Picture Show or a drag queen prostitute on Hollywood Boulevard," she said.

"That's what people think when they think of me. But I'm the complete opposite.

"I feel the Warrnambool community has a way to go but there's been so much that's already happened.

"I feel the community's mind has already been opened up so much but it's only with people going through the treatments, being open about it and actually showing people the transition and the statistics that change can come."

To begin society's reformation, Miss Johnson is educating others on the transgender process so people know what to expect if it's their own path too and they don't have to search the internet with a fine-tooth comb like she did.

"Obviously transitioning is not easy - it's never going to be a blissful experience," she said.

"Your whole being is changing right down to your thought processes and the food you like. I crave things I never craved before.

"Your emotions work differently. When you have testosterone a lot of the time when you get upset, anger comes from it and you feel it in your throat and you want to yell. But now being on oestrogen, when I get angry I get upset and sad.

"People don't understand it's a chemical change.

"I would say I'm a completely different person to who I was before I started hormone therapy.

"But when you have the body dysphoria like I had - where when you look in the mirror you don't want to see your reflection and you don't want to be in this body - nothing's more comfortable than waking up in the morning than seeing my cheekbones up a little more or seeing my hip bones expand.

"While some people may view these changes as traumatic, I haven't experienced these changes as traumatic, I've experienced this as a becoming - it's been liberating."

Through being open Miss Johnson hopes to see more change eventuate in the community - and that's why she's dedicating her life's work to help others.

"When I was working in Melbourne I was with a couple of make up brands and I had opportunities to go to LA," she said.

"But now I definitely see myself as just having an artistic career with make up.

"When I was living here before I was doing beauty and running the drag shows and that was fantastic.

"I thought I was enjoying running the shows but really I was enjoying the people and the impact I thought it was making. I was getting so many high school kids messaging me telling me their personal stories and that's what was fulfilling.

"When I moved back here I had a few months of sitting time and thinking 'where do I go from here?' and 'how do I make a difference and help someone else?'

"By just talking about gender diversity in school or at events I realised I could do this for the rest of my life.

"Just sitting in on meetings or just talking to people about their issues I thought I can do this for the rest of my life."

Now, Miss Johnson has finished her certificate IV in mental health and is on her way to securing a local job in the field.

For a 20-year-old, her life has already seen such drastic changes, lows and triumphs.

But Aliza Ivy Jade Johnson has found herself, her calling and is living her life the way she wants.

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