Ella Giselle Joins 'I Am Cait' For Season 2

I Am Cait returns to E! for its second season on Sunday, March 6, and while Caitlyn’s personal journey has been both interesting and educational for viewers to watch, her support system has also made up a huge part of the series. Cait’s famous family may get more attention on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but I Am Cait firmly puts her group of trans friends at the center. This season, that group will grow, as I Am Cait added Ella Giselle to the cast.

Ella is the youngest member of Caitlyn's group of friends, and in an interview MiMiChatter, the 18-year-old said that she knows Cait through her assistant and best friend Ronda Kamihara, who dated Ella's dad when she was young. And it just so happened that Cait and Ella, though years apart in age, both transitioned in the same year, as she explained to MiMiChatter.

At the same time as me coming out as trans, Caitlyn came out and her Vanity Fair cover came out. I had no idea Ronda was Caitlyn's assistant at this point. It was just weird to think that she was in the middle of these two people who didn't know each other but kind of transitioned at the same time. We texted Ronda to tell her what's going on with me. She texted back and said, 'I'm with Caitlyn right now and Cait says you look fantastic and she'd love to meet you.' Thus the journey began.

Before you meet the wise-beyond-her-years Ella on I Am Cait, here's what you should know about the new cast member.

She Transitioned In High School

Ella told MiMi that she first came out as a gay male in the eighth grade, which was never a “problem.” Then in high school, music helped her realize her true identity, as she became "inspired by" artists Lady Gaga and David Bowie, as she told the website.

I was very attached to their kind of freeness, especially David Bowie being very androgynous. I bleached my hair, my eyebrows. came back to school in full leather and bedazzled all of my clothes. For the first time in my life I felt liberated and I didn't even know what I was liberated from. I just knew that I felt free. For that week I was the laughing stock of the school. That week was a defining moment of my life. At the end of the week I had fallen into this really dark place because of how everyone reacted. As much as I felt liberated I struggled with not knowing what I was running from. My mom knew something was up and she was really scared. I told her ‘I'm not gay, I'm a girl.’ She didn't know what that meant but she knew at that moment I was depressed and that it could go one of two ways. She just embraced me from that moment. I started growing out my hair and I started living my authentic self that summer. Senior year I came back and I remember that first day of walking into school and it was the most 'Oh my God, I'm doing this' moment. It was scary, exciting, and overall just crazy. The school reaction, from what I saw from the inside looking out, people were very kind.

She Went On The I Am Cait Road Trip

In Season 2, Cait and a group of friends embark on a cross-country roadtrip to hear the voices from the trans community across the United States, and Ella was along for the ride on this eye-opening experience.

She Hangs Out With The Cast IRL

Her Instagram is more mature than most 18-year-old’s, full of polished photos with inspirational women, including fellow I Am Cait stars.

She "Applauds" Kendall & Kylie Jenner

Ella actually met Kendall and Kylie as a child, before transitioning, through Ronda, and told MiMi she has since met them again at Cait’s house. Though they didn’t have any two-on-one talks, she told the website that she was proud of Caitlyn's daughters, saying, "Just to see how confident they were that their parent was trans and how they stood by Caitlyn. That was really awesome. That's also what we need. We need accepting parents and accepting children of trans people. That's something I really do applaud them for of being that example."

She Is An Important Voice In The Trans Community

In her MiMi interview, Ella shared this inspiring message about the trans community:

We're all people. We all have different likes and different aspirations in life. There's diversity within diversity. I think that's what people need to understand. There's no one way to be trans. There's no better way. We're people and it comes down to human rights.

I'm glad that I Am Cait Season 2 will give Ella a platform to spread these messages and share her voice with the world.

Image: Chris Haston/NBCUniversal