Liang Yingfei first met Pan Longfei in July 2013, when she was doing a photo project on genetic disorders. “The first time I saw him, he looked like a kid,” she said. Kallmann syndrome affects just one out of every 8,000 people. Pan is one of them.

Pan is a born optimist, and he never gets upset about discrimination. The main symptom of Kallmann syndrome is a lack of secondary sex characteristics, which include body and facial hair, bone and muscle mass, and oil and sweat glands. This means that physically, Pan inhabits the body of a young boy. “I found it’s pretty funny,” he said. “I still think I might be an alien from outer space.”

To spread awareness of Kallmann syndrome, Pan and his girlfriend Liang decided they would march from Inner Mongolia to Beijing, covering 500 kilometers in 20 days. They hope that doing so will inspire more people to learn about Kallmann syndrome and better understand those affected by it.

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