Breaking boundaries! Trans visibility is on the rise —thanks in part to transgender entertainers representing their community on screen, the radio and online.
Elliot Page, who has portrayed Viktor Hargreeves on Umbrella Academy since its premiere in 2019, came out as transgender in December 2020. As the third season began filming following his transition, both showrunner Steve Blackman and Page worked together in a way that would allow the character’s arc to parallel the Juno star’s real-life transition.
During a June 2022 appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, the Hard Candy actor shared that Blackman “seemed really excited about incorporating [Page’s transition] into the show.” Thomas Page McBee — the first trans man to box in Madison Square Garden — also came on board as a consulting producer to help craft Viktor’s story.
While the Canada native revealed that his costars and real-life friends, family and fans were “very supporting and loving” about his transition, Page also got candid about handling any voices of negativity.
“When I relect on certain very difficult times in my life, I think ultimately getting through that really deepens your empathy,” Page told host Seth Meyers at the time. “The times in my life where I was the most uncomfortable, where I was the most unwell — those were the times when I was the most angry and I was the most unkind to myself.”
The Inception actor added that transitioning had “improved his life drastically,” and hoped that those who “have an issue” with him “could maybe try and hear that and embrace that as well.”
When speaking to Time in March 2021, Page spoke about feeling pressured to “look a certain way” as a young Hollywood actor despite knowing he “wanted to be a boy” since the age of nine.
“I just never recognized myself,” he said. “For a long time, I could not even look at a photo of myself.”
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, gave the Oscar nominee time to reflect on his identity and what he wanted from his future.
“I had a lot of time on my own to really focus on things that I think, in so many ways, unconsciously, I was avoiding,” he explained to the magazine. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender and letting myself fully become who I am.”
Page has since undergone top surgery, which he acknowledged was an important step for him personally, but not necessary — or affordable — for many other trans people. He will return as Viktor Hargreaves in the fourth and final season of Umbrella Academy sometime in 2024.
Keep scrolling for more inspiring transgender celebs:
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Most Inspiring Transgender Celebrities: Elliot Page, Laverne Cox, Hunter Schafer and More
Breaking boundaries! Trans visibility is on the rise —thanks in part to transgender entertainers representing their community on screen, the radio and online.
Elliot Page, who has portrayed Viktor Hargreeves on Umbrella Academy since its premiere in 2019, came out as transgender in December 2020. As the third season began filming following his transition, both showrunner Steve Blackman and Page worked together in a way that would allow the character’s arc to parallel the Juno star’s real-life transition.
During a June 2022 appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, the Hard Candy actor shared that Blackman “seemed really excited about incorporating [Page’s transition] into the show.” Thomas Page McBee — the first trans man to box in Madison Square Garden — also came on board as a consulting producer to help craft Viktor’s story.
While the Canada native revealed that his costars and real-life friends, family and fans were “very supporting and loving” about his transition, Page also got candid about handling any voices of negativity.
“When I relect on certain very difficult times in my life, I think ultimately getting through that really deepens your empathy,” Page told host Seth Meyers at the time. “The times in my life where I was the most uncomfortable, where I was the most unwell — those were the times when I was the most angry and I was the most unkind to myself.”
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The Inception actor added that transitioning had “improved his life drastically,” and hoped that those who “have an issue” with him “could maybe try and hear that and embrace that as well.”
When speaking to Time in March 2021, Page spoke about feeling pressured to “look a certain way” as a young Hollywood actor despite knowing he “wanted to be a boy” since the age of nine.
“I just never recognized myself,” he said. “For a long time, I could not even look at a photo of myself.”
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, gave the Oscar nominee time to reflect on his identity and what he wanted from his future.
“I had a lot of time on my own to really focus on things that I think, in so many ways, unconsciously, I was avoiding,” he explained to the magazine. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender and letting myself fully become who I am.”
Page has since undergone top surgery, which he acknowledged was an important step for him personally, but not necessary — or affordable — for many other trans people. He will return as Viktor Hargreaves in the fourth and final season of Umbrella Academy sometime in 2024.
Keep scrolling for more inspiring transgender celebs:
Credit: Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock
Elliot Page
Page came out as trans via Instagram in December 2020, writing, “I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life. I feel overwhelming gratitude for the incredible people who have supported me along this journey. I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self.”
During an appearance on the Late Late Show With Seth Meyers in June 2022, the Flatliners actor opened up about transitioning as his Umbrella Academy character on screen during the Netflix show’s third season — and finding a way to face any negativity from trolls.
“When I reflect on certain very difficult times in my life, I think ultimately getting through that really deepens your empathy,” Page told Meyers at the time, noting that those who “have an issue” with him “could maybe try and hear that and embrace that as well.”
Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock
Laverne Cox
After her breakout role as Sophia on Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, Cox became the first trans woman to win a Daytime Emmy Award as executive producer of MTV’s Laverne Cox Presents: The T-Word.
“There’s not just one trans story. There’s not just one trans experience. And I think what they need to understand is that not everybody who is born feels that their gender identity is in alignment with what they’re assigned at birth, based on their genitalia,” the Promising Young Woman star told Time in May 2014. “If someone needs to express their gender in a way that is different, that is okay, and they should not be denied healthcare. They should not be bullied. They don’t deserve to be victims of violence. … That’s what people need to understand, that it’s okay and that if you are uncomfortable with it, then you need to look at yourself.”
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Hunter Schafer
Schafer’s portrayal of Jules on HBO’s Euphoria shined a light on the importance of trans representation in media for teens. However, the North Carolina native’s biggest focus is ensuring that trans actors get to showcase what life is like beyond their gender identity.
“There need to be more roles where trans people aren’t just dealing with being trans; they’re being trans while dealing with other issues,” Schafer told Variety in June 2019. “We’re so much more complex than just one identity.”
Schafer was also labeled as a plaintiff in the ACLU’s lawsuit with her home state over the “bathroom bill,” which sought to prohibit the expansion of protections to LGBTQ people and to govern who could use what public washroom. The actress used her “place of privilege” to speak out against the bill.
“[I] felt like I could handle making myself visible in order to help my state understand why what they were doing was detrimental to my community,” she told Variety at the time.
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Jazz Jennings
The reality star was featured on 20/20 to speak about being trans at the age of six before landing her own docuseries, I Am Jazz, on TLC in 2015. The show helped bring transgender representation into mainstream media by being open with the realities of gender confirmation surgery.
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Zion Moreno
While she portrays Luna in the Gossip Girl reboot, Moreno’s gender identity is never a plot point of the show, allowing the character to be multi-dimensional.
“She’s the fantasy I had, she’s who I wanted to be when I was in high school, how I wanted to be seen, how I wanted to come back at my bullies in high school,” Moreno told V Magazine in March 2022. “So I harness a lot of those experiences and pain from being bullied and I give it to her and it gives me strength to be this badass being. I love her, she represents so much. She’s overcome so much adversity, she’s respected, revered, and looked up to. And I think that that’s really important for kids. Luna can be a little crazy and mean, but she has a good heart.”
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Kim Petras
The Germany native made history as the first trans woman to have a No. 1 single — “Unholy” with Sam Smith.
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MJ Rodriguez
The actress made history in 2021 when she became the first trans person to be nominated for an Emmy in a major category for her portrayal as Bianca in FX’s Pose.
“I’m feeling so many emotions. I’m feeling joy, and I’m feeling accomplished. I finally feel seen,” Rodriguez told Deadline at the time. “I’m a girl hailing from Northern New Jersey who had dreams and aspirations like Whitney Houston, child. I never thought this could happen for me. I told myself no matter what happens, I’m going to keep going and never stop.”
She made history again when she took home the win for Best Television Actress in a Drama Series at the 2022 Golden Globes for the same part — making her the first openly trans person to win the award.
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Isis King
King made history as the first transgender woman to compete on America’s Next Top Model before nabbing a role on HBO’s Equal.
“I feel like our voices are just now starting to be heard,” King told Page Six in November 2020. “So it was very inspiring to hear stories from that far back of these people who didn’t have anybody else like them around and just had their own courage to make it work.”
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Zaya Wade
The daughter of retired NBA player Dwyane Wade, Zaya publicly came out as trans in 2020 — and has been educating people on gender identity ever since.
“I didn’t know anything, really wasn’t knowledgeable about the LGBTQ+ community,” the basketball star told the Today Show in June 2021. “What it has done is it opened my eyes and my ears to something greater and bigger than I, and my daughter has allowed us gracefully to be her support system. She’s the strong one in this family. She’s a hero.”
In June 2022, the teen opened up about how being her “true authentic self” felt like “freedom.”
“Being out and open and truthful about who I am to myself and others is just freeing,” she said at the Logo30 series. “It’s a beautiful feeling to have and hold and to be able to share with the rest of the world.”
She added, “There are genuinely people out there who think that you’re a kid, this is a phase, or you don’t actually know what you’re talking about. I know that I’m trans and it’s not like one day I just went, ‘I want to try out being trans.’ No. So just suck it up. We are who we are.”
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Josie Totah
After appearing in various coveted TV shows including Glee and New Girl, Totah went on to both star in and produce Peacock’s Saved by the Bell reboot in November 2020.
“I love that our show is committed to diversity — authentic diversity both behind the camera and in front of it,” the Moxie star told the Huffington Post in December 2021. “I’m just honored that I get to contribute to that authenticity and be a sounding board for my character and other characters as well. I’m also the youngest producer on the crew.”
She added that in order to achieve true parity for trans people in Hollywood, there needs to be “more trans storytellers” in the TV and film landscape.
“We need more trans producers. We need more trans executives. It needs to start from the top down. In order to have authentic representation, it needs to be three-dimensional,” she explained.
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Tommy Dorfman
After subtly changing her style and posting pictures via Instagram for a year, Dorfman came out as trans in July 2021.
“I kept, on Instagram, a diaristic time capsule instead — one that shows a body living in a more fluid space,” she explained to Time magazine about continuing to upload photos on social media through her transition. “However, I’ve learned as a public-facing person that my refusal to clarify can strip me of the freedom to control my own narrative. With this medical transition, there has been discourse about my body, and it began to feel overwhelming. So, recently I looked to examples of others who have come out as trans. There’s the version I couldn’t really afford to do, which is to disappear for two years and come back with a new name, new face and new body. But that’s not what I wanted.”
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Angelica Ross
Ross became the first transgender woman to have two reoccurring roles on Ryan Murphy shows — Pose and American Horror Story: 1984 — in 2019.
In 2020, the actress signed a TV development deal with Pigeon and TransTech Social Enterprises that will help trans people network and build their careers.
That same year, she opened up about the mistreatment she experienced while working on the set of TNT’s Claws.
“There’s nothing like experience,” she told Self in October 2020. “And what Hollywood has not had is a lot of experience with trans people. Though they have a lot of poor experience of telling trans stories. So there has been this learning curve on both sides of the situation. People don’t hear me talk often about my experience of working on Claws. And there’s a reason for it.”
The singer went on to claim that she was misgendered and asked to remove her underwear to wear a “modesty garment.”
“It’s basically this tape that goes from your front to your back,” she explained. “I was supposed to do a scene where I’m hovered over some guy and then flip off of him. It was one of the hardest things for me to do because I was pre-op. These garments aren’t made for trans people.”
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Janet Mock
Mock was not only the first trans woman of color to be hired as a writer for a TV series — working with Murphy on Pose — but she also directed the show’s sixth episode.
“Instead of just turning the lens only on the murder, the violence, the abuse, and the space of lack, you then turn the camera and you say that actually in this space that you see as a space of lack, we’re thriving,” she told Marie Claire in 2020 of taking lead behind the camera.
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Leon Brown
In June 2022, the child of Sister Wives stars Kody and Meri Brown came out as transgender.
“Someone recently told me that I didn’t have to have all of my s–t figured out in order for me to share myself with the world,” Leon wrote via Instagram alongside a photo of themselves posing for the camera. “So here’s me, definitely not having almost any of my s–t figured out, to let you know that I am trans. My name is Leon or Leo (i love both) and my pronouns are they/them.”
The TLC personality went on to detail their journey toward figuring out their identity, revealing how long they’ve known who they are.
“I was pretty young & unfortunately I grew up in a context that was incredibly gendered & restrictive,” Leon explained. “So I continued to be socialized as a girl & later a woman. and here’s the thing, I’m finally ready to share my favorite self with the world. and that self is incredibly genderqueer, trans, and unapologetic.”