while there's never been a time in
modern history when there have been so
many openly transgender celebrities
coming out as transgender under the
harsh glare of the spotlight takes a
special kind of courage
we are here to show you a variety of
transgender stars who transitioned after
they were famous
on december 1st 2020 the actor known for
hit movies as
juno and inception took to instagram to
share a message
there elliot page wrote i'm trans my
pronouns are he
they he went on to say that he
identified as non-binary which the human
rights campaign defines as someone who
does not identify
exclusively as a man or a woman i feel
lucky to be writing this to be here to
have arrived at this place in my life
i can't begin to express how remarkable
it feels to finally love who i am enough
to pursue my authentic self
all trans people who deal with
harassment self-loathing abuse and the
threat of violence every day
i see you i love you and i will do
everything i can to change this world
for the better
prior to announcing his transition paige
had been starring in netflix superhero
series the umbrella academy in response
to pages coming out netflix responded
via twitter
so proud of our superhero not long after
entertainment tonight announced that
paige would be returning as
vanya hargreaves for the third season
laura jane grace is known for leading
the punk band against me
which she founded in the late 1990s in
2012 she officially came out as
transgender
becoming a rock music trailblazer in the
process in a rolling stone
profile that served as her public coming
out she admitted she was uncertain
even now there's a part of me that's not
convinced i know what the f i'm doing
but there's another part of me that's
completely
100 sure since then grace has
experienced an artistic renaissance
including the critically acclaimed
against me album
transgender dysphoria blues her side
project laura jane grace and the
devouring mothers the emmy-nominated
docu-series true trans with laura jane
grace her 2016 memoir and her
2020
solo album stay alive she told
entertainment weekly that one downside
of her journey has been the need to
endlessly repeat her transition story
i'll do interviews and it's like time
traveling seven years i have to approach
every interview like nobody knows what
i'm talking about
chas bono's tv debut came when he was
just a kid
making adorable appearances on the 1970s
variety show hosted by parents
cher and sonny bono he was 40 when in
2009 he underwent gender reassignment
surgery to become a transgender man a
process he candidly discussed with abc
news
this is how i was born i mean there's no
doubt in my mind
it's actually pretty simple if you look
at it we all in the womb start out as
female and then hormones come and we
either stay female
or we become male i think of it as
hormones that you know went in the brain
but not in the body and that's all being
transgender is
it's just that the sex of your body and
the gender of the brain don't match up
cher has been supportive but it came as
quite a shock to her at first
she went ballistic and you know for a
couple days but very quickly came around
arguably the most famous transgender
celebrity there is
olympic gold medalist caitlyn jenner
made headlines around the world when she
announced her transition
two years after transitioning the
keeping up with the kardashians star
spoke about the experience in a 2017
interview with the guardian when asked
if she was interested in landing her own
reality show jenner blew it off saying
oh i don't care about that stuff
according to jenner reality tv didn't
occur to her when she transitioned
my intentions were number one to calm my
soul to deal with this issue and be
myself
this woman had lived inside me for 65
years it's time for her to live
let's give her a shot and see what she
could do jenner shared that prior to her
public coming out and transition she
experienced the joy of having children
and competing in the olympic and pan
american games
now her life has a new focus she said
this woman
it's her turn and that platform i have
can i make a difference in the world
in 2015 tlc viewers met teenager jazz
jennings who opened her life to reality
tv on the series i am jazz by then
jennings was no stranger to the
spotlight back in 2007 jennings was
interviewed by barbara walters with her
parents revealing that she'd been
identifying as female since she was a
toddler
at the time of the tlc show's launch a
then 14 year old jennings opened up to
abc news about her apprehensions on
starting high school a process that
would be filmed for the show
i'm a little bit worried because i'm not
sure if people are going to be fully
accepting
i've noticed that boys are less
accepting than girls
jennings also shared her thoughts about
why she wanted to share her life on
television
i just want to be as open as i can it
will show other people that being
transgender is okay
it's not something negative at all it's
something that i embrace
that my family embraces and we just live
our life we face the challenges we
conquer them and we move on
due to this sentiment it goes without
saying that jennings has become one of
the foremost young transgender role
models of the 21st century
do people treat you differently when
they know you're transgender
yes they do they don't understand
what the concept means in 1999 siblings
lily and
lana wachowski broke into the hollywood
scene as co-directors of the matrix
which evolved into a blockbuster trilogy
in 2012 lana came out as transgender
with lily making her own announcement in
2016.
interviewed by the new yorker after
coming out lana admitted
my biggest fears were all about losing
my family once they accepted me
everything else has been a piece of cake
while the first matrix movie was
produced well over a decade before lily
came out in a 2020 interview with
netflix she confirmed fan theories that
the story line of the keanu reeves
starring mindbender and its sequels was
actually a trans allegory i love that
the how um how
meaningful those films are to trans
people
i'm glad that it has gotten out that um
you know that was the original intention
it's definitely fair to say that it's no
less
than amazing how the films can strike
chords on multiple philosophical levels
many directors and screenwriters have
likely taken notes from the wachowski
sisters
alexis arquette passed away of
complications related to hiv in 2016 at
age 47.
she was known as an actor activist and
all-around bon vivant who never achieved
the success of her more famous siblings
rosanna patricia
and david you would likely remember her
for her role as a boy george
impersonator in adam sandler's 1998
comedy the wedding singer
according to a feature about her in the
hollywood reporter it was around 2004
when she first began approaching family
and friends about her gradual transition
to female her decision to come out as
transgender was eyed with skepticism in
hollywood yet she was able to rise above
it
this was apparent and how she came
across in the 2007 documentary alexis
arquette
she's my brother and after joining the
cast of this celebriality show the
surreal life in 2006. as the hollywood
reporter pointed out
what could have been a potentially
disastrous situation for alexis
instead brought her praise for
presenting a strong trans role model at
a time when such a thing was virtually
non-existent
andre pajic is a serbian model who has
walked the runway for the likes of marc
jacobs and john paul gautier
what makes pogeek truly unique however
is that she's modeled both men's and
women's collections and has been
described as one of the few true
androgynous models in the world
while pajic first attracted headlines by
modeling women's wear while identifying
as male
it's no longer been an issue since she
underwent gender reassignment surgery in
early 2014.
she told vogue i figured out who i was
very early on
actually at the age of 13 with the help
of the internet so i knew that a
transition becoming a woman was always
something i needed to do
but it wasn't possible at the time and i
put it off and androgyny became a way of
expressing my femininity without having
to explain myself to people too much
this led her to become successful as an
androgynous male model
even though her end goal was to simply
identify as female
regardless of this she says i think my
story can help people
my goal is to give a human face to this
struggle and i feel like i have a
responsibility
prior to his transition german athlete
balian bushbomb competed in the 2000
olympic games as a champion pole vaulter
winning numerous titles in his native
germany in 2007 he announced he would be
retiring from professional sports and
would be transitioning to male
he told german broadcast rtl there were
difficulties when i hit puberty my body
did not adapt to my soul
i want to be the man i have always been
inside as
german media outlet deutsche reported in
2008 bushbomb
underwent extensive gender reassignment
surgery he wrote in his web diary
courage is the road to freedom i woke up
in complete freedom today the sky
is wide open while buschbaum may have
stepped away from the sport that made
him famous his fame
only grew when he subsequently competed
on let's dance germany's version of
dancing with the stars
chelsea manning made headlines when as a
u.s army intelligence analyst posted in
iraq she sent classified military
documents to wikileaks she told abc news
that she leaked the classified
information
because she felt she had a
responsibility to the public
particularly when it came to
counter-insurgency military operations
that resulted in the deaths of civilians
she was subsequently sentenced to 35
years in prison
she began transitioning to female while
housed in a male military prison
in january 2017 manning's sentence was
commuted by president barack obama
shortly before he left
office i feel very comfortable that
justice has been served and that a
message has still been
sent however manning's refusal to
cooperate with the ongoing investigation
into wikileaks founder
julian assange led her to be found in
contempt and thrown back behind bars
manning was ultimately released in march
2020 when a judge determined there was
no longer a need for her incarceration
manning's story both her whistle blowing
and the gender dysphoria that led to her
transition were chronicled in the 2019
documentary xy chelsea
singer jake cyrus was something of a
child prodigy in his native philippines
which ultimately led to exposure on u.s
television his soaring powerful voice
attracted the attention of producer
david foster
who'd crafted hits for the likes of
celine dion and whitney houston
in 2010 he produced xyrus's first u.s
album
charisse that same year cyrus joined the
cast of fox hit glee for its second
season portraying foreign exchange
student sunshine corazon
in 2013 cyrus came out as a lesbian on a
filipino tv talk show
i don't know what the problem with that
is because for me that isn't a problem
to all those who will accept me
thank you very very much more headlines
came in 2017 when the singer announced
he'd changed his name to jake cyrus
signaling a change to his gender
identity he told usa today
when i thought about finally coming out
as a transgender man i didn't think a
lot of people would actually agree to it
and accept me but i was surprised with
the love and
support so i've been doing great i've
been feeling good about everything
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