In his first interview with Time Actor Elliot Page, who has appeared as a transgender since December last year, opened up about his childhood, his gender identity and the political climate surrounding LGBTQ rights.
Page, which plays in Netflix The Umbrella Academy and the most famous received an Oscar nomination for Juno, came out as trans in a statement he shared on his social media platforms last year. “I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he / they and my name is Elliot,” Page wrote in his statement. “I feel happy to be writing this. To be here. To arrive at this place in my life. ”
In an interview with Time‘s Katy Steinmetz, who is the first time an openly transgender man has appeared on the cover of the publication, spoke to Page about his gender identity and his childhood growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and how, at the age of nine, he would beg his mother to cut his long hair. “I felt like a boy,” Page told the magazine. “I wanted to be a boy. I would ask my mother if I could be one day. After his mother finally conceded, he was upset when he was thrown into a TV show at the age of ten that required him to grow his hair long.
Page also talked about how he struggled to find himself with a more feminine appearance in films like Getting Started and Beat it, and how the fact that he came out as gay in 2014 did not alleviate his distress. “The difference in how I felt before I came out as gay after that was huge,” he said. ‘But has the discomfort in my body ever disappeared? No, no, no, no. ”
The pandemic is partly the reason why he decided to come out as a transgender last year. “I was finally able to embrace transgender and fully make myself who I am,” he said. Page also spoke about a top operation and said that it ‘completely changed’ [his] life. ”
She decides to talk Time about his gender identity was also inspired by the anti-transgender rhetoric in the political climate and the news cycle, such as that rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene displays a sign that says, ‘There are two genders: man and woman’ in front of her office. “Extremely influential people spread these myths and damage rhetoric,” he said. Time. “Every day we see our existence debated. Transgender people are so very real. ”