Elliot Page

We sat together on an oversize chair, the splashes and music blending
together in the background. We spoke about gender, I shared the degree of
my discomfort, how even when I was playing a role, I couldn’t wear
feminine clothes anymore. How I always struggled in the summer when
layers were not an option and the presence of my breasts under my T-shirt
forced me to incessantly crane my neck, sneaking quick peeks down. I
would pull on my shirt, my posture folded. Walking down the sidewalk, I’d
glance at a store window to check my profile, my brain consumed. I had to
avoid my reflection. I couldn’t look at pictures, because I was never there. It
was making me sick. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be lifted out—the
gender dysphoria slowly crushing me.
“It’s a role, you’re an actor. Why are you complaining about such a
thing?” people would say.
“I would wear a skirt,” a straight, cis man had said to me, playing
devil’s advocate. I kept trying to explain the difficulty I was having. But he
kept spitting out his unwanted opinions while then berating me for getting
“too emotional.” “Hysterical” I believe was the word he used.
These words triggered a deep shame I’d held since I could remember. I
was puzzled, too—invalidating my own experience. How was I in so much
pain? Why did even slightly feminine clothing make me want to die? I’m an
actor, there shouldn’t be a problem. How could I be such an ungrateful
prick?
Imagine the most uncomfortable, mortifying thing you could wear. You
squirm in your skin. It’s tight, you want to peel it from your body, tear it off,
but you can’t. Day in and day out. And if people are to learn what is
underneath, who you are without that pain, the shame would come flooding
out, too much to hold. The voice was right, "you deserve the humiliation.
You are an abomination. You are too emotional. You’re not real."
“Do you think you’re trans?” Star asked me, locking eyes.
“Yes, well, maybe. I think so. Yeah.” We exchanged a soft smile.
I was so near. Almost touching it, but I panicked. And it burned away
like the joint I was smoking, becoming an old roach left to rot in a forgotten
ashtray. It all felt too big—the thought of going through this publicly, in a
culture that is so rife with transphobia and people with enormous power and
platforms actively attacking the community.
The world tells us that we aren’t trans but mentally ill. That I’m too
ashamed to be a lesbian, that I mutilated my body, that I will always be a
woman, comparing my body to Nazi experiments. It is not trans people who
suffer from a sickness, but the society that fosters such hate. As actress and
writer Jen Richards once put it:
"It’s exceedingly surreal to have transitioned ten years ago,
find myself happier & healthier than ever, have better
relationships with friends & family, be a better and more
engaged citizen, and yes, even more productive … and to
then see strangers pathologize that choice. My being trans
almost never comes up. It’s a fact about my past that has
relatively little bearing on my present, except that it made
me more empathetic, more engaged in social justice. How
does it hurt anyone else? What about my peace demands
vitriol, violence, protections?"
Sitting with Star by the pool, I couldn’t quite touch the truth, but I could
talk about my gender without bawling. That was a step. It had taken a long
time to allow any words to come out. When the subject came up in therapy,
my reaction felt inordinate, lost in sobs.
“Why do I feel this way?” I’d plead. “What is this feeling that never
goes away? How can I be desperately uncomfortable all the time? How can
I have this life and be in such pain?”
Not long after my thirtieth birthday, I did a U-turn, I bailed, I stopped
talking about it. I closed my eyes and hid it away. Somewhere I’d never
find it. It would be four more years until I disclosed who I was.