In December, Elliot Page announced he was coming out as transgender. Now, three months later, he’s featured on the cover of Time magazine, speaking about accepting who he is and his future.
Page said he has been “feeling a true excitement and deep gratitude to have made it to this point in my life, mixed with a lot of fear and anxiety.”
You can read the letter he wrote announcing that he was transgender here or below.
In the interview, Page spoke about how he always wanted to be a boy, asking his mother if he could be one day. When he was allowed to have his hair cut short at the age of 9, he said it felt right.
But when he became a professional actor at the age of 10, he was cast as a daughter in the show “Pit Pony” and had to wear a wig for the role, he said in the Time interview.
He expected that news about his being transgender would be received with both praise and love but also he knew there would be “a massive amount of hatred and transphobia,” he said in the article.
He gained followers on social media and he even was offered potential roles. But yet, Page said he still is a work in progress in understanding who he is.
Not only did Page announce he was transgender, but he also had other life changes during the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. He broke up with his wife, Emma Portner, last summer. The couple divorced earlier this year.
He said the pandemic made him think about his gender.
“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,” Page said. After feeling “shame and discomfort,” he said, “I was finally able to embrace being transgender and letting myself fully become who I am.”
He chose the name Elliot, a name he had liked before he came out. He also asked to be referred to as he/him or they/them. Page also had surgery to make his body recognizable and comfortable with himself when he looks in the mirror, adding that the surgery wasn’t done for others, but for himself.
Click here to read more of Page’s story.