Elliot Page comes out as transgender

Elliot Page announced on Tuesday on social media that he was a transgender man, choosing the pronouns he/they: "I feel so happy to write this, to be here, to have reached this point in my life," he wrote in the letter.

Asking for patience as he completed his transition, the actor said that even though he was feeling very happy about the process, he was also afraid of the hatred, ridicule and violence that goes with it. His letter referred to statistics on discrimination against trans people, as well as the high rate of suicide attempts.

Page had come out as gay back in February 2014, during a speech at a Human Rights Campaign conference. They had then said that they hoped the announcement would help other people in a similar situation: "Maybe I can make it easier for others to have a good life," they said, adding that they were tired of hiding and lying. For a long time, Page worried about how coming out would impact their career: "I suffered for years because I was afraid to be out."

Page's acting career began as a child in their native Canada. Their international breakthrough came in 2007 in Jason Reitman's coming-of-age film Juno, with the role of a teenager who unintentionally becomes pregnant, which earned Page an Oscar nomination.

In 2010 they played alongside Leonardo di Caprio in Christopher Nolan's Inception, and in 2017 they took on a lead role in the remake of the thriller Flatliners.

Page can currently be seen in the Netflix show The Umbrella Academy, which is based on a superhero comic book series of the same name. "So proud of our superhero! WE LOVE YOU ELLIOT! Can't wait to see you return in season 3!," Netflix tweeted in reaction to Page's announcement. 

Page portrayed homosexual characters in Freeheld (2015) and My Days of Mercy (2017). In 2019, the actor told entertainment magazine The Wrap that they would be "thrilled" to only play queer roles.

Page has been married since 2018 to the choreographer Emma Portner, who worked on Justin Bieber videos and his world tour. "I'm so proud of Elliot Page," Portner wrote on her Instagram channel. "Trans, queer and non-binary people are a gift to this world. Elliot's existence is a gift in and of itself."

 

This article was adapted from German.