Like Sibling, Matrix Director Says She's Transgender

Matrix co-director comes out on her own terms
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 9, 2016 6:03 AM CST
Like Sibling, Matrix Director Says She's Transgender
In this Oct. 24, 2012, file photo, co-directors Lana Wachowski and Andy Wachowski pose for a photo at the Los Angeles premiere of "Cloud Atlas" in Los Angeles.    (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision, File)

The filmmaker once known as Andy Wachowski is now Lilly Wachowski—and she has come out as transgender because she wants to do so on her terms, not the Daily Mail's. In the Windy City Times, the 48-year-old co-director of the Matrix trilogy and other sci-fi hits says she is transgender and has transitioned. She says she long worried about the headline "Sex Change Shocker—Wachowski Brothers Now Sisters," but while other publications had the decency not to out her against her will, she did not expect the same treatment after she was approached by a reporter at the Daily Mail, which she says drove a trans schoolteacher in Britain to suicide with lurid headlines a few years ago.

"I am one of the lucky ones," writes Wachowski, whose sister and co-director Lana came out as trans in 2012. "Having the support of my family and the means to afford doctors and therapists has given me the chance to actually survive this process," she writes. "Transgender people without support, means, and privilege do not have this luxury. And many do not survive." She thanks her wife, family, and friends for their support, expresses her frustration with a majority-enforced gender binary world," and concludes: "I will continue to be an optimist adding my shoulder to the Sisyphean struggle of progress and in my very being, be an example of the potentiality of another world." The Human Rights Campaign issued a statement of support for Wachowski, reports Mashable, which adds that it knew of her transition but had waited for her decision to come out. (Read about 8 other groundbreaking transgender people in pop culture.)

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