Academy Award-nominated actor Elliot Page described a harrowing attack where someone threatened to kill him after he started his transition.
Page has become a beacon of hope for the transgender community ever since coming out and transitioning. Page has been embraced by the LGBTQ community for his consistent advocacy for transgender individuals who have been systematically attacked by the anti-LGBTQ legislature that has been sweeping the nation. But he’s also endured a lot of hatred.
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“This really big dude, less than an arm’s length away, was just screaming at me, ‘You fa***t! Don’t look at me! You fa***t, fa***t!'” Page wrote in an essay for Esquire. “I couldn’t even just go, like, I’m not looking at you.”
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“It was the one time I’d left the hotel that whole day. I was just trying to cross the street, and I couldn’t because it was Sunset Boulevard and there was traffic, so I decided in my brain — because he was so tall — that I couldn’t do anything physically. If I said something, he could retaliate. If I turned around, that could trigger something else.”
“So I thought, ‘I’m just going to have to bet on standing completely still and staring straight ahead.'”
“And then eventually, after him yelling, ‘Fa***t! Fa***t! Fa***t!’ some more, he started to walk off and I started to cross the street. And then he just started screaming, behind me, ‘I’m gonna kill you, you fucking fa***t! I’m gonna kill you, you f**king fa***t! I’m gonna gay-bash you!’ So I ran—I was alone—I ran into a convenience store, and as I was opening the door he yelled, ‘This is why I need a gun!'”
Page is hoping that speaking about the incident will raise more awareness of what transgender individuals face on a daily basis. Just crossing the street be a threat to a trans person’s life. That is the response Page has to people who tell him he’s “too sensitive”.
But Page has also experienced a lot of joy after transitioning.
“I can’t overstate the biggest joy, which is really seeing yourself. I know I look different to others, but to me, I’m just starting to look like myself,” he wrote. “It’s indescribable, because I’m just like, there I am. And thank God. Here I am.”
“So the greatest joy is just being able to feel present, literally, just to be present. To go out in a group of new people and be able to engage in a way where I didn’t feel this constant sensation to flee from my body, this never-ending sensation of anxiety and nervousness and wanting out. When I say I couldn’t have ever imagined feeling that way, I mean that with every sense of me.”
Even with all the attacks Page has had to endure and the attacks the transgender community has faced, he wrote about how liberating it is to finally be who he is meant to be. Although there is a lot that he is fighting against, he wants people to know he is doing great and he will keep on advocating for his people.
