He continued, ”When I read trans and queer people’s stories, memoirs and also fiction, it’s meant so much to me. I’ve had this strange life that’s led to this platform that I have and it felt like I did want to grasp the opportunity when it came up.” Speaking on releasing his book amidst political threats to queer and trans people across North America, Page said, “This environment that we happen to be in right now, I guess for me was a motivator to tell my story. He considers questions with the tilt of a head before answering. In person, Page has a tendency to look toward the floor, carefully considering his words and, perhaps, their potential impact. “I really did go from being someone who was pretty uncomfortable all the time in a mind that was occupied and in agony a lot to now, waking up and feeling present and alive in a way that I actually did not think was possible,” Page said. In Pageboy, he documents his own progress from a closeted young actor who experienced intense dysmorphia to a trans man embracing his visibility. The story Page has chosen to tell about himself is ultimately, however, one of queer joy. He also name names, from Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist who publicly mused about his sexuality after Juno’s release (Page has not received an apology – “I haven’t heard a thing”) to House of Cards actor Kate Mara, whom Page dated while Mara was also dating the actor Max Minghella (Minghella was not only aware of the relationship, but also supportive of it). Page writes honestly about self-harm, gender dysmorphia, disordered eating, anxiety and his complicated relationship with his family. Pageboy is, even by the standards of the celebrity memoir, incredibly confessional. When Page came out, his character Viktor on Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy followed suit. With Pageboy, he’s now taking control of his story. All of this has made Page the subject of intense – and often unwanted – attention. If that weren’t exceedingly rare enough, he is also one of very few well-known actors to come out twice: first as gay in 2014, then as trans in 2020. Page is also, by any measure, one of the most famous trans people on Earth. Watch: Elliot Page on 'beautiful' reaction to memoirĮlliot Page opens up about surgery, says it has been ‘life-saving’ Hollywood soon came calling, with roles in a blockbuster franchise, X-Men: Days of Future Past, a big budget auteur film, Inception, and top billing on Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, Whip It. His breakout came a decade later in the indie smash Juno, for which he received an Oscar nomination. He was first introduced to Canadian audiences in 1997 in the CBC film Pit Pony. Page is, by any measure, one of the most successful Canadian actors of his generation. To be so with a platform as large as Page’s is largely unprecedented territory. To be out as trans in the current political environment requires living in the face of great opposition. And in British Columbia, a transphobic verbal attack against a nine-year-old recently made national headlines. In Manitoba, Pride decorations have been vandalized in multiple rural communities. Meanwhile, in his native Canada, youth advocates have raised alarm bells in New Brunswick that a new policy concerning chosen names and pronouns in schools could lead to discrimination against LGBTQ students. In the United States, where Page has lived and worked for much of his career, there are currently 491 anti-LGBTQ bills under legislative consideration, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. It is likewise a precarious time to release a trans story like Page’s into the world.
Despite those joyful trappings, this Pride month is a precarious one, particularly for trans people.
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