Josie Totah comes out as transgender via oped

Actor Josie Totah, who has featured in various films and television shows including Glee, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), and Champions, has come out as transgender.

Seventeen-year-old Totah confessed about her gender identity in an open letter to Times Magazine. She said that she was “shoved into a box” on gender and sexuality during her early acting career, and now feels free to speak her truth.

She wrote: “When I was on the show Glee, I would stand back and watch (actor) Lea Michele. She was fabulous. And it was fun to see her and the other girls wear dresses and put on lavish musical numbers. But it was also hard, because I wanted that to be me.”

“My pronouns are she, her, and hers. I identify as female, specifically as a transgender female. And my name is Josie Totah,” she wrote.

Totah “always knew on some level that (she) was female” and asked to wear dresses as soon as she could speak full sentences.

But it was after she saw the documentary series I Am Jazz, about transgender activist Jazz Jennings, that she decided to pursue hormone replacement therapy.

Sharing the challenges she had to face regarding her gender identity, Totah wrote that reporters asked her how it felt to be a “young gay man”. LGBTQ+ rights organisations would also introduce her that way when presenting her with awards.

“I almost felt like I owed it to everybody to be that gay boy. I was afraid I wouldn’t be accepted, that I would be embarrassed, that the fans who knew me from the time when I acted in a children’s show would be confused,” she added.

Actor Josie Totah currently stars in the comedy show Champions