Transgender Excellence: Celebrating Trans Celebs Making Waves in Hollywood
It’s Transgender Awareness Week this week, and while this week marks the somber occasion of Transgender Day of Remembrance – a day to celebrate all those trans folks taken from us as a result of anti-trans violence, here at Q+ Magazine, we also want to use this time to spread some positivity and spotlight some of our trans community members doing us proud in Hollywood. So, we’re today, we’re shining a light on transgender excellence making waves on our screens, both large and small.
There is a plethora of transgender excellence in Hollywood right now and the talent pool to pull from is plentiful, diverse, and beautiful. We love to see it! However, we’d be here all day long if we spotlighted every single trans contributor to the industry right now, so we short-listed just a few that hold a special place in our hearts and our minds.
Journey with us as we share the stories of some of our favorite trans stars right now!
Brian Michael Smith
It is no secret that here at the Q+ Magazine offices, we are huge Brian Michael Smith stans. His role as a transgender police officer on Queen Sugar paved the way for Brian Michael Smith to make his mark as an out trans actor in Hollywood. He went on to star in Showtime’s ever-popular queer drama The L Word: Generation Q and became the first Black, openly trans man to appear as a series regular on network television as Paul Strickland on FOX’s 9-1-1: Lone Star.
Paul Strickland is an openly trans firefighter from Texas. Throughout the series, his trans journey was written into the storyline and his struggles with himself and his family drew attention from the trans community for its accurate depiction.
The thing we love the most about his role on 9-1-1: Lonestar is that the fact that Strickland is trans is the least interesting part of his character. He is bold, brave, incredibly handsome, and completely loved and adored by all his coworkers. His place as a trans man is utterly normalized by his team, and we are here for every single second of this kind of representation.
In 2020, Brian Michael Smith was named among Queerty’s fifty heroes ‘leading the nation towards equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people’ in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride Parade.
Then, in 2021 he joined the Human Rights Campaign’s Board of Directors, which is the United States’ largest LGBTQ+ activist organization.
Now that the strike is over, 9-1-1: Lonestar is expected to return to the small screen sometime in the fall of 2024.
Aitch Alberto
Aitch Alberto holds a special place in our hearts around here because she is the reason we now have a film adaptation of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Born in Miami of Cuban descent, after discovering the ever-popular book of the same title by Benjamin Alire Saenz, Aitch Alberto fell in love with this story.
She approached Saenz, who gave her the green light to write the screenplay and direct the film. And the rest, folks, is history. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is Alberto’s directorial debut and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on September 9, 2022. It was later picked up for distribution and aired in cinemas in the United States on September 8, 2023. The film is currently enjoying a further limited release in various places around the world. Mexico is patiently waiting for its turn, as the film’s release was pushed back to December 2023.
Q+ Magazine staffers had the great honor of chatting with Aitch Alberto in 2022 where she talks avidly about breaking into the entertainment industry as a trans woman of color, and the importance of Latinos showing up to support Latin works. She is dedicated to the proliferation of Latin LGBTQ people in the media in less stereotypical, and more authentic forms. Aitch is one of our fave trans folks out there right now and a shining example of transgender excellence.
You can watch our interview with this incredible trans creator here.
Leo Sheng
You might recognize Leo Sheng’s face from Showtime’s smash hit LGBTQ production The L Word: Generation Q, where he plays Micah Lee, a trans character on the show. He is partnered up with Maribel (Jillian Mercado) and they’re looking for sperm donors intending to start a family.
The L Word: Generation Q enjoyed three seasons of queer greatness before Showtime canceled it.
Sheng was adopted from Hunan, China, and raised in a household with two moms. Sheng was set to follow in his parents’ footsteps and was scheduled to start a two-year Master’s program in Social Work in Michigan where he was raised when Hollywood came knocking at his door.
We just love the character of Micah on The L Word: Generation Q and we can’t wait to see what Leo Sheng is up to next.
Yasmin Finney
This wouldn’t be an article on transgender excellence if it didn’t include the likes of Yasmin Finney. Yasmin Finney burst onto the global stage in 2022 as Elle Argent from the widely popular Heartstopper series. Finney was just nineteen years old when she was thrust into international stardom.
Based on the graphic novels of the same name by author Alice Oseman, the character of Elle is a trans girl who, when the show opens, has just moved from their previously all-boys school to an all-girls school.
The character of Elle is groundbreaking and dynamic for many reasons, but what we love the most about her is that, like Paul Strickland on 9-1-1: Lonestar, the fact that she is trans isn’t the driving force behind her character.
“They never say that she’s trans. [The show] only mentions that she swapped a school for boys for one with girls. This was very empowering because it’s not a show that emphasizes that Elle is trans as if that defines everything she is. [Being trans is shown] as being positive, as cool and natural, which is what being trans is,” Finney told EL PAÍS magazine.
Then, a month after Heartstopper hit screens, it was announced that Finney would be joining the cast of the iconic British show Doctor Who bringing yet another trans character to our screens.
Since the release and success of Heartstopper, Finney has been front and center of many Pride events around the world, including Manchester Pride in 2022, Black Pride in 2022, and London Pride in 2023.
An incredible actress and outstanding LGBTQ activist, Yasmin Finney is bringing transgender excellence to the forefront of the world stage.
Elliot Page
On December 1, 2020, Elliot Page took to social media and announced to the world that they are a transgender man, specifying that his pronouns moving forward would be he/they and would now be going by the name of Elliot.
Transitioning is such a personal journey, but Page stated that he felt compelled to share his journey publicly because of the anti-LGBTQ sentiment rising in American society at that time, particularly anti-transgender rhetoric, and partly because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the instability of the world.
Whatever his reasons, we’re so grateful and proud that he did! Since his coming out, Page has spoken candidly about their transition, their emotional well-being before and after transition, and his hopes for the transgender community in the future.
In 2021, Elliot Page was the first trans man to appear on the cover of Time Magazine. Wayne Neilly, a Canadian-born photographer known for their work documenting the transgender experience, photographed Page for the event.
Elliot Page’s portfolio of work is long. Since the pandemic hit though, he seems to be focussing more on his own journey and has taken fewer acting roles. When he came out as trans, Netflix transitioned his character from Vanya Hargreeves to Viktor Hargreeves in the ever-popular The Umbrella Academy and he continued with that role until Netflix announced the final season of the show (to be released in 2024). He starred in a feature film in 2023 titled Close to You, which was released on the 10th of September, 2023.
Due to his bravery and the candid nature in which he approached his coming out, and has continued to approach trans issues every day, Elliot Page was championed as an example of transgender excellence almost overnight. We wish him nothing but love and light, and we look forward to whatever he does next.
