Welcome, Elliot Page!
by Emil Tinkler
If you are as big a fan of Umbrella Academy as I am or familiar with any of Elliot Page’s other work, you may have heard the wonderful news about Elliot coming out as transgender! Elliot came out on their Instagram page with a very nice message declaring that he is trans and that they prefer He/They pronouns. And — most obviously — he will now be going by the name Elliot.
This is amazing news — not only for Elliot who now has a chance to truly be themselves — but also amazing news for the trans community. Such a big star coming out publicly as trans will bring a lot of eyes onto the community. This of course brings the opportunity to educate many people about the issues and struggles facing transgender individuals. As hard as it is to believe, Elliot Page’s coming out may be some people’s first experience with transgender people. I know that when Caitlyn Jenner came out when I was in high school, it was the first time that I realized it was possible to be transgender.
Elliot’s coming out also gives all of us a chance to work correctly using someone’s pronouns and new name after coming out. Remember that mistakes happen but that it takes active work in correcting yourself and others when these mistakes happen. It is also important to be understanding if you are corrected for using Elliot’s deadname or incorrect pronouns. If someone does correct you for using the incorrect name/pronouns, just thank them and continue while using the correct pronouns/name. Something that helps me when I make mistakes is for every time you use the wrong pronouns or the wrong name, repeat the correct name or pronouns to yourself in your head three times correctly to help yourself memorize the correct ones! Practice really does make perfect, so if you also find yourself making a lot of mistakes, it can also help to just practice using their name and pronouns in a sentence to yourself.
Elliot Page’s visibility as a Queer Transgender person will help to show LGBTQ+ people of all ages that we are here, we are queer, and we are proud to be ourselves. The outpouring of love and support for him has truly been amazing. The effect of this is normalization of people being transgender and the support of individuals who do come out as transgender. The more social acceptance transgender people receive, the easier it will hopefully be for future generations of trans people to live and exist. So far, 40 transgender men and women — a majority of who were Black or Latinx — were killed this year. It is important to remember them and to remember that as we build a society that is safer for transgender people that we are also building a society that is safer for transgender people of color.
I want to congratulate Elliot Page on coming out and I wish him the best going forward! Please remember that you do not need to deadname or misgender someone to explain that they came out! Here are some more resources to take a look at:
- https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-trans-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2020
- https://give.hrc.org/page/62714/donate/1?ea.tracking.id=or_gnr_hrc_homepage2020
- https://act.glsen.org/onlineactions/x2U7iN4z0EejZIQ4F2a9Yw2
- https://give.thetrevorproject.org/give/63307/#!/donation/checkout
About the Author:
Emil Tinkler is a 21 year old college student living in Central Florida. They are a gay agender person. Emil is a psychology major and a humanities minor. They want to be a therapist one day and help trans kids access medical care, and they love Harry Potter, Bad Suns, and LGBTQ activism. Emil was Vice President of the LGBTQ group on their campus for a year, and will continue to keep activism close to their heart in everything they do.
