Tommy Dorfman, best known as Ryan Shaver in Netflix‘s 13 Reasons Why, has come out as a transgender woman.
In an interview with Time Dorfman explained that for the past year she has been “privately identifying and living as a woman – a trans woman”.
She also expanded on why it was important to document her transition on Instagram as a means of controlling her narrative.
“I’ve been living in this other version of coming out where I don’t feel safe enough to talk about it, so I just do it,” Dorfman said. “But I recognise that transitioning is beautiful. Why not let the world see what that looks like? So I kept, on Instagram, a diaristic time capsule instead – one that shows a body living in a more fluid space.”
However, coming out and officially announcing her transition felt important as a public-facing figure. “With this medical transition, there has been discourse about my body, and it began to feel overwhelming. So, recently I looked to examples of others who have come out as trans,” she said.
“There’s the version I couldn’t really afford to do, which is to disappear for two years and come back with a new name, new face and new body. But that’s not what I wanted.”
Alongside the interview, Dorfman took to Instagram to announce her transition.
“Thrilled to reintroduce myself as the woman i am today. my pronouns are she/her,” she wrote.
“I’m especially grateful to every single trans person who walked this path, broke down barriers, and risked their lives to live authentically and radically as themselves before me.”
In her interview with Time, Dorfman said it was “impossible to separate my personal and professional transition”.
She will appear in her first role as a woman in Lena Dunham’s upcoming directorial effort Sharp Stick.
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