LAST UPDATE | 8 Jun 2023
ELLIOT PAGE, PROBABLY the most famous trans man in the world, has come out twice in his life, once as a gay woman in 2014 and then as a trans man in 2020.
“When I came out in 2014 the vast majority of people believed me, they did not ask for proof,” he writes in Pageboy. “But the hate and backlash I received were nothing compared to now.”
Over the course of this powerful memoir, Page reflects on his difficult upbringing and his relationship with a Hollywood that was (and is) inherently homophobic, expecting him to play a part both onscreen and off.
He was expected to wear dresses and heels to premieres, never allowed to be himself in case there was a whiff of queerness about him.
It is not a linear narrative. Page meanders through his life in a book filled with flashbacks and flashforwards. It also deals with difficult subject matters: bullying, stalking, sexual harassment and assault and eating disorders.
But neither is it a misery memoir. It is an honest account of a life of privilege but also a life very much lived in the public eye. After his breakout performance in Juno, the Village Voice published a piece saying “Let’s put the dykey pieces together. Is Juno a you-know?” Page was 20 years old.
His parents divorced when he was very young and he spent his childhood going between both parents, spending two weeks each month with his mother and two weeks with his father and stepmother, Linda.
His relationship with his mother, Martha, was loving and touching, although for a long time, she could not acknowledge the fact that she had a queer child. She wanted what the other moms had, a daughter.
His relationship with his father, Dennis, vacillated from love to outright neglect.
All too often Dennis would side with Linda in her bullying of his child. Even now, while Page has a loving relationship with his mother, his father’s refused to accept that he had a trans son and was complicit in the online abuse levelled at him, liking a hateful tweet directed at Page by Jordan Peterson.
The abuse he received in Hollywood was, if anything, even worse. After Page came out as lesbian in 2014, an A-list actor (unnamed) told Elliott at a Hollywood party that he was going to “fuck you to make you realise you aren’t gay.” Many people heard, but nobody did anything.
A male crew member on Hard Candy, a movie in which he starred, performed oral sex on Page (then aged 17) without consent.
On another occasion, just last year, while in West Hollywood and about to cross the street, a man told him he was going to beat him up. “I’m going to beat you up, f*ggot!” Page ended up running into a nearby convenience store to ask for help. He says that he has learned to compartmentalise such moments – there have been others – but it’s not hard to see how the current climate around LGBTQ+ people emboldens such behaviour.
Throughout the book, Page grapples with his queerness and the dawning realisation that he was trans. He speaks candidly about his gender dysphoria, saying it is very hard to describe to someone who isn’t trans.
“Imagine the most uncomfortable, mortifying thing you could wear. You squirm in your skin. It’s tight, you want to peel it from your body, tear it off, but you can’t. Day in and day out. And if people are to learn what is underneath, who you are without all that pain, the shame would come flooding out, too much to hold. The voice was right, you deserve the humiliation. You are an abomination. You are too emotional. You are not real.”
Pageboy is, at times, not an easy read but it is an honest account of what it’s like to be a queer person in the public eye and the damage that being closeted can do to your self-esteem.
Page acknowledges his own privilege in the acceptance he has received from many friends and colleagues and in having the means to access gender-affirming healthcare, a privilege not afforded to all trans people.
But it’s equally important for us to acknowledge Page for being his true authentic self in the glare of the public eye. The dedication at the start of the book reads: “To all those who came before.”
Page is now one of those who came before. There are people out there who will have the courage to be themselves by seeing someone who is so authentically themselves and by reading the words in this book.
Aoife Martin is a trans woman and activist. In her spare time, she likes reading, going to the cinema and practising card tricks. Elliot Page’s new book, Pageboy is out now.
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