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7 Most Successful Transgender Tinseltown Stars Who Defied Societal Norms to Leave Their Mark

  • June 5, 2025
  • 7 minute read
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Showbiz is a very interesting and progressive industry. Always the one to set the latest trends and fire up a revolution, Hollywood is also a shelter and haven for those individuals who have been mistreated by society over their personal choices of gender. They have been judged, shamed, and held back by society on many junctures, but in the world of performing arts, many have also found a new identity and the opportunity to make a change for others going through the same struggle.

Tinseltown proudly boasts a supportive community, with some top talents who have fought against the unfair social norms and secured their places in entertainment history.

Laverne Cox

Actress and LGBTQ advocate Laverne Cox has been very engaging in projects like Orange is the New Black, Promising Young Woman,

Netflix’s Inventing Anna

,

and so much more. And she is just as compelling in voicing her support of the transgender community and voicing her own struggles. Cox, who grew up in Alabama, was subjected to much bullying in childhood because, in the star’s words, “she didn’t act the way someone assigned male at birth was supposed to act,”

 she told ABC News in 2014

.

This trauma led her to attempt to take her life in the sixth grade, but thankfully, she survived. The discrimination she faced led her to attempt suicide in the sixth grade. After she moved to New York and met the LGBTQ+ community, she embraced womanhood, which, in her words, is “inner relief.”

Read More: Will ‘Dexter: Resurrection’ Come to Netflix? Release Date, Cast, Plot and All You Need to Know of Crime Drama Mystery Series

Caitlyn Jenner

One of the most famous transgender people on screen, Caitlyn Jenner, changed the narratives for many by becoming an example. The Olympic gold-winning decathlete, who also had political interests

, has long struggled with gender identity and becoming her true self. But in 2015, leaving all societal fears behind, Jenner, in an interview with Diane Sawyer, declared, “For all intents and purposes, I am a woman.” 

Two months after the interview, the media personality, who was earlier known as Bruce Jenner, made the revelation of a name change to Caitlyn on the cover of Vanity Fair

, sharing her thoughts that “I’m not doing this to be interesting. I’m doing this to live.”

She also revealed that suppressing those feelings felt no less than death, and she did not want to spend her life dealing with those emotions.

Chaz Bono

Musical child of Cher and Sonny Bono, Chaz Bono was born as Chastity Bono but had a feeling that he did not belong in the gender he was born in, as he always “felt like a boy.” 

In 1995, Bono took on the initiative and identified herself as lesbian in a cover story for the gay monthly magazine The Advocate. In 2014, speaking to Oprah Winfrey, Bono shared that after reaching puberty, he “felt as if my body was literally betraying me.”

Chaz Bono also shared in the same chat that he went “from a very athletic, straight up-and-down little kid to a very curvaceous woman.”

It is just a horrible time for Bono, as his body was doing the exact opposite of how he felt. Now he is a writer, musician, and actor, and is also known for work like Reboot Camp, Little Bites,

and others. His experience was recorded in the 2011 documentary Becoming Chaz,

which was screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Tommy Dorfman

The Netflix actor who starred as Ryan Shaver in 13 Reasons Why

had been privately identifying and living as a woman for some time before she went ahead in 2021 with the medical process and physical transition. She is appreciated for her role in the Netflix series and uses her popularity to voice her struggles, which resonate with many traveling the same path as her.

Speaking to Time Magazine, she has said that as a celebrity, she has learned that her silence can strip her of the freedom to control her narrative. Adding, “My intervention is evolution—I’m just another person transitioning.”

Tommy Dorfman believes that with her choices, she is showing gender fluidity.

Elliot Page

One of the biggest transgender names in Hollywood is actress Elliot Page, who is also an activist for the community. He often uses his platform and wide reach to raise awareness about the troubles faced by transgender youth and voices his support for the fight against discrimination.

The actor was long known as a woman in public but fully embraced manhood in 2020. He wrote on his social media that “My joy is real”.

After transitioning, Elliot Page has been very vocal about his journey and has also gone on to pen his transition journey in the 2023 memoir, Pageboy.

Jazz Jennings

The reality television star and YouTube personality has openly shared that she knew she was a girl from a young age and openly expresses no regrets about her transition, proudly being a pansexual woman. Jazz Jennings often highlights the challenges and discrimination faced by LGBTQ+ individuals.

 She is an advocate for acceptance and support, and speaking to Variety in 2021

, she shared that her desire is “to educate as many people as possible on the experience and what it’s like to go through it firsthand.”

Kim Petras

The 32-year-old singer-songwriter Kim Petras made a life-changing decision before her teenage years as she underwent hormone therapy and later surgery at the age of 12.

A year after her medical transition, she told The Telegraph

, “The truth is I have always felt like a woman—I just ended up in the wrong body.”

June is celebrated as Pride Month

, which supports all LGBTQ members and is also a great initiative for people struggling with their identities. For all those people, these fans have set up great examples..

Read More: 13 Movies Like ‘Anora’ That Are Raw, Real, and Ridiculously Entertaining

What are your thoughts on the actors’ inspiring journeys
and stories to social struggle? Let us know below.

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