‘Glamorous’ Star Miss Benny Comes Out as Transgender
Miss Benny is feeling glam in more ways than one today: the star of Netflix’s Glamorous just came out as a transgender woman.
Just a few days after Glamorous premiered on Netflix this past weekend, Miss Benny — who plays the series’ protagonist, Marco Mejia — came out as trans in a personal essay published Monday by Time magazine.
“It felt as if I had lived with a stuffy nose my whole life and then suddenly my breathing airways opened, and I discovered everybody else has been breathing freely the whole time,” the American Horror Stories alum wrote of her decision to start transitioning. “And now, I too can breathe and enjoy my life the same way everyone else does.”
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Although the actor-musician has been out as a gender-nonconforming queer person for over a decade since first gaining fame on YouTube, she revealed in her Time essay that she has been transitioning privately for several years. But while she was finding liberation in her personal life, she still had doubts as to how transitioning would affect her career — especially in Glamorous, in which her role of Marco had been originally written to be a cis man.
“I braced myself for the worst,” Miss Benny wrote in Time, but she needn’t have worried: series creator Jordon Nardino and executive producer Kameron Tarlow helped her pitch a different version of the show to Netflix, one in which Marco could also transition alongside Miss Benny herself.
“It was really important that Marco’s trans-ness was not the plot of the show. It’s not a ‘twist’ to surprise the audience,” Miss Benny wrote. “Instead, we get to watch a young queer person experiencing first love and heartbreak, career success and failure, and everything else that comes with being a young adult… while also discovering their identity in the background of life. Because being transgender is not something you do, it’s who you are.”
Overall Miss Benny’s having a pretty great month. Apart from coming out publicly and releasing Glamorous, she’s also released her debut pop EP SWELTER and gotten love from beloved comic actor Joel Kim Booster, who plays Cliff in the new series. “Be on the ground floor of @MissBenny’s come up!” Booster exhorted fans on Twitter last week, calling her “a true star.”
