Actor Miss Benny is sharing her journey as a transgender woman.
In a personal essay published by Time, the "Glamorous" star revealed publicly for the first time she is a transgender woman and wrote about growing up in a conservative Christian home in Texas and struggling with her identity.
"By 8 years old, I was praying every night to wake up and somehow be like my sisters. In the morning I would wake up in the same body, and cry," Miss Benny wrote. "Over time I became highly aware of how unwelcome LGBT topics would be in my hometown. And so I kept my head down and looked for an immediate escape."
Instead she moved to Los Angeles to "establish my own identity, and, hopefully, make a career as an actor."
But, instead, she was met with rejection, she said, because it "wasn't time for someone like me."
Miss Benny was thrilled to be hired for the new Netflix series "Glamorous," in which she plays a non-binary makeup artist who works as an assistant to a makeup mogul played by Kim Cattrall.
There was concern, however, that the character was named Marco and Miss Benny had begun to transition in her daily life.
She pitched "Glamorous" creator Jordon Nardino on having the character transition, too, as Miss Benny was in real life.
"Netflix came onboard. In fact, the only concern was ever about my own personal comfort and, funnily, whether or not the pitch of my voice would change over the course of filming (lol!)," she wrote in her essay. "And so, from that moment on, I worked closely with Jordon to ensure the authenticity of Marco's identity in the show."
"In the year since we shot the series, the political space—and specifically the anti-trans movement—has been so overwhelming," she noted, adding that "I've started to feel a sense of, 'Wow, this show is going to come out, and with that, I too will be coming out. I don't know if I'm ready to be this vulnerable.'"
"But then I am reminded that this fear is exactly why I wanted to include my transition in the show: Because I know that when I was a terrified queer kid in Texas, it was the queer joy I found in droplets online that guided me to my happiness," she wrote. "And if someone like me is out there feeling the weight of being othered, I want them to have a place they can see someone like us thrive and be celebrated."
