Elliot Page, the 33-year-old star of 2013’s Beyond: Two Souls, publicly announced his transition in a powerful letter today.
“I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they and my name is Elliot,” Page wrote on Twitter. “I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life. I feel overwhelming gratitude for the incredible people who have supported me along this journey.”
He went on to express solidarity with the violence endured by the trans community - in particular, the alarming number of POC who have been murdered - and called for an end to political discrimination against the transgender community.
“The statistics are staggering. The discrimination towards trans people is rife, insidious and cruel, resulting in horrific consequences,” he said. “In 2020 alone it has been reported that at least 40 transgender people have been murdered, the majority of which were Black and Latinx trans women. To the political leaders who work to criminalize trans health care and deny our right to exist and to all of those with a massive platform who continue to spew hostility towards the trans community: you have blood on your hands.”
Page has long since been a champion of LGBTQIA+ rights, and has spent much of his career raising awareness. His announcement comes a few years after his fantastic Gaycation - a travel series with a deliberately queer bent. The series saw Page and his co-host, Ian Daniel, as they traveled the world and profiled several oft-underrepresented queer communities. The series made huge strides in shining a light on regions and people that tend to get overlooked when discussing LGBTQIA+ issues at large.
More relevant to this gaming news site, however, is Page’s turn in the middling Beyond: Two Souls. While the game itself left much to be desired, Page’s top-notch performance grounded the narrative and brought it down a very raw, very human place. He hasn’t done any game work since (and there’s a good reason for that,) but with how much progress has been made in queer representation in gaming in the time since, it would be fantastic to see him bring his talents to a new project.
