Filmmaker Lana Wachowski has said she
feared losing her family in coming out transgender.
Lana Wachowski along with her brother
Andy Wachowski wrote and directed the 1999 futuristic sci-fi thriller
The Matrix.
In a The New Yorker profile,
Lana, who until 2002 was called Larry, described what led to her
coming out.
While filming the second and third
parts of the Matrix trilogy in the early 2000s, Larry
separated from his wife and became depressed.
“For years, I couldn't even say the
words 'transgender' or 'transsexual',” Lana said. “When I began
to admit it to myself, I knew I would eventually have to tell my
parents and my brother and my sisters. This fact would inject such
terror into me that I would not sleep for days. I developed a plan
that I worked out with my therapist. It was going to take three
years. Maybe five.”
But just a couple of weeks later,
sensing something was wrong, Lana's mother, Lynne Wachowski, flew to
Australia and Larry told her: “I'm transgender. I'm a girl.”
Lynn offered her unconditional support,
and soon so did the rest of the family.
In 2009, Lana married her second wife.
“I chose to change my exteriority to
bring it closer into alignment with my interiority,” Lana
said. “My biggest fears were all about losing my family. Once
they accepted me, everything else has been a piece of cake. I know
that many people are dying to know if I have a surgically constructed
vagina or not, but I prefer to keep this information between my wife
and me.”
The Wachowskis' latest film, Cloud
Atlas, opens in October.