While accepting Outfest's annual
Achievement Award on Sunday, Academy Award-nominated actor Elliot
Page discussed his recent coming out.
Los Angeles' LGBT film festival's
Achievement Award honors an individual who has “made a significant
contribution to LGBTQIA+ stories, arts, and media visibility.”
Page, who came out as transgender in
December, appeared via video on the festival's closing night. He
credited watching But I'm a Cheerleader when he was young for
helping him come out.
“I for one know that without the
various representation that I was able to stumble upon as a kid and a
teenager – there was very little – I just don’t know if I would
have made it,” Page said. “I don’t know if I would have made it
through the moments of isolation and loneliness and shame and
self-hatred that was so extreme and powerful and all-encompassing
that you could hardly see out of it.”
“And then, you know, at 15, when you
are flipping through the channels and you stumble on But I’m a
Cheerleader and the dialogue in that film, and scenes in that film
just transform your life. I almost think we don’t talk enough about
how important representation is and enough about how many lives it
saves and how many futures it allows for,” Page said.
Page also thanked Outfest for “helping
get stories out in the world that I know are reaching people in
moments where they feel desperately alone and afraid and like they
have no sense of community. And it offers somebody a lifeline. And I
know that representation has done that for me.”