After a journalist threatened to out her, Lilly Wachowski announced that she is transgender, liker her sister Lana. The two siblings were known as the Wachowski brothers and created The Matrix franchise and Netflix’s Sense8 series.
Lilly, 48, was known as Andy. In an essay for The Windy City Times, she revealed that a journalist from the U.K.’s Daily Mail arrived at her home to reveal that they were about to run a story outing her. She refused to talk to him.
In her essay, Lilly noted how the Daily Mail has had an awful record when it comes to covering transgender issues and recalled the tragic story of Lucy Meadows.
“An editorial in the ‘not-a-tabloid’ demonized her as a damaging influence on the children's delicate innocence and summarized ‘he's not only trapped in the wrong body, he's in the wrong job.’ The reason I knew about her wasn't because she was transgender it was because three months after the Daily Mail article came out, Lucy committed suicide,” Lilly wrote. “And now here they were, at my front door, almost as if to say— ‘There's another one! Let's drag 'em out in the open so we can all have a look!’”
Lilly wrote that she is one of the lucky ones because she has the support of her family. “I'm out to my friends and family. Most people at work know too. Everyone is cool with it. Yes, thanks to my fabulous sister they've done it before, but also because they're fantastic people. Without the love and support of my wife and friends and family I would not be where I am today,” she wrote.
The Wachowski siblings are known for their science fiction work, including The Matrix, V For Vendetta, Cloud Atlas and last year’s Jupiter Ascending. They also created Sense8 for Netflix. Lana, 50, came out in 2012, although she privately transitioned in 2000, notes The Verge. Since then, Lana has often spoken out about trans awareness.
You can read Lilly’s entire statement here.