Ellen Page speaks out against ‘dehumanising’ of transgender people
Ellen Page attends the premiere of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy at ArcLight Hollywood on February 12, 2019 in Hollywood, California. (Rich Fury/Getty)
Ellen Page has spoken out for transgender rights, responding to a growing anti-trans backlash.
The Juno star, who is a lesbian, spoke out about a growing groundswell of opposition to transgender rights.
In an interview with Gay Times magazine, Page warned that trans people have been “left behind” by the rest of the LGBT+ community.
She said: “We need to realise that a lot of the most marginalised people in our community have been left behind.
“We need to step up for trans people because they’re under attack.”
Ellen Page hits out at ‘cruel’ treatment of trans issues
Addressing concerns about transgender women being a danger to women’s spaces, Page highlighted that lesbians had faced similar smears in the past.
She said: “It’s not like people didn’t use the same arguments for lesbian, gay and bisexual people, but people are also using that rhetoric to make trans people seem like predators.
“It’s demonising and dehumanising. It’s deplorable.
“In regards to those conversations in the UK, and the treatment and attack on trans rights in the US, it’s utterly cruel.”
Page added that it was not just conservatives who continue to hold ignorant views on LGBT+ issues.
Ellen Page spoke out in an interview with Gay Times magazine
She said: “I deal with a lot of progressive people, powerful people, who have said ridiculous s**t to me.
“People need to wake up, they need to educate themselves.”
The full interview is available in the March 2019 issue of Gay Times magazine .
Ellen Page speaks out after Martina Navratilova attacked trans ‘tyranny’
The interview comes in the wake of incendiary comments from lesbian tennis icon Martina Navratilova, who spoke attacked the “tyranny” of transgender campaigners.
Navratilova made the comments in a February 17 column in the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper, hitting out at rules that allow trans women to compete in sport.
She wrote: “To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organisation is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires.
“It’s insane and it’s cheating.”
Navratilova wrote: ”I also deplore what seems to be a growing tendency among transgender activists to denounce anyone who argues against them and to label them all as ‘transphobes’.
“That’s just another form of tyranny. I’m relatively tough and was able to stand up for myself in my Twitter exchange (..) but I worry that others may be cowed into silence or submission.”
LGBT+ sporting bodies later cut ties with the player over the remarks.
