Hollyoaks’ Gerard McCarthy announces they are non-binary: ‘It makes sense to me’
'I'm just me" the actor wrote on social media.
Words: Alastair James; pictures: Instagram/@gerard_mccarthy
Hollyoaks‘ Gerard McCarthy has announced that they are non-binary saying this is the term that “makes sense” to them.
In a message posted to their social media on Monday (20 June) the Belfast actor, 41, says they will be using they/them and he/him pronouns and explains their relationship with sexuality and gender identity.
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“It’s an aspect of myself that I’ve never embraced, loved, or understood,” they say, which has meant they’ve avoided talking about it out of fear of how people might react or not having answers to potential questions.
But they’ve been asked for their thoughts on gender identity more in relation to their short film, Just Johnny.
The film focuses on a schoolboy from Belfast who wants to wear a dress to their first Holy Communion and was named Best Film in the Parental Experience category at the Giffoni International Film Festival in Italy last year.
Gerard says they don’t want to “lie anymore or laugh it off,” which they say has had a negative impact on their mental health.
They go on to say that they’ve had long-term relationships with men and women and that “the thing that attracted me to them was their energy, sense of humour, ambition, talent, intelligence, and wit. Not their genitalia.”
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Continuing Gerard says, “Right now, I’m in love with the kindest, most caring, thoughtful person I’ve ever met in my life. He’s a guy. If he was a girl, l’d still be in love. I’ve always felt like gender is used as another way to categorise us, to put us into nice, little conforming boxes. It’s something I’ve never been comfortable with.”
“I like the term ‘non-binary’, they conclude, adding, “It makes sense to me,” wondering that “if it existed when I was a teenager, I’d have been a lot more comfortable in my own skin.”
They also say “My gender has never been anything other than a constant reminder of what society expects me to be, and I’m now at a stage in my life where I’m not going to pay attention to that anymore.”
Gerard closes by saying, “I’m just me.”
McCarthy played Kris Fisher on Hollyoaks from 2006 to 2010 and received a nomination for Best Newcomer at the British Soap Awards and the National Television Awards in 2007.
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