Second Wachowski sibling comes out as transgender

The second sibling of the directing team The Wachowskis has come out as transgender.

Speaking to the Windy City Times, Lilly Wachowski revealed she is now living as a woman, four years after her sibling Lana announced that she herself had transitioned. The pair are a hugely successful film-making duo, who made The Matrix and its two sequels, as well as Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending and the TV series Sense8.

In a statement, Lilly said she has made the announcement after being door-stepped by a reporter from UK newspaper the Daily Mail, who wanted to reveal her gender identity in an interview, assuring her the paper was “not a tabloid.”

The title of her statement mocks the terrifying headline she imagined waking up to: “SEX CHANGE SHOCKER—WACHOWSKI BROTHERS NOW SISTERS!!!”

“My sister Lana and I have largely avoided the press,” she writes. “I find talking about my art frustratingly tedious and talking about myself a wholly mortifying experience. I knew at some point I would have to come out publicly. You know, when you’re living as an out transgender person it’s … kind of difficult to hide. I just wanted—needed some time to get my head right, to feel comfortable.” LANA WACHOWSKI

Lilly’s sister Lana (pictured) previously came out publicly as transgender in 2012.

Lilly acknowledges that the Daily Mail was the newspaper which played a part in the national outing of Lucy Meadows, a teacher who took her own life in the UK in 2013. By making the statement to the Chicago based LGBT publication, she took control of her own coming out.

“Being transgender is not easy. We live in a majority-enforced gender binary world. This means when you’re transgender you have to face the hard reality of living the rest of your life in a world that is openly hostile to you. I am one of the lucky ones.”

Acknowledging support of her sister Lana, who publicly came out as transgender in 2012 following years of speculation, she concludes: “So yeah, I’m transgender. And yeah, I’ve transitioned…Without the love and support of my wife and friends and family I would not be where I am today.”

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