Trans And Non-Binary Celebrities Who Have Made History

This article references transphobia.

We love when celebrities make history, especially when it comes to firsts representing the advancement of minority groups in entertainment. And with transphobia still running rampant in today's society, positive representation is more important than ever. According to the ACLU, there have been a record 491 anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed across the United States in 2023, as of June 23. In a world where the transgender community is still fighting for basic human rights along with access to medically-necessary care and to use public accommodations suited to their identities, the visibility of trans and non-binary celebrities can provide hope and perhaps even open minds.

While transgender is a term used to describe people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth, non-binary is used to refer to people whose gender identity or expression is not contained within the binary categories of "man" and "woman." This includes identifications such as agender, pangender, or gender fluid. While some non-binary folks consider themselves a part of the transgender community, others do not and so we use these terms in tandem in this article rather than simply "transgender."

Transgender people have been featured in media since the days of Christine Jorgenson — often called the first trans celebrity — but they have historically been portrayed stereotypically and negatively. This is still too often the case. However, on-screen, we are also seeing more complex characters and nuanced stories about transgender and non-binary people, helmed by artists of those identities. Here are some of the transgender and non-binary celebrities who have had history-making moments.

The last few years have brought us a handful of shows centering notable transgender characters and, unlike many of the portrayals of the past — see "Ugly Betty," "Twin Peaks," "Nip/Tuck," etc. — a lot of these roles have been played by actual trans actors. But we are not entirely sure that people like Hunter Schafer (Jules Vaughn on "Euphoria") and Jesse James Keitel (Jerrie Kennedy on "Big Sky") would have ever been given a shot without Candis Cayne, a true trailblazer for transgender women on television. In 2007, she became the first transgender actor to have a recurring role on primetime television when she appeared as Carmelita Rainer on ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money."

Cayne's character on the soapy drama was not without its limitations — she was, after all, a mistress to Billy Baldwin's Patrick Darling IV, an Attorney General and Senate hopeful, and the network even digitally lowered her voice for the series premiere's "big reveal" moment where she is first introduced. Still, Cayne feels mostly positive about the 11 episodes in which she appeared. "It was written really well and my character was in love with this man and he was in love with her too," she told Out in 2015. "I realized that had never been portrayed, but I had no idea how big the impact would be socially until I was three to four episodes in and people started to realize that this was making the world aware of the fact that there are normal feeling trans women out there."

Though not everyone is convinced they should still be around, beauty pageants remain a big part of our culture — and not just in America but on a global scale. Within mainstream pageantry, there have been a number of openly transgender contestants to make it far in the game in the years since Jenna Talackova successfully fought a ban to compete in Miss Universe Canada in 2012. This includes Angela Maria Ponce, Miss Universe Spain 2018, who was both the first openly transgender contestant to win her country's Miss Universe pageant and also the first transgender woman to compete for the national title. Transgender contestants have also competed in the Miss Universe pageants in countries such as Germany, Nepal, and South Africa.

There have not been many transgender beauty pageant contestants in the United States, but the ones who have competed have made waves. For instance, transgender contestant Brían Nguyen's win in The Miss Greater Derry Scholarship Program created blowback from segments of the public and even some former pageant queens. While Nguyen did not win Miss New Hampshire 2023, Kataluna Enriquez beat out everyone in her state back in 2021, becoming the first transgender woman to win Miss Nevada USA, and the first transgender woman to compete for the title of Miss USA. Enriquez may not have cracked the top 16 nationally, but she opened the door for transgender competitors stateside.

In 2023, people were justifiably excited when Kim Petras and Sam Smith won a Grammy Award for their hit song "Unholy." When the pair were announced as the winners of the Best Pop Duo-Group Performance category, Petras became the first openly transgender woman to win the award (and Smith the first non-binary winner of it). But Petras — who was one of the youngest people to ever get gender affirmation surgery — is not the first transgender woman to win a Grammy in general. That title goes to Wendy Carlos, a transgender artist who specialized in the Moog synthesizer and was for decades an acclaimed composer in Hollywood (she wrote the score for "A Clockwork Orange," for example). Carlos was not open about her identity at the time of her win, a key difference that explains how Petras made history with hers.

Carlos won three Grammy Awards for her debut album, "Switched-on-Bach," released in 1968. When she accepted her awards for Best Classical Album, Best Engineered Album (Classical), and Best Classical Performance (Instrumental Soloist) two years later, Carlos was receiving professional treatment for gender dysphoria, taking estrogen, and living as a woman in private. Carlos had gender affirmation surgery in 1972 but kept releasing music under her birth name for years after. She came out in a Playboy interview in 1979, began releasing music using her chosen name, and stopped hiding — at one point, she had worn fake sideburns and a wig to present as male in public.

Andreja Pejic has broken down many doors for transgender women in the modeling industry, setting a number of records in the process. Though she was a popular model prior to coming out as transgender in 2013, her modeling agency dropped her when she publicly disclosed her gender identity. And honestly, the decision was extremely odd considering that Pejic had been modeling both menswear and womenswear for years. But she got the last laugh in 2017 when she was signed by the iconic Ford Models, making her the first transgender model in the agency's history. Considering Ford's prestige, it was an industry-changing moment. But by that point, Pejic had already been breaking barriers and making history for years.

Amongst other things, Pejic was the first model to cross gender lines and walk runways respectively assigned to male and female fashion. She was also the first transgender model to be on the cover of men's magazine GQ, and the first one to receive a profile in Vogue (back in 2015). Most versions of Vogue have since welcomed transgender models to their pages, and in 2017, Valentina Sampaio became the first transgender woman to make the cover when Vogue Paris led the way. In the years since, transgender women have been featured on the covers of American Vogue, British Vogue, and Vogue Thailand. Outside of runways and magazines, Pejic also broke barriers when she became a spokesperson for Make Up For Ever in 2015, becoming the first openly transgender model to land a cosmetics contract.

If there was any question that we love a list of hot men, please see our many lists devoted to them, including ones featuring young and not-so-young zaddies, and a slew gushing over the dreamiest male athletes. So, clearly, we are fans of People magazine's iconic "Sexiest Man Alive" issue and await their choices year after year. In recent years, the magazine has done a good job of expanding its definition of sexy to include a wider variety of ages, races, sexual orientations, and looks. And in 2021, it finally opened its pages to include its first transgender man in the must-read issue — a history-making moment.

The sexy man in question is actor Brian Michael Smith, who co-stars on Fox's "9-1-1: Lone Star" as firefighter Paul Strickland. The star was featured as one of the entries on the issue's "25 of the Sexiest Men You Can Watch on TV Now" list, which came as a huge shock for him. "I've been called many things, this is a first," he wrote on Instagram at the time. "Incredibly honored to be included in this list with so many actors I admire. Big love to [People] for the historic shout-out." It was not Smith's first historic moment, either. When he started on "9-1-1: Lone Star," Smith became the first Black transgender male in a recurring or regular role on network television (while he had previous recurring roles on "Queen Sugar" and "The L Word," which both aired on cable).

The Marvel Cinematic Universe began in 2008, with the release of "Iron Man" and shortly thereafter, "The Incredible Hulk." To date, the studio has released more than 30 films, some of which are among the highest-grossing movies of all time. Indeed, as of July 2023 Marvel's "Avengers: Endgame" was second only to the original "Avatar." Other massive Marvel moneymakers include "Avengers: Infinity War," "The Avengers," and "Spider-Man: No Way Home," all of which crack the Top 10. For such a huge film series, Marvel Studios has not exactly been a hub of diversity, although far more women and people of color have been featured in more recent films.

While "Black Panther" and "Black Widow" are examples of films led by non-White or non-male superheroes, the LGBTQ+ community has not been well-represented by Marvel films, not even relative to the comic books which have boasted a variety of queer characters — the films have shown only a smattering of them. It was not until 2021's "The Eternals" that the MCU introduced its first gay superhero in Phastos, even though actors who are open as sexual minorities have acted in Marvel movies since Ian McKellan's run in the "X-Men" films, which predates the MCU. Things have been ever scarcer for transgender representation, though Zach Barack did break boundaries when he appeared in the 2019 film, "Spider-Man: Far From Home" as Zach Cooper, becoming the MCU's first openly transgender actor to do so.

We would love to tell you that transgender and non-binary people are well-represented in the mainstream comedy world, but that would not be accurate. Don't get us wrong — there are plenty of gender minorities doing comedy, but not typically on the size of stages that they deserve. Transgender and non-binary comedians like Jes Tom, River Butcher, and James Tison deserve bigger audiences but are all on the rise. Non-binary stand-up Mae Martin even scored a Netflix special in 2023, so progress is happening within this field even if it's been a slow burn. Genderqueer stand-up Hannah Gadsby has done much to move things forward now that they have taken off via their Netflix success, though even they have called out the industry as transphobic, in a statement published by the Independent.

Before Gadsby or Martin landed specials with Netflix, Ian Harvie was making history with his own comedy special. The transgender stand-up and actor became the first openly transgender individual to have their own comedy special when "May the Best C*ck Win" was featured on Seeso in 2016. "If I couldn't laugh, I'd die," he told The Daily Beast in 2017. "And I think a lot of trans people probably feel that way." In addition to stand-up, Harvie also acts and has appeared in TV shows such as "Mistresses" and "Young and Hungry." When he guested on three episodes of "Transparent," Harvie also became the first transgender male actor to portray a transitioned transgender man on scripted American television.