Jamie Lee Curtis is getting personal.
In a new interview with People , the Halloween actress opened up about her daughter, Ruby, coming out as transgender last year.
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She shares Ruby with her husband Christopher Guest, as well as their other daughter, Annie.
“It’s learning new terminology and words,” Jamie Lee said about her experience. “I am new at it.”
Jamie Lee Curtis and her daughter Ruby recently opened up to *People* magazine about the beautiful journey they just experienced together.
Ruby has transitioned, and Curtis has become the “grateful student” and is ready to keep growing to learn and grow to support her daughter.
Ruby began the intimate interview by detailing the “scary” moment she came out to her parents.
This took place last year in the family’s Los Angeles backyard.
“It was scary — just the sheer fact of telling them something about me they didn’t know,” Ruby said.
“It was intimidating — but I wasn’t worried. They had been so accepting of me my entire life.”
Even so, Ruby felt unable to share her news. Instead, she left and texted her mother. “I called her immediately,” Jamie Lee said. “Needless to say there were some tears involved.”
Jamie Lee said there is a steep learning curve that comes with a child coming out as trans.
“It’s speaking a new language,” she said. “It’s learning new terminology and words. I am new at it. I am not someone who is pretending to know much about it. And I’m going to blow it.”
“I’m going to make mistakes. I would like to try to avoid making big mistakes,” she continued.
She’s learned a few things along the way: “You slow your speech down a little. You become a little more mindful about what you’re saying. How you’re saying it.”
“You still mess up, I’ve messed up today twice. We’re human.”
The hope is that going forward with their story encourages others to do the same.
Which is the hope we all have, I’m sure.
She continued on by saying:
“But if one person reads this, sees a picture of Ruby and me and says, ‘I feel free to say this is who I am,’ then it’s worth it.”
In a Q&A, Jamie Lee reflected on whether she always had an inkling about Ruby’s identity.
“I knew Ruby had had a boyfriend. I knew that Ruby had used the word bi. But gender identity and sexual orientation — those are two separate things,” the actress said.
“And I knew that Ruby played female avatars in video games,” she said.
“But when you ask, ‘Did you have an inkling that Ruby was trans?” I would say no. But when I replayed Ruby’s life, I went, “Hmm, that, that, those, hmm.”
She summed this up by saying, “a mother knows.”
If one thing is true it’s this: mother intuition is practically unstoppable.
As for Ruby, she detailed the moment she was able to say, “I am Ruby” to herself.
She said:
“When I was about 16, a friend of mine who is trans asked me what my gender was. I told them, ‘Well, I’m male.'” But then she said she’d dwell on this.
“I knew I was different,” she said.
Sadly, a negative experience in therapy caused her to delay coming out.
“Then, seven years later, still being Tom at the time, I told the person who is now my fiancé that I am probably trans. And they said, ‘I love you for who you are.'”
Although Ruby comes from famous parents (and famous grandparents), she works as a video editor for a gaming personality on YouTube.
When asked about whether her family’s Hollywood legacy had any effect on her coming out and whether it added any pressure, she said it did.
“Yeah, no one knows anything about me, and I’ve tried my best until now to keep it that way.”
But now — with her mother by her side — she’s ready to share her story.
“This is our family’s experience,” Jamie Lee concluded.
“I am here to support Ruby.”
“That is my job. Just as it is to care and love and support her older sister Annie in her journeys.”
Read the full interview here .
H/T: People
