Daniel Radcliffe lauded a group of trans and nonbinary young people for sharing their “fascinating” experiences.
The Harry Potter actor, 33, has long been a friend of the LGBTQ+ community and has sat down with a group of young people in a new series to gain insight into their lives and identities.
The Trevor Project’s new YouTube series, Sharing Space, broadcast its first installment on Trans Day of Visibility, and featured the Guns Akimbo performer in a discussion with six young people about growing up trans or nonbinary and what their identities mean to them.
The six young people talk about their childhoods, remembering how they were expected to fall into certain categories, being harassed for being ‘feminine,’ or being told by their parents that they would ‘turn out homosexual.’
Daniel, who is frequently referred to as a friend of the LGBTQ+ community, also stated that he has “weird little problems with the word ally” and finds it “suspicious” when someone self-identifies as one.
However, he stated that there is a “original meaning to that word” and that “some people embody that very powerfully.”
Mateo-Luis agreed that it takes a lot for someone to’step into what we would consider allyship, to comprehend what it’s like to walk in your footsteps.’
Deity stated that even with friends, ‘we still have to convey what makes us feel food and what our limits are,’ and that many times an ally thinks they ‘can’t do anything else wrong.’
The group also talked about gender joy, which Daniel confessed he had never heard of before.
‘There’s so much on dysphoria and the pain and trauma you have to feel … and not about what is the best version of ourselves, what makes us feel the best,’ Sameer, who is nonbinary, explained on the term gender euphoria.
Daniel heaped praise on the six youths for the ‘fascinating and lovely’ conversation, describing them as ‘an amazing group to have listened to about this.’
He himself recalled reading a book in his younger years which quoted a UK researcher talking about ‘typically male characteristics,’ and how ‘little boys’ enjoy things like ‘tinkering with cars’ – and thought to himself, ‘I’ve done none of this.’
The actor stated that some people in the world “are not trying to engage in this conversation in any kind of good faith,” implying that “it’s because they don’t know a young trans person.”
Daniel rose to prominence through the Harry Potter film series, which is based on the novels written by JK Rowling, who has been accused of transphobia, which she has previously refuted.
In a past interview with IndieWire, he said it was ‘important’ to speak out in support of the trans community as through his career he has ‘met so many queer and trans kids and young people who had a huge amount of identification with Potter on that.’
‘And so seeing them hurt on that day I was like, I wanted them to know that not everybody in the franchise felt that way. And that was really important.’
Source My Celebrity Life.