Michael D. Cohen: Hollywood's Blossoming Trans Community

LGBTQ&A

Jeffrey Masters

Society & Culture

4.7 • 703 Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2019

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Trans men exist; sometimes that feels like an important thing to remind people. While most people know who Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, and even Caitlyn Jenner are, the majority would have a harder time naming men of the trans experience. When Michael D. Cohen recently shared with the public that he transitioned in 2000, he instantly became one of Hollywood's most visible men in the trans community. The actor, most known for his role on Henry Danger, the long-running Nickelodeon sitcom, hopes that by talking more publicly about his gender history, he's signaling to the kids who watch the show to "just be who you are, whatever that is."

LGBTQ&A is hosted and produced by Jeffrey Masters. @jeffmasters1

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, do me a favor. Before we begin, turn to the first person that you see and ask them to
0:06.0	name a trans person.
0:08.0	Okay, just kidding, don't do that. But if you were to, I would wager that nearly every single name
0:15.7	that you hear would be that of a trans woman, not a trans man, and definitely not someone who's non-binary. For all the
0:22.6	progress that we've made, we have a visibility issue. Things are changing, but there still
0:28.4	hasn't been a trans man that has broken through in the way that Janet Mock or Llevin Cox or even
0:34.3	Caitlin Jenner has in terms of their fame and notoriety.
0:38.6	All of that is just one of the many reasons why I was excited to talk to Michael B. Cohen.
0:44.5	He is an actor on the long-running Nickelodeon show Henry Danger,
0:47.9	and recently came out publicly in Time magazine as having had transitioned over almost 20 years ago.
0:54.9	That was in the year 2000, and Azure here, things were very different then.
0:59.8	So we talked all about that, as well as what it's like to now instantly be one of the most
1:05.1	visible men in the trans community in the world.
1:12.5	From Luminary Media, I'm Jeffrey Masters, and this is LGBTQ&A.
1:22.8	You know, I've been telling people that you came out recently, and that's not exactly true,
1:30.4	is it?
1:31.4	No, no.
1:33.2	No, I think that technically I came out 20 years ago, right?
1:37.6	And I think that, like, I bring that out because I think it's a really important distinction
1:40.6	that you not disclosing to random strangers on the street is not the same
1:46.6	thing as being like in the closet or being a secret per se. Yeah, I think that's, I mean,
1:52.4	people can get confused about that. You know, like I've never lived secretly. It's never been,
	...

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