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Actress Hunter Schafer no longer wants to play transgender roles. The 25-year-old American, known for her role in the series Euphoria, says in the monthly magazine GQ that she no longer wants to be reduced to her gender identity. “I just want to be a girl now.”
Hunter Schafer originally aspired to a modeling career and worked with fashion houses such as Prada, Dior, Gucci and Calvin Klein. Yet her acting career also took off smoothly when she was cast as the transgender character Jules Vaughn in the HBO hit series Euphoria in 2018. In the interview with GQ, she says it took a while to learn that she doesn’t want to be reduced to that one aspect of her identity.
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“At the end of the day, I think it’s demeaning to me and what I want to do. Especially after high school, I got tired of talking about it,” says Schafer, who transitioned as a teenager. “I worked so hard to get where I am today, past all the difficult moments in my transition. Now I just want to be a girl and finally move on.”
No spokesperson
The actress says she has been offered numerous trans roles. “But I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I know that I am one of the most famous transgender people in the media right now, and I feel a kind of responsibility, maybe even a little guilt, because I no longer pose as a spokesperson,” says Schafer. “But I really believe that if I don’t put it at the center of what I do, I can ultimately get further. I think I can do great things for the sake of ‘the movement’, things that are much more useful than talking about it all the time.”
She says she is also completely unaffected by transphobic criticism. “I’m completely okay with people hating me because I’m trans or calling me a man. I don’t feel like convincing them anymore,” says the actress, who is also a fashion model and LGBT activist.
In any case, Schafer still seems to receive plenty of offers, despite her intention not to take on any more transgender roles. For example, she played in the films The Hunger Games: The ballad of songbirds & snakes and the soon to be released Cuckoo, without the gender identity of her characters being a theme.
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