Lilly Wachowski received a standing ovation when she got up on stage at the 2016 GLAAD Media Awards to accept an award for best drama series for Netflix's "Sense8." Her appearance at the award show was the first time that she has been seen in public since she came out as a transgender woman a month ago.
Wachowski, who was previously known as Andy, revealed that she was transgender after she said she was threatened to be outed by a reporter. The director is part of the directing team that was responsible for "The Matrix" trilogy along with her sister Lana, who also came out as transgender in July 2012.
"Okay, first of all... ta-da," Wachowski joked when she took to the stage at the award show.
"Tonight is a culmination of confluent events for me. This was something I became aware of shortly after receiving my invitation to tonight's affair. A sudden synchronism of time-space that included the 20-year anniversary of Bound, the trans day of visibility, National Women's Day and Pi Day, all occurring within a month's time concurrent with my own coming out, with the help of the fabulous people at GLAAD," she said.
"It's an excellent reminder that art is never static, and while the ideas of identity and transformation are critical components of our work, the bedrock that all ideas rest upon is love," Wachowski continued. "Love is a crucial thing for transgender people. It's a tether. For while our creativity can soar beyond a seemingly immutable biological gender designations, when faced with the rather simple proposition of whether or not we are lovable, our imagination falters. Too many of us end up on the wrong side of the existential question of love in oblivion. And so we ring that bell, not for everyone else's sake, bit for our own."
Earlier in the night on the red carpet, the director spoke to reporters about her nerves and how her first instinct was to run away from all of the attention she had received since coming out as trans.
"Every 'trans' instinct that I have is telling me to hide, telling me to run," she said. "My flight instinct is off the charts right now. But, I'm transgender, so you are not going to let it smother your life, so you have to fight against it. That's what is what I'm doing, [laughs] I'm in a battle right now. I'm battling."
