Transgender Actor Ian Alexander Opens Up About How ‘The OA’ Helped His Family Accept His Gender Identity

Netflix’s series “The OA” has been a boon for the representation of trans people on-screen, and it’s changing lives off-screen as well.

On Wednesday’s “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”, the series’ creator and star Brit Marling appears alongside co-star Ian Alexander, the first Asian-American trans actor on TV, who is making his first talk-show appearance.

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The 17-year-old talks about realizing at the age of 11 or 12 that he did not identify with the gender he was assigned at birth, finally coming to terms with it at 13 after meeting other trans people.

Alexander says it was hard for his religious family to accept initially.

“I think that being on ‘The OA’ really helped them realize that I could be happy and I could be successful as a trans person and as a queer person,” he says. “Being on-set for ‘The OA’ was the first time my mom use my correct name and pronoun so that just made my heart soar.”

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Also on the show, Marling talks about creating “The OA” and how telling ghost stories at summer camp helped to develop her amazing imagination.

In fact, Marling recalls the stories were so vivid that they actually got her kicked out of the camp.