9-1-1: Lone Star's Brian Michael Smith Opens Up About His Personal Trans Journey
Brian Michael Smith is opening up about his transgender journey, in honor of Trans Visibility Week. The 40-year-old 9-1-1: Lone Star actor spoke to Entertainment Weekly, sharing how his jounrey in the 1990s and 2000s is vastly different than today. Keep reading to find out more… Brian recalled that when his trans journey truly took off, he was just “19, I was in college in the middle of Ohio and I didn’t know what I was going to do.” “This was very early internet days, you know.
I was still using, like, AOL to find people and message them. I had to ask Jeeves a bunch of questions [to get] answers,” he added. “It was really hard to get information.
But once I did, there was something really illuminating about that. I discovered a lot of new language. I’d never even heard the word transgender before.
There were a lot of slurs [and] derogatory terms that we don’t use now. Having a word that really spoke to my experience really helped me come to acceptance of who I was.” He also shared that hormones weren’t accessible to him at that time because he was an athlete. “I was cutting my hair the way I wanted to cut it, wearing the clothes I wanted to do, but I kind of felt like I was in between,” Brian says.
