Alexandra Billings is Redefining What Is Possible for Trans Actors
Alexandra Billings is redefining what is possible for trans people in Hollywood. Before making a name for herself in the Chicago theatre scene and landing her breakout role in the TV show, Transparent, Billings was a showgirl and sex worker who struggled with addiction. "I ate, I breathed oxygen, I had sex, and I did drugs, all with great, reckless abandon," she says.The transgender actress is also living with HIV and experienced homelessness for a time.
Historically, society has not lifted up someone like Alexandra Billings. In this way, she's establishing a new precedent, proof that a career in Hollywood and on Broadway is possible, no matter what one's personal history looks like.Having just completed a run as Madame Morrible in Wicked, Billings can currently be seen in The Conners on ABC and has released a memoir, This Time For Me (out now).
With her overwhelming wit and candor, she details her historic career in the year's most exciting addition to the trans literary canon.Alexandra Billings joins the LGBTQ&A podcast to talk about the community of trans women she found while working as a showgirl in Chicago, getting sober, and the complicated legacy of Transparent. You can listen to the full interview on Apple Podcasts and read excerpts below. Jeffrey Masters: When you were performing in the ‘80s in Chicago, you described the showgirls you worked with as “your first great teachers”.
Were they teaching things about gender or about life in general?Alexandra Billings: Yes and yes. If you talk to trans women who have transitioned later in their life, the one thing they miss is having other trans women around go, "Oh, don't do that." Or, "Don't put that on your face.
