Mindy Kaling and Josie Totah (right).Photo: Evans Vestal Ward/NBC
J.J. Totah has come out as transgender.
In apersonal essaypublished Monday onTime, 17-year-old Totah, who stars as Michael Patel on Mindy Kaling’s comedyChampions, revealed, “I identify as female, specifically as a transgender female” and also announced her new name: Josie.
Totah, a former Disney actor, shared that throughout her childhood, “people would just assume I was gay,” and when she entered into the entertainment industry, “people kept assuming my identity.”
“Numerous reporters have asked me in interviews how it feels to be a young gay man. I was even introduced that way before receiving an award from an LGBTQ+ rights organization. I understand that they didn’t really know better,” Totah wrote. “I almost felt like I owed it to everybody to be that gay boy. But that has never been the way I think of myself.”
Up until now, Totah hasn’t corrected people’s assumptions: “I was afraid I wouldn’t be accepted, that I would be embarrassed, that the fans who knew me from the time when I acted in a Disney show would be confused.”
Now, Totah has chosen to be open after realizing “over the past few years that hiding my true self is not healthy.”
“My pronouns areshe,herandhers. I identify as female, specifically as a transgender female. And my name is Josie Totah,” said Totah.
While Totah shares that she “always knew on some level that I was female” from the time of adolescence, “it crystallized about three years ago when I was a 14-year-old watching the showI Am Jazzwith my mother.” (At the end of June, TLC starJazz Jennings underwent gender confirmation surgery.)
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Totah explained, “As I learned more information about hormone replacement therapy, I knew that this was what I had to do. I looked over at her in the middle of the show and said, ‘This is me. I’m transgender. And I need to go through this.’ ”
Her mother was immensely supportive, and Totah swiftly met with doctors and was put on a hormone blocker. “From that point on, I hit the ground running.”
Now that Totah openly identifies as Josie, she said, “it feels like I’m being seen.”
“I have come to believe that God made me transgender. I don’t feel like I was put in the wrong body,” she wrote. “I don’t feel like there was a mistake made. I believe that I am transgender to help people understand differences. It allows me to gain perspective, to be more accepting of others, because I know what it feels like to know you’re not like everyone else.”
Kaling, 39, shared her support for Totah in a tweet, writing, “I love you, Josie. I’m so glad you’re able to speak your truth and live as your authentic self. You’re also so damn talented – I can’t wait to write for you again!”
Jennings also shared her support for Totah on Twitter: “Im so proud to see you living in your truth!! Keep being you.”
Earlier this year, Totah, who grew up in a small town in Northern California and goes off to college this week, told PEOPLE that she “stuck out like a sore thumb” during her childhood.
“There wasn’t a lot of diversity in all genres, whether it was race or ethnicity or the LGBTQ community. I definitely stuck out like a sore thumb. I came to the conclusion, I had to at such a young age, if no one was going to be like me than I just have to own it. If I can’t be like everyone else than I might as well just own who I am,” she said..
She added: “I felt like I was kind of forced to because I was so different I just had to stick with it. In a way, that helped me stay true to myself and honor myself. I was literally so different that I could not hide or be shy. At such a young age, I just stuck with that.”
source: people.com
