All of the love to “The Matrix” co-director Lilly Wachowski, who just came out as transgender

Lilly Wachowski, who co-directed The Matrix under the name Andy Wachowski, has come out as a transgender woman in a beautiful and eloquent statement penned in the Windy City Times, a Chicago LGBTQ publication.

Lilly, 48, explained that she was in danger of being outed by tabloids — including the UK’s Daily Mail — before she was able to come out herself. As she noted, the stress from being publicly outed in the press can lead some trans folks to commit suicide:

However, a man claiming to be a journalist with the Daily Mail showed up at her doorstep, which prompted Lilly Wachowski to go public with her personal journey — especially since that publicationhad outed UK elementary school teacher and trans woman Lucy Meadows, who later took her own life. “And now here they were, at my front door, almost as if to say — ‘There’s another one! Let’s drag ’em out in the open so we can all have a look!’” she wrote.

Lilly’s sister is Lana Wachowski, her co-director on The Matrix. Lana previously went by the name Larry Wachowski and publicly came out as trans in 2012. Lilly pictured  headlines about the “Wachowski brothers now sisters,” and she refused to be dragged by a tabloid. “So yeah, I’m transgender. And yeah, I’ve transitioned,” she wrote. “I’m out to my friends and family. Most people at work know too. Everyone is cool with it. Yes, thanks to my fabulous sister they’ve done it before, but also because they’re fantastic people. Without the love and support of my wife and friends and family I would not be where I am today.”

Lilly and Lana Wachowski have worked together on the films The Matrix, Bound, and Cloud Atlas — and to have two unbelievably legendary writers come out into the public eye is groundbreaking for transgender acceptance in our society.

“[T]hough we have come a long way since Silence of the Lambs, we continue to be demonized and vilified in the media where attack ads portray us as potential predators to keep us from even using the goddamn bathroom,” Lilly wrote. “. . . We are not predators, we are prey.”

Lilly also used this opportunity to highlight the societal construct of gender binary — and that it’s a “false idol”:

We congratulate Lilly for publicly sharing this news about her gender identity and thank her for calling attention to the important issues around transitioning.