Elliot Page has thanked fans for their support after coming out as transgender last month. The Juno actor wrote on his Instagram last week: “From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Your love and support has been the greatest gift.”

“Stay safe. Be there for each other,” Page added, before asking his followers to support Trans Lifeline, a peer support and crisis hotline for trans people, and Transanta, an organisation anonymously delivering gifts to young trans people in need.

In a hostile age for trans people, Page’s coming out was a welcome step toward wider trans representation and acceptance in public life. The actor made the announcement in an Instagram post to his 4.4 million followers last month. “Hi friends, I want to share with you that I am trans,” he wrote. “My pronouns are he/they and my name is Elliot. I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life.”

Page expressed his gratitude to those around him, and thanked the trans community for giving him the courage to come out. But he also addressed his concerns about the reality of being trans in 2020. “The statistics are staggering. The discrimination towards trans people is rife, insidious, and cruel, resulting in horrific consequences. In 2020 alone it has been reported that at least 40 transgender people have been murdered. The majority of which were Black and Latinx trans women.”

The Umbrella Academy star then addressed the “political leaders who work to criminalise trans healthcare,” saying that they have blood on their hands for denying trans people’s right to exist. “You unleash a fury of vile and demeaning rage that lands on the shoulders of the trans community, a community in which 40 per cent of trans adults report attempting suicide... I am one of those people and we won’t be silent in the face of your attacks.”

In the UK, the high court recently blocked young trans people from undergoing gender reassignment treatment via hormone blockers, ruling that those under the age of 16 were “unlikely to be able to give informed consent”. The case was brought against Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust by Keira Bell, 23, who was prescribed puberty blockers as a teenager at the UK’s only gender-identity development service (GIDS), before detransitioning as an adult.

Mermaids, a charity supporting transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse children, said the judgement on December 1 was “a betrayal of trans young people”. In a statement, the organisation added: “We now face an era when a young person, their parent, their doctor and expert clinicians all support treatment – but a judge with no grounding in the field can overrule them.”

The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust said it was “disappointed” by the ruling, and a spokesperson confirmed that it would seek to challenge the judgment.

Read our piece here on how Elliot Page perfectly captures what it means to be trans in 2020.