In the August/September 2021 issue of AARP Magazine, Jamie Lee Curtis revealed that her youngest child, whom she had with filmmaker Christopher Guest, is a transgender woman.
Curtis shared the information about her 27-year-old daughter, Ruby, after asking for her permission. Curtis’ youngest daughter works as a game designer, whereas the eldest, 36-year-old Annie, is a dance instructor.
For anyone who has embraced their identity as a trans person, it is always a challenging journey, from coming out to people you love to go through transitioning; but with a supportive circle and loving parents, this can be made easier. For Curtis’ daughter, this was certainly the case with their parents, as they were immediately accepting of their new identity.
However, even for parents, this can be a challenging journey as there is more than just seeing your child’s appearance change. As for Curtis, she has embraced that change wholeheartedly. In continuous support of her transgender daughter, she revealed that her newly-acquired Oscars trophy has different pronouns as opposed to it being referred to as “she or her.”
Curtis defied the odds as she won her first-ever Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at 64 years old, despite being one of the most well-loved and venerated actresses in the entertainment industry. She won the award along with co-stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan from the movie “Everything Everywhere All At Once” which also took home Best Picture.
Read on to learn more about Curtis’ journey in accepting her transgender daughter and how she continuously supported her in her fight for acceptance and change.
Be sure to reach the end of this article to see the full video 🙂
Jamie Lee Curtis (2023), (Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
Curtis has been a proud mother to her transgender daughter’s journey toward self-discovery. Speaking to her daughter Ruby’s decision to come out as a transgender woman, she told AARP Magazine that she understands that gender isn’t fixed, adding that life is a “constant metamorphosis.”
She continued by saying that she and her husband “have watched in wonder and pride as our son became our daughter Ruby.”
In their PEOPLE interview, both mother and daughter spoke about the time that Ruby first came out. After sitting her parents down and telling them that she had to open up to them about something important, Ruby wasn’t able to actually come out to her parents while sitting down with them. Instead, she texted them about it.
“It was scary — just the sheer fact of telling them something about me they didn’t know,” Ruby said. “It was intimidating — but I wasn’t worried. They had been so accepting of me my entire life.”
Curtis recalled that as soon as she knew, she called her daughter immediately, revealing that there were some tears involved during the phone call.
The magazine reported that the two had been more at ease with each other, but it wasn’t without a few bumps along the way.
“It’s speaking a new language,” Curtis said. “It’s learning new terminology and words. I am new at it. I am not someone who is pretending to know much about it. And I’m going to blow it, I’m going to make mistakes. I would like to try to avoid making big mistakes.”
Ruby Guest, Jamie Lee Curtis, Annie Guest (2022), (Mark Von Holden/Variety via Getty Images)
In fact, after Curtis received her Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, she responded to a question about her feeling about being amongst the many women who were nominated (and won) at the 2023 Oscars.
Describing the feeling to be “surreal and proud,” Curtis expounded her answer, saying that she would like to “see a lot more women be nominated so that there’s gender parity in all the areas, in all the branches.”
“We’re not anywhere near there, and of course inclusivity then involves the bigger question which is, how do you include everyone when there are binary choices? Which is very difficult.”
Curtis then proceeded to highlight that as a mother of a transgender daughter, she completely understands the disparity: “And yet to de-gender the category also, I’m concerned will diminish the opportunities for more women, which is something I also have been working hard to try to promote.”
But after all, Curtis reiterated that she wanted to see more inclusivity in general, but women specifically – “basically just f***ing more women anywhere, any time,” she said.
A day after her big win, Curtis graced The TODAY Show, where she was moved to tears after watching her acceptance speech for the first time since the ceremony.
“Hey, everybody in TODAY!” Curtis greeted as she was dearly showing her Oscar statuette. “Here they are.”
Savannah Guthrie, who was with Hoda Kotb at the time, asked the Oscar-winning actress: “Have we named her?”
Curtis, shortly after, said, “In support of my daughter Ruby, I’m having them be a ‘they/them.’ I’m just gonna call them ‘them,’ and they are settling in.”
“In my life, I never thought in a million years that I would have this couple of days, and I’m very moved by the whole thing,” she reflected tearily.
Congratulations, Jamie Lee Curtis, on your Academy Award! What do you think of her relationship with her daughter Ruby and how she has supported her? Let us know, and pass this on to your friends who are also Jamie Lee Curtis fans!