OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
Actor Tommy Dorfman, 33, is well known for the role of Ryan Shaver on “13 Reasons Why.” Dorfman has announced the end of a five-year-long marriage and now publicly identifies as a transgender woman.
Dorfman is now engaged and describes her as “just a gay girl” who is “very affirming.”
“I fell in love with someone who doesn’t fetishize me,” Dorfman told fellow actress Rachel Bilson.
Dorfman divorced Peter Zurkuhlen after they were married for five years.
“I knew I was interested in women in a way that I hadn’t really been aware of since high school,” Dorfman said. “I had this unresolved, unexplored thing. I was like, ‘This is the year that I’m gonna go on some dates with girls and feel that out again, and not feel ashamed about it.’”
“I think if I hadn’t booked that job I would have transitioned a lot sooner,” Dorfman said.
“I think because of my work being so tied to my body and face and identity, or whatever [a character] identified as, it delayed some of my growth and some of my maturation in my 20s. I made decisions that were just not aligned with how I really was or what I wanted — but out of fear.”
“I think if you’re living with dysphoria, it’s not so dissimilar to living actively in alcoholism or addiction,” Dorfman said. “You’re living in a fog. You’re living underwater, basically.”
“For me, I always felt like other people had a guidebook for life that I just did not [have],” Dorfman continued.
“I would always be like, ‘How did you know how to brush your teeth twice a day?’ That’s crazy. Or, ‘You know how to make a bed?’ Or these simple basic human things that were just not available to me.”
“Or, like, emotions. I was like, ‘You feel emotions outside of acting? That’s weird.’ The acting was the only way I could feel things until I started transitioning. Then it was like, boom!”
