Wachowski Sisters: Second ‘Matrix’ Director Comes Out as Transgender

The Wachowski brothers, the filmmaking duo behind The Matrix trilogy, became the Wachowski sisters on Tuesday.

Larry Wachowski, 50, came out as transgender and began going by the name Lana in 2012. Larry’s brother, 48-year-old Andy Wachowski, announced on Tuesday he is also transgender, and wishes to be referred to as Lilly in the future.

In a statement to Windy City News, Andy lashed out at the media, explaining that he decided to break the news of his gender transition, rather than have The Daily Mail out him against his will.

“My sister Lana and I have largely avoided the press,” wrote Andy. “I find talking about my art frustratingly tedious and talking about myself a wholly mortifying experience. I knew at some point I would have to come out publicly. You know, when you’re living as an out transgender person it’s … kind of difficult to hide. I just wanted—needed some time to get my head right, to feel comfortable.

Andy Wachowski further blamed the Daily Mail for the suicide of transgender British school teacher Nathan Upton, and accused the paper of showing up to his home this week to convince him to go public with his gender switch.

In 2012, the paper’s Richard Littlejohn broke news that Upton would return to his school after Christmas break as a woman named Lucy Meadows, noting, “He’s not only in the wrong body… he’s in the wrong job.”

In 2013, Upton committed suicide.

Andy Wachowski added: “Being transgender is not easy. We live in a majority-enforced gender binary world. This means when you’re transgender you have to face the hard reality of living the rest of your life in a world that is openly hostile to you.”

The director continued, weighing in on the national debate surrounding anti-transgender restroom legislation:

… And though 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. The so-called bathroom bills that are popping up all over this country do not keep children safe, they force trans people into using bathrooms where they can be beaten and or murdered. We are not predators, we are prey.

So yeah, I’m transgender.

And yeah, I’ve transitioned.

But these words, “transgender” and “transitioned” are hard for me because they both have lost their complexity in their assimilation into the mainstream. There is a lack of nuance of time and space. To be transgender is something largely understood as existing within the dogmatic terminus of male or female. And to “transition” imparts a sense of immediacy, a before and after from one terminus to another. But the reality, my reality is that I’ve been transitioning and will continue to transition all of my life, through the infinite that exists between male and female as it does in the infinite between the binary of zero and one. We need to elevate the dialogue beyond the simplicity of binary. Binary is a false idol.

Andy signed the statement as Lilly Wachowski.

In 2012, Larry Wachowski received the the Human Rights Campaign’s Visibility Award.

Read the rest of Andy Wachowski’s statement here.

Watch the brothers discuss Larry’s gender transition below: