Miss Benny Comes Out as Transgender Days After New Series 'Glamorous' Debuts on Netflix

Miss Benny has revealed that she is a transgender woman!

The 24-year-old star of Glamorous came out in a piece she wrote for TIME that was released on Monday (June 26), four days after her new Netflix series finally came out.

At the start of her piece, she shares that along with the show, “I too will come out as the transgender woman I’ve been privately living as for the last few years.”

See what else shared inside…

“I’m a proud person, but admittedly it’s still a bit daunting to say those words publicly,” she wrote.

Through her TIME piece, she shared her story of coming to terms with her sexuality and gender from a young age, and facing lots of rejection after moving to LA at 14 to become an actor.

When she was 19, she got the call to audition for Glamorous while assisting on a Madison Beer photoshoot, and after arriving to the first audition as a toned down version of herself to not be hit with the same rejection, she was encouraged to embrace herself and let her feminity shine.

“They told me in the room that the role of Marco was mine, and I fell to my knees with tears in my eyes. This was the first time in my life somebody looked at me and said, ‘Yes, it’s time for you,’” Benny shared.

However, the pandemic hit and the gender dysphoria “was getting brutal.” Then she watched the series Veneno, and there’s a scene where a young queer person met and asked their icon, an elder transgender woman when she started transitioning, to which Veneno turned it back on them and said, “And when will you start?”

Benny explained, “It was a punch to the gut. Because I knew that if somebody asked me that question, I would become painfully aware of how much time I felt I had wasted by not transitioning sooner.” She then began transitioning privately.

She explained that Netflix had picked up Glamorous to series, and she was worried because she was hired onto the show to play a boy, but she was living as a transgender woman. A month later she got a call from the creator to talk about her character’s story arc, and she talked about her transition and it was eventually worked that they could include it in the show.

SPOILER ALERT! In the season one finale, we see her character ending the season finding her identity and going out into the world as a woman. But, she explained that she didn’t want that to be a subject focus on the show.

Prior to the series being released she said, “I’ve started to feel a sense of, ‘Wow, this show is going to come out, and with that, I too will be coming out. I don’t know if I’m ready to be this vulnerable.’ But then I am reminded that this fear is exactly why I wanted to include my transition in the show.”

Since the show debuted on June 22nd, Netflix has released their weekly Top 10 most watched lists, and Glamorous landed at No 8 for it’s first few days, bringing in 17 million hours viewed – Congratulations!

JJJ highly suggests you go watch Glamorous if you haven’t already. You can also get to know more about each of the characters here and who plays them!