20 Celebrities Who Have Changed The Way We View Gender
BERLIN, GERMANY – OCTOBER 26: Tilda Swinton attends the ‘Doctor Strange’ photocall at Soho House on October 26, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Franziska Krug/Getty Images)
Tilda Swinton
“I would say, as with any transformative possibility, we can also play with gender. My idea of identity is that I’m not sure it really exists. I’ve examined this idea laterally since Orlando and other pieces of work that I’ve made, when I’ve played with the idea of transformative gender. For example, when you become a mother, do you lose everything? Can you actually retain a multi-faceted identity? That whole idea of transformation is at the heart of what I’m interested in as a performer and not least through the idea of gender. It’s a very personal matter. I can categorically say that as Orlando does in the film: Yes, I’m probably a woman.
I don’t know if I could ever really say that I was a girl – I was kind of a boy for a long time. I don’t know, who knows? It changes.“
This British actress, performance artist, model, and fashion muse is best known for her roles in independent films but also has a fair share of parts in mainstream media. In an interview with Out Magazine, she’s noted for saying, “The issue of sexuality is a secondary one to the issue of spirit. My analysis is, as my grandmother would say, ‘Horses for courses,’ meaning, each to their own. Queerness is an attitude that, when acknowledged as shared, can bring more people together than could ever be divided by it being used as a term of rejection.”