21 Under 21: Josie Totah on Being a Role Model For Young Trans People
Josie Totah is part of Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21 class of 2018, which spotlights extraordinary young women, girls, and femmes making waves in their industries or passions of choice.
"All that young people have to look up to are older role models, and I think it’s important to have people like myself show that it’s OK to be who you are when you’re young," 17-year-old actor Josie Totah tells Teen Vogue. What she’s referring to here — "people like myself" — is the transgender community. After the cancellation of the NBC sitcom Champions that she starred in, Josie came out as trans in a personal essay for Time.
"There’s a lot of things emotionally and physically that happened," she tells Teen Vogue. "Not only was I really, really depressed when I was not out to the world, but I just finished my NBC series and I didn't think it was right to come out during that when I was playing a male character. I just wanted to have my strings tied up and have a fresh start and experience my true self with a clean slate. That was really important to me."
Josie knew it was time for the world to know her truth, and she also knew that as a young and out trans person she could be a role model for others. She thinks it’s especially important to be a role model for young folks because it can be hard to find transgender representation and even harder to find that representation in someone your own age. Josie said in her Time essay that it was another young trans person, Jazz Jennings, who inspired her to come out to her mother.
Besides Jazz, she credits another role model for impacting her life with what she described as “profound” advice.
"When I was on The View," she says, "I went backstage to Whoopi Goldberg’s dressing room and she told me, ‘People are going to love what you do and people are going to hate what you do, but you have to keep doing it. You have to stand up and do what you know is true, despite what people are going to say.’ And I’m taking that into every aspect of my life."
Josie, who is in her first semester at college, has similar advice for other young women out there:
"No matter what anyone is going through, whether it’s their sexual orientation or their gender identity, I was hiding for so long and I was so scared that no one would accept me. I want to tell everyone that no matter what’s keeping them from being their authentic self to hold onto the hope that there will be an end to that road. There will be a life where they can live their true self. Even though that might not necessarily be happening right now, just hold onto hope because that’s what got me through it — knowing that I would get through."
In 21 years, Josie hopes that there will be a new normal. She hopes that society will have evolved to accept all people and that we won’t feel the need to conform to a certain letter in an acronym. It’s not enough to simply tolerate, she says, but to make sure we “are supporting and embracing people’s differences.”
Josie says she’s honored to be included on Teen Vogue’s list of 21 Under 21. She deserves to be honored because she had the bravery to come out publicly and now hopes to be a role model so that other young people will feel the strength to be their authentic selves and, as she puts it, "that’s the exciting part."
