‘There were some tears involved’: Jamie Lee Curtis on daughter Ruby coming out as transgender

It was around last year that Ruby sat down her mother and father, Christopher Guest, in the family’s Los Angeles backyard to talk about the issue. “It was scary — just the sheer fact of telling them something about me they didn’t know. It was intimidating – but I wasn’t worried. They had been so accepting of me my entire life,” Ruby told People in an interview.

Unable to talk about her gender identity, Ruby left and then texted her mother. “I called her immediately. Needless to say there were some tears involved,” Jamie added.

Talking about acceptance, Jamie continued, “It’s learning new terminology and words. I am new at it. I am not someone who is pretending to know much about it. And I’m going to blow it, I’m going to make mistakes. I would like to try to avoid making big mistakes.”

She said she has already learned a few things. “You slow your speech down a little. You become a little more mindful about what you’re saying. How you’re saying it. You still mess up, I’ve messed up today twice. We’re human.

“But if one person reads this, sees a picture of Ruby and me and says, ‘I feel free to say this is who I am,’ then it’s worth it.”

For Ruby too, acknowledging her identity was not an easy journey. “I had a negative experience in therapy, so I didn’t come out [as trans] immediately when I probably should have. Then, seven years later, still being Tom at the time, I told the person who is now my fiancé that I am probably trans. And they said, “I love you for who you are.”

For Jamie, accepting the change in name was “the hardest thing”. “It so doesn’t fit anymore. That was, of course, the hardest thing. Just the regularity of the word. The name that you’d given a child. That you’ve been saying their whole life. And so, of course, at first that was the challenge. Then the pronoun. My husband and I still slip occasionally.”

“But when you ask, ‘Did you have an inkling that Ruby was trans?’ I would say no. But when I replayed Ruby’s life, I went, “Hmm, that, that, those, hmm,” the 62-year-old further said.

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