Canadian actor Elliot Page revealed he knew he should have been born male from the age of four and asked his six-year-old mother: ‘Can I be a boy?’
Page, 36, came out as a transgender man in December 2020 and is one of Hollywood’s hottest trans stars.
The Juno Oscar-nominated star released her highly anticipated memoir, Page Boy, on Tuesday.
Page writes about his extreme gender dysmorphism – describing his difficulties coming to terms with who he was and detailing disturbing incidents of confronting a stalker and self-harming.
Page explains that he knew from an early age, growing up in Nova Scotia, that he should not have been born female.
Elliot Page, 36, is pictured in Times Square in Manhattan on Tuesday with his mother Martha Philpotts. The couple were in New York for Page’s Times Square billboard unveiling, promoting the memoir
Page’s billboard is pictured in Times Square on Tuesday
Page said he knew from the age of four that he should have been born male
He recounts a date with a woman named Sara, in Manhattan, and Sara asking, “When did you know?”
Page writes: “I found out when I was four.
“I went to YMCA Preschool in downtown Halifax on South Park Street across from the Public Gardens.
“First, I understood that I was not a girl. Not in a conscious sense, but in a pure, uncontaminated sense.
“That feeling is one of my earliest and clearest memories.”
Page writes that he attempted to urinate standing up, thinking it was more natural.
“I was puzzled by my experience, cut off from the other girls, twists in my stomach when I looked at them,” he wrote.
At the age of six, Page asked his mother, Martha Philpotts, a public school English and French teacher, if he could be a boy.
She replied, ‘No honey, you can’t, you’re a girl. But you can do anything a boy can do.
Page claimed he had sex with Juno co-star Olivia Thirlby ‘all the time’ while filming the hit 2007 film (pictured)
Page wrote of Thirlby: “It was on. I had an absolute desire for her, she made me want in a new way, full of hope. He added that it was one of the first times someone made him cum (pictured together in 2007)
Page, pictured at the Oscars in March 2022, came out publicly as a transgender man in December 2020 but revealed he started ‘feeling like a boy’ from an early age
Page writes about multiple crushes on girls at school and as an eight-year-old feeling emotional watching Sandra Bullock in the 1996 film Two If By Sea – which was filmed in Nova Scotia.
He writes that he felt “my heart beat for Sandra Bullock, my eight-year-old self not understanding that I had a crush again”.
“Twenty years later, I was having dinner with my friend Catherine Keener and Sandra at the famous Craig’s in Beverly Hills.
“Sandra looked so cool, in jeans and a T. She was kind, funny and down to earth, just like my eight year old had imagined.
“Oh, those strange roads we travel.”
Page also revealed he had a secret relationship with Kate Mara after he came out as gay in 2014 – and while she was dating Max Minghella (pictured 2017)
Page also details a terrifying episode when a child molester began following him, eventually following him for five years before his arrest.
The saga began with his first role on television, at the age of 11, in a CBC series called Pit Pony, which aired from February 1999.
“At first he became a friend, albeit a secret one,” he wrote. The stalker was in his twenties and became a “secret correspondent”.
“I had made a silly website in middle school when we were learning HTML in computer science class,” Page writes.
“The man who had seen me on CBC found the website and contacted him.
“Over a few emails, a connection began to develop – a camaraderie.
“We wrote about our grievances, our loneliness, our incongruity with our environment and with ourselves. Children’s drama for me, something else for him.
Page writes that he began to “express deeper feelings” that made his stomach turn, but he didn’t want to lose a friend.
The man said he was coming to Halifax from Toronto, where he lived. Page eventually convinced him not to and managed to distance himself.
Page remains one of Hollywood’s most high-profile transgender men
But when Page himself moved to Toronto, aged 16, he resurfaced – knowing Page would be there.
“The emails escalated. He was attaching photos of me with my eyes closed and photoshopping himself with huge angel wings above me, looking down.
The stalker captioned the image: “I’m going to cum on you in the clouds of heaven.”
He also sent page links to missing children websites and lyrics to Creed’s song, “My Sacrifice.”
Page told his friend and roommate Wiebke, and soon after, the stalker emailed Wiebke and several other friends claiming to be a longtime friend of Page and wanting his address to surprise him. with a visit.
Page called the police and the man was arrested.
When Page told his father Dennis, who had divorced his mother when Page was two, Dennis was furious with Page for allowing the man to contact him and said, “I’m going to come to Toronto and kick you. the ass.”
Page was granted a restraining order and the photo of the man was shared with classmates and teachers.
Yet soon after, the stalker found Page and confronted him on the street, patting his shoulder in downtown Toronto as Page walked towards a subway station.
The stalker told Page, “You look familiar.”
Page describes the abject terror and certainty that he was about to be stabbed to death. The stalker tried to convince Page to come with him, but Page managed to scream and the man fled.
He was later arrested and diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Page declined to press charges and he agreed to live with his father and seek mental health treatment.
“It all ended quite abruptly,” Page writes.
“And if there’s a little bit of goodness in all of this, it’s that it was finally seen. He could now receive support for his pain.
“I hope he got the help he needed, I hope he never does that again.”
Page says the episode increased her self-harm and eating disorders.
Page wrote that his father’s reaction was also something that traumatized him.
“If I didn’t deserve care then, if I didn’t deserve safety and love, when would I?” he writes.
“This phrase has lived in my body much longer than the man’s threats, his obsession, his fingers caressing my arm.”
