Jamie Lee Curtis and Her Trans Daughter Have First Public Interview
A year after coming out as transgender to her mother and family privately via a text message, Ruby Guest publicly spoke at length with her mother, actor Jamie Lee Curtis, in an interview yesterday with People magazine.
"It was scary—just the sheer fact of telling them something about me they didn't know," Ruby, 25, said in the interview. "It was intimidating—but I wasn't worried. They had been so accepting of me my entire life."
Lee Curtis previously spoke about Ruby's transition in a July interview with AARP, saying then that she and her husband of 36 years, director Christopher Guest, "have watched in wonder and pride as our son became our daughter Ruby."
In the interview with PEOPLE, published a week after the release of Lee Curtis' latest film "Halloween Kills," the actor said that despite being fully supportive and accepting, she's become more mindful of both what she's saying and how she's listening to her daughter, with regards to this revelation.
"It's speaking a new language," Lee Curtis, 62, said to PEOPLE. "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."
'But I'm happy to talk about my experiences now. Is it helpful to come out? Yeah.'
Among the missteps mentioned by Lee Curtis, she acknowledged her and her husband slipping up on pronouns and on using Ruby's now-deadname. Despite this, Ruby says she feels immense support from her family, including her now-fiance, whom she first came out to at age 23.
In the interview, Ruby said she'd begun questioning her gender identity at age 16 but after a negative experience in therapy decided against coming out as trans.
"Yeah, no one knows anything about me, and I've tried my best until now to keep it that way," Ruby said. "But I'm happy to talk about my experiences now. Is it helpful to come out? Yeah."
Despite Ruby's desire to lead a private life, she and her mother believed opening up about their experiences could help and provide inspiration for others attempting to discover and accept who they are.
"I'm not proselytizing, and I'm not trying to force-feed something to people," Lee Curtis said. "I'm simply saying, 'This is our family's experience.' I am here to support Ruby. That is my job. Just as it is to care and love and support her older sister Annie in her journeys. I'm a grateful student. I'm learning so much from Ruby. 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."
