Ellen “Elliot” Page is finding out that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of being transgender in Hollywood. “The Odyssey” cast member opened up about her difficulty landing roles after performing in one of the most successful movies of the year during the “On Film… With Kevin McCarthy” podcast. 

“I don’t know if you can talk about it, but do you know what you’re doing next?” McCarthy inquired. “Have you already started looking? Because I imagine you’re getting a zillion calls after this movie?”

Page replied with a resounding “no.” McCarthy, a little incredulous, asked her again. Page’s answer stayed the same. “I get some pushback for being Canadian,” Page explained, implicating her so-called transgender identity. 

Page went on to describe how, as her acting career has evolved, she has become more comfortable and confident, which she credits to her gender transition: “I think that just feeling more embodied and connected, that’s what lets you weirdly let go more,” she described. “Knowing yourself more and embodying yourself more weirdly lets you let go.”

While Page claims to feel more free indulging in her gender dysphoria, she admits this has set her back. Page doesn’t have a spouse or children; she’s been an actress for almost three decades, since she was 10 years old. Her career is her livelihood, but I can’t help but wonder — does she really feel as fulfilled as she claims to be? 

“Page herself acknowledges that she was ‘seen in a certain way before’ and that getting cast is now more difficult. That should not necessarily surprise us,” David Closson, director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand.

“Acting is an unusual profession in which sex, appearance, voice, and physical characteristics can be directly relevant to portraying a particular character. A woman who identifies as a man may therefore encounter practical complications in casting that cannot automatically be attributed to prejudice or discrimination.”

Despite all of the hype over her casting, Page’s character in “The Odyssey” dies in the opening scene and has a combined screen time of roughly five minutes in the two-and-a-half-hour long movie.

I feel sad for her. The result of attempting the impossible task of trying to change one’s gender may come across as creepy to an onlooker, because ultimately, it is unnatural. But certainly not irredeemable. Ellen Page was designed in the image of God. No surgery, facade, or self-proclaimed identity can ever take that away from her. I hope and pray somebody lovingly reminds her of this. 

“For Christians, this is precisely where truth and love must coincide,” Closson continued. “We can sincerely wish Page well, oppose cruelty directed toward her, and recognize her gifts as an actress while also refusing to participate in the fiction that changing one’s name, appearance, or body changes one’s sex. Biblical love does not rejoice at another person’s hardship, but neither does it require us to deny what God has made.”

As believers, we are called to uphold the truth in love, but not to mock others. No one is more just than God. And as commentator Allie Beth Stuckey often says, His eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch. It is only by His grace and sovereignty that any of us should enter the Kingdom.

“Christians should respond to Page with both truth and love. We should never celebrate someone’s professional struggles or treat her with contempt. She is a human being made in the image of God and therefore deserves dignity, compassion, and respect,” Closson asserted. “At the same time, loving our neighbors does not require us to affirm claims about human identity that contradict biological reality and God’s design for men and women.”