'Juno' actor Elliot Page becomes first out trans man to star on Time magazine cover

Elliot Page is set to become the first transgender man to star on the cover of Time magazine. (Photograph by Wynne Neilly for TIME)

LONDON — Oscar-nominated actor Elliot Page will become the first transgender man to star on the front cover of Time when the magazine's latest edition goes on sale on Friday.

Page, 34, who was nominated for various awards for Oscar-winning 2007 independent film "Juno" and plays a leading role in the current Netflix hit "The Umbrella Academy," announced he was trans in December.

The actor wrote on Instagram at the time that he could not "begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self."

Page follows in the footsteps of actor Laverne Cox, who became the first trans woman to appear on the cover of Time, a mark of mainstream media approval, in 2014 under the headline "The Transgender Tipping Point."

Since then, trans rights have been the focus of a fierce debate in the United States and around the world.

In 2017, then President Donald Trump announced a ban on trans personnel joining the U.S. military, a ruling subsequently overturned this year by his successor, Joe Biden.

Over the past 12 months, dozens of U.S. states have proposed bills to ban trans women and girls from competing in women's sports, in a move at odds with Biden's push for greater LGBT+ inclusion.

Page told Time he had long felt a disconnect between how the world saw him and how he felt himself.

"I just never recognized myself. For a long time I could not even look at a photo of myself," he said.

(Reporting by Hugo Greenhalgh; Editing by Helen Popper. Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly.)