One year after publicly reintroducing herself to the world as a trans woman [1], Tommy Dorfman [2] is reflecting on the impact her Hollywood career has had on her gender identity. The "13 Reasons Why [3]" alum — who starred in the Netflix original series from 2017-2020 — revealed in an interview with Time [4] in July 2021 that she'd been "been privately identifying and living as a woman." During a 15 Aug. episode of the "Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson [5]" podcast, she got more candid about her acting start and its influence on her transition.
". . . it delayed some of my growth and some of my maturation in my mid-20s."
"In those early years of working, I was just trying to understand [myself]," Dorfman said. "I think if I hadn't booked that job ['13 Reasons Why'], I would've started transitioning a lot sooner. I think because my work being so tied to my body and face and identity, or whatever I had been identified as, it delayed some of my growth and some of my maturation in my mid-20s. I also think I made decisions that were just not aligned with who I really was or what I wanted, but out of fear."
Dorfman, who divorced her husband, Peter Zurkuhlen [7], in February after five years of marriage, added that, reflecting now, she feels she got married in 2016 because "it felt like a safe, secure space that I could carve out for myself in a world that was ever-changing."
Dorfman also elaborated on the timing of her transition, noting that she once felt like she was "never the right age." "I always felt like I wasn't in the right place, right time, always felt like I wasn't really meant for the world I was living in," she said. " . . . When I started transitioning, I went, 'Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm totally meant for this body, this time, and this world, I just was wearing a sweater that was three sizes too small for 28 years.'"