Actor Tommy Dorfman Celebrates Gender Transition as a ‘Second Puberty’

Instagram/Tommy.Dorfman/Netflix
Instagram/Tommy.Dorfman/Netflix

Tommy Dorfman, best known for his role in the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, recently compared his gender transition to going through a second puberty.

The 29-year-old actor discussed the gender change and hormone treatments in an interview with InStyle magazine, saying, “It’s puberty as an adult if you do it at my age; it’s a second puberty.”

In 2016, Dorfman won the role of Ryan Shaver on the Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why. Dorfman has also had small roles in several TV series, including Jane the Virgin, American Princess, Insatiable, and Love in the Time of Corona.

Tommy Dorfman arrives at the 2018 amfAR Inspiration Gala Los Angeles on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Dorfman noted that the changes in a person’s body during a gender transition are shocking.

“I also had never seen a body in transition before, and I think that’s a scary thing as a trans person. It’s kind of alien, and it’s incredibly autonomous,” Dorfman said. “I think you’re supposed to go through puberty at an age when you don’t remember it because it hurts.”

But a switch in hormone treatment has been a benefit, Dorfman said.

“I just switched my hormones, and I’ve never felt better in my life,” the actor told the magazine. “I spent 28 years of my life suicidal and depressed and recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction,” Dorfman exclaimed, adding, “I don’t think I’ve ever been genuinely happy until this past year.”

“I look at the Internet chronicle of photos of me since I started working, and I can see how fucking unhappy I was in every photo. It’s wild.”

Dorfman has made many transitions over the years of one sort or another. The actor had previously claimed to be “queer” and married Peter Zurkuhlen in 2016. In 2017, though, Dorfman took on the “non-binary,” label. But by July of this year, Dorfman claimed to have been “living as a woman” since 2020. Dorfman has been separated from Zurkuhlen for several years.

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