Hunter Schafer, the transgender actor known for HBO’s Euphoria and now starring in Amazon MGM Studios’ upcoming series Blade Runner 2099, is speaking publicly about undergoing gender-affirming genital surgery and about a federal passport policy change that altered the sex marker on her travel documents.
In a new interview with Elle promoting Blade Runner 2099, a reported $160 million miniseries produced by Ridley Scott, Schafer said she had what is commonly called “bottom surgery” in December. “I just had bottom surgery in December, which was amazing, and I love it so much,” she said.
Schafer, 27, began transitioning as a teenager. She described a long process of first embracing a “gender-expansive” identity before deciding to pursue surgery. “Like I said, for a long time I’ve embraced the gender-expansive part of myself, and I really wanted to try to make that previous body work, because I thought there was something really cool and badass about it,” she said.
She described a slow recovery period following the procedure. “I think my limit was 150 steps per day, which is nothing,” Schafer said.
Passport Policy Change
Last year, Schafer’s U.S. passport listed her sex as male rather than female, a change she attributed to the Trump administration’s reversal of a Biden-era policy that had allowed gender markers to reflect gender identity rather than birth records. Schafer said she had never altered her birth certificate, which led her to believe passport officials cross-checked her documents against that original record, producing the change.
Schafer said the shift did not affect her sense of identity but complicated her daily life, and raised concerns for other transgender Americans who might face the same issue. “It doesn’t change really anything about me or my transness, however it does make life a little harder,” she said at the time, adding that she was “thinking about other trans women who this might also be happening to, or other trans people, the list only gets longer as far as the intricacies that come along with the difficulty that this brings into real life shit.”
She also offered a blunt assessment of the administration behind the policy: “And fuck this administration.”
On Labels and Career
Schafer said she rejects being described as a “transsexual actress” and prefers simply to be called an actress. “I worked so hard to get to where I am, past these really hard points in my transition, and now I just want to be a girl and finally move on,” she said.
Her career has continued to rise alongside the public discussion of her transition. Amazon’s Prime Video released set photos in July from Blade Runner 2099, in which Schafer plays Cora, described as a human character posing as a replicant who has maintained the disguise so long that she has lost touch with her own humanity. Cora is billed as the second most significant character in the series.
Add comment