Tommy Dorfman Would Have Transitioned “A Lot Sooner” If Not For ’13 Reasons Why’

Tommy Dorfman, who announced recently she is engaged to a cis-woman who she described as “just a gay girl,” and is best known for her role on Netflix’s hit show 13 Reasons Why, opened up about the way the show impacted her transition. According to her, had it not been for booking the role, she would have transitioned much sooner.

The actress spoke on the latest episode of the Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson podcast, admitting, “In those early years of working, I was just trying to understand [myself].”

Dorfman noted that 13 Reasons Why was her first real professional job. She starred as recurring character Ryan Shaver in the first and second seasons before coming back as a guest in the fourth. The first two seasons of the series, which told the story of a high school girl who committed suicide and recorded 13 tapes of reasons why she did it, both made it onto Netflix’s list of most popular series and films, per ScreenRant.

“I think if I hadn’t booked that job I would have transitioned a lot sooner,” Dorfman said. “I think because of my work being so tied to my body and face and identify, or whatever [a character] identified as, it delayed some of my growth and some of my maturation in my 20s. I made decisions that were just not aligned with how I really was or what I wanted — but out of fear.”

Dorfman said something similar when she came out as trans in an interview with Time last year, adding that she’s most known for playing a “bitchy gay poet on a soap opera” and that she feared the transition would cause her to “lose whatever career I’ve been told I’m supposed to have.”

She continued, “I’m no longer interested in playing ‘male’ characters — except for maybe in a ‘Cate Blanchett playing Bob Dylan’ way. Sometimes you just have to say, ‘No, this is just who I fucking am.'”