5 Things We Learned From Elliot Page's New Memoir 'Pageboy'

Elliot Page’s memoir is out — and we are loving it!

Pageboy covers the 36-year-old actor and activist’s life from child acting, to becoming an Oscar-nominated A-lister, to coming out and transitioning.

“I never thought I’d have the strength to write my story,” Page wrote on his Instagram about the release of the book. “I hope that by sharing my journey it can help demonstrate that we all — queer, trans, and anyone who supports the basic human dignity to live authentically — will not be silenced.”

The book is full of powerful messages for anyone, and many of the things Page writes about will especially resonate with LGBTQ+ readers, and trans readers in particular.

Here are some of the revelations from Pageboy. Head over to your local bookstore to read Page’s full, inspiring story.

1. His relationship with Kate Mara

While longtime fans of Page might remember rumors about the two, in Pageboy, Page confirmed that he and actress Kate Mara dated for some time shortly after he first came out. The two had met while Page was filming 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past and Mara was dating Max Minghella.

Mara said that Minghella was supportive of her dating Page and that it taught her that “I could be in love with two people.” Page said that he had just come out and was looking for relationships with people who weren’t fully available.

While the two broke up, they've remained longtime friends. “Certain chemistry never faded, but room for realizations left us laughing at how little we had in common,” Page writes. “But what has never, what will never change, is the love between us… Kate is not just a wonderful friend, she is an honest friend.”

2. He dated a closeted costar for two years

Page also talks about an ex he calls “Ryan” in the book, an unnamed actress he starred alongside in a movie. The two dated for two years, but insisted they were just friends in public and he even admits that some of his friends didn’t even know he was in a relationship.

“Ultimately, I do think she loved me… You know, it was really beautiful,” Page writes about the actress. “I admired her and she inspired me in so many ways. But feeling hidden was far too painful. That was impossible and not a sustainable relationship at all. And it taught me that I was not gonna do that again.”

3. An A-List actor threatened to assault him in a homophobic confrontation

In a chapter called “Famous A–hole at Party,” Page describes a time shortly after he came out as gay in 2014 when an A-List actor drunkenly confronted him at a party. “You aren’t gay. That doesn’t exist,” the man who Page describes as “one of the most famous actors in the world,” told him. “You are just afraid of men.”

The actor then told Page that “I’m going to f**k you to make you realize you aren’t gay.”

Page says that a few days later, the actor approached him in a gym, saying he didn’t remember what he had said and “I don’t have a problem with gay people, I swear.”

4. His dad hasn't spoken to him in five years

Page has been estranged from his father Dennis for five years, and he says in Pageboy that when he came out as trans, he saw his dad like a transphobic tweet that was specifically about him.

Professional bigot Jordan Peterson made one such tweet that described the surgeon who performed Page’s surgery a “criminal physician.” He was temporarily banned from Twitter in 2022 for transphobic comments about the actor.

“When Jordan Peterson was let back on Twitter after he’d made a horrific tweet about me, he posted a video, just his head filling the frame,” Page says in his book. “Staring menacingly into the camera, he said, ‘We’ll see who cancels who.’ My dad liked it.”

5. His first time in a gay bar included a gay kiss

In Pageboy, Page tells the story of a girl he calls Paula whom he met when he was 20. After the two started flirting, the girl took him to Reflections, the first gay bar he had ever been in.

“That time at Reflections was new for me, being in a queer space and being present, enjoying it,” Page writes. “Shame had been drilled into my bones since I was my tiniest self, and I struggled to rid my body of that old toxic and erosive marrow. But there was a joy in the room, it lifted me, forced a reaction in the jaw, an uncontrolled, steady smile.”

Then, Page asked if he could kiss her.

“And then I did. In a queer bar. In front of everyone around us,” he continues. “I was coming to understand what all those poems were about, what all the fuss was. Everything was cold before, motionless, emotionless. Any woman I had loved hadn’t loved me back, and the one who maybe had, loved me the wrong way. But here I was, on a dance floor with a woman who wanted to kiss me and the antagonizing, cruel voice that flooded my head whenever I felt desire was silent. Maybe for a second, I could allow myself pleasure.”