Second Matrix director Lilly Wachowski comes out as transgender

Lilly Wachowski, whose sister Lana came out as transgender in 2012, has made a statement saying she has transitioned.

The second of the two Wachowski sibling filmmakers has come out as transgender.

Lilly Wachowski, who was formerly known as Andy, issued a statement to Chicago's Windy City Times on Wednesday, in which she said: "yeah, I'm transgender. And yeah, I've transitioned."

Wachowski's announcement comes nearly four years after that of her elder sister, Lana, who publicly announced she was transgender in 2012. The pair are best known for their writing and direction of The Matrix trilogy, and are famously private about both their creative process and private lives.

The 48-year-old told Windy City Times that she is out to her friends and family, including her wife, but made her news public a day after she was doorstepped by a Daily Mail journalist at home, and encouraged to "sit down with him tomorrow or the next day or next week so that I could have my picture taken and tell my story which was so inspirational!"

Wachowski continued: "I knew at some point I would have to come out publicly. You know, when you're living as an out transgender person it's kind of difficult to hide. I just wanted - needed - some time to get my head right, to feel comfortable.

"But apparently I don't get to decide this."

Wachowski went on to describe the trans community as "not predators, we are prey", in reaction to media representation of trans people. She wrote: "Though we have come a long way since Silence of the Lambs, we continue to be demonised and vilified in the media where attack ads portray us as potential predators to keep us from even using the goddamn bathroom."

The filmmaker, whose recent works have included the Netflix original series Sense8 and films Jupiter Ascending and Cloud Atlas, explained that she "would not be where I am today...without the love and support of my wife and friends and family."

She also mentioned her sister's experience: "thanks to my fabulous sister [my friends and family] have done it before."

Lana has been praised as an 'LGBT hero', and won the Human Rights Campaign's Visibility Award and the Freedom Award from Equality Illinois at their annual gala in Chicago. In her speech for the former, she said: "there are some things we do for ourselves, but there are some things we do for others.

"I am here because when I was young, I wanted very badly to be a writer, I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I couldn't find anyone like me in the world and it felt like my dreams were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others. If I can be that person for someone else, then the sacrifice of my private civic life may have value."

Wachowski's name and gender have been changed on her IMDB page and The Wachowski's joint Wikipedia page.

The pair do not have any film or TV projects on the horizon. Last year, Lana told The Wall Street Journal that the sisters had "had a good run", and thought they had exhausted studio financing for projects. "We're drawn toward difficult subjects, like the disparity of rich and poor. We've been lucky. People at studios have been interested in our crazy, strange brand of complexity. And we've been allowed to keep making them. Will that continue? Probably not."