Spanish actress Karla Sofia Gascon made history on Thursday, January 23, when the Academy Awards announced her nomination for Best Actress. Gascon is the first openly transgender person ever nominated for an acting award at the Oscars.
Gascon is the titular lead in Emilia Perez, a musical about a cartel leader undergoing a gender transition. Criticized by many in the LGBTQ+ community for pushing harmful stereotypes about transgender people and Latinos, the film has also been praised for casting an actual trans person in the lead, as opposed to previous Oscar-nominated films such as The Danish Girl, which cast cisgender male actor Eddie Redmayne as the lead.
Emilia Perez received the most nominations of any film for the 2025 awards, with 14 total. The film was one nomination short of tying the record currently held by La La Land, Titanic, and All About Eve.
Gascon’s Oscar nomination is just the latest in her history-making awards season debut. She also became the first trans woman nominated for a film award at the Golden Globes. Critics have raved over Emilia Perez, which took home the Globes’ top award for Best Musical or Comedy, beating out fan favorite Wicked. The two films will head to head again at the Academy Awards for Best Picture, and Gascon will face off against Cynthia Erivo for Best Actress.
Only three other transgender people have received Academy nominations— Angela Morley, who was nominated for Best Original Song score in 1975 and 1978; Anohni, who was nominated for Best Original Song in 2016; and Yance Ford, who was nominated, who was nominated for best documentary feature in 2018. Elliot Page was nominated for his role in Juno in 2008, 12 years before he came out publicly.
Despite the criticism from some viewers, Gascon said she had a wonderful experience filming Emilia Perez and feels the movie was progressive in its transgender representation. “This was an opportunity, and I pushed for it because this was something that had never been done … and this was perfectly constructed,” she said in an interview with NPR in 2024. “Without having been through misfortunes and the hardships of life, we cannot bring that on to the role. Had I gotten this role about 20 years ago, I don’t think that [I] would have been able to give it the same depth that I’m giving it now at 52.”
If she wins, Gascon will become the first trans person to bring home an Academy Award.
