“Oh my gosh, I’m so thankful for all the messages and stories; I’m taking time over the holidays to respond,” Mantle said, speaking by phone from Los Angeles, where he is shooting a pilot. Mantle said it was Mr. Ali’s idea to submit his performance for consideration in both gender categories, which was also a first.

Mantle, now 40, grew up in Oklahoma; his father, one of Mickey Mantle’s four younger brothers, was a high school football coach, and the performer said his brother was an all-star athlete. Mantle went into acting and singing young, and said he always had the full backing of the people close to him. “I’m so blessed with an amazing family,” Mantle said. “Mickey supported me when he was alive.”

Still, he said the news has drawn a considerable amount of venom from the right wing, which Mantle said he understood — to a degree.

“When you do anything for the first time and it’s historic, you’re probably going to have 50 percent on your side and 50 percent against,” Mantle said. “But as far as we know we’re only given one life to live. If something is different from your life, why not celebrate? I don’t understand the instant reaction to be anger and hate, and ‘I haven’t heard about it before so it must be wrong.’”

In “Confessions,” Mantle plays Ginger, a transgender prostitute who “ends up being the voice of reason in the film.” Filmmakers have been criticized for making so many transgender characters prostitutes, to the point of stereotyping, but Mantle said that was changing, even though, he joked, he is “kind of the go-to trans prostitute in Hollywood.”