Josie Totah, who has acted in shows like Champions and Jessie, has come out as transgender.

In an essay for Time on August 20, Josie opened up publicly about her gender identity for the first time.

"Acting has always been my passion. I’m grateful for roles I’ve gotten to play on shows like Champions, and I know I’m lucky to be able to do what I love. But I also feel like I let myself be shoved into a box: 'J.J. Totah, gay boy,'" she wrote. "In the past, I’ve halfway corrected people by telling them I identify as LGBTQ. I wasn’t ready to be more specific. I was afraid I wouldn’t be accepted, that I would be embarrassed, that the fans who knew me from the time when I acted in a Disney show would be confused. But I realized over the past few years that hiding my true self is not healthy. I know now, more than ever, that I’m finally ready to take this step toward becoming myself. I’m ready to be free. So, listen up y’all: You can jump on or jump off. Either way this is where I’m heading."

"My pronouns are she, her and hers," Josie continued. "I identify as female, specifically as a transgender female. And my name is Josie Totah."

Josie said she's always thought of herself as a girl, even when she was five years old and didn't know what gender meant. But when she was 14 and saw fellow transgender girl Jazz Jennings on television, Josie said she learned the language to identify herself as such.

"Since I could speak in full sentences, I was like, 'Give me a dress!' I always knew on some level that I was female. But it crystallized about three years ago when I was a 14-year-old watching the show I Am Jazz with my mother," Josie wrote. "I looked over at her in the middle of the show and said, 'This is me. I’m transgender. And I need to go through this.' My mother, who is immensely supportive and gracious, said, 'Okay, let’s do it.' Three days later I was meeting with my pediatrician, who referred me to a specialist, who put me on a hormone blocker. From that point on, I hit the ground running."

Now, as she prepares for college, Josie wrote that she's excited to represent transgender people on the big screen, and in real life.

"I plan to play roles I haven’t had the opportunity to play," she wrote. "And I can only imagine how much more fun it’s going to be to play someone who shares my identity, rather than having to contort myself to play a boy. I’m going to gun for those roles, be it a transgender female or a cisgender female. Because it’s a clean slate — and a new world."

Read Josie's full essay here

Related: World Health Organization Stopped Classifying Being Transgender as a Mental Illness

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