Transition Lens

stepping into her true self led cassandra james to GH

- Mara Levinsky

In some ways, Cassandra James’s journey to show biz is perfectly typical: Born in California and raised in Vancouver, Canada, James caught the performing bug early, earned a degree in theater acting (at Ryerson University in Toronto) and moved to Los Angeles a few years later to pursue work in TV and film.

But in other ways, her story is uniquely her own. James, who was born a biological male, “lived androgynously for many years after school. And I started having the real conversation, the harder conversation, about a transition, asking myself, did I identify as transgender?” After a two-year process of soul-searching, James, who today describes herself as a “proudly out transgender woman,” came out as a woman to her family, and in 2016, she began her medical gender transition.

During this challenging and exhilarating time, she put her acting aspirations on the back burner. “I took a break from my creative life,” James explains. “I’m thankful that I did. It was always my intention to do film and TV, and it just became inevitable that a move back to California was in the cards for me. But if I had moved to L.A. prior to my transition or during those first years of my transition, I really think I wouldn’t have been ready. I think I really had to get my ducks in a row before coming back to California.”