Emma Corrin ‘taken aback’ by online abuse after coming out as non-binary

Emma Corrin has opened up about the public abuse they faced since announcing their non-binary gender identity to the world back in 2021.

In a candid interview with Vanity Fair, the 27-year-old The Crown actor has admitted they felt “naive” to how much backlash they were to face after disclosing their non-binary status via their Instagram account @emmalouisecorrin (which currently has 851k followers) in 2021, in the wake of winning a Golden Globe award.

“Naively, maybe, it took me aback how much hate I got for that. It was quite a reality check,” they told Vanity Fair, in this year’s edition of the publication’s annual Hollywood issue. 

However, they also revealed that they remain “motivated” in the face of this backlash to keep their account public: “For a lot of people, it did help. Especially around conversation of gender and stuff, it does help a lot of people to see someone living as a non-binary person in the world. I know how much other people’s accounts helped me, that’s my motivation for keeping my social media at the moment.”

Another insight Emma Corrin shared during the conversation was of the difficulty of finding non-binary parts to audition for.  “There aren’t a lot of non-binary parts out there. We need to be supporting queer writers and developing projects and welcoming these narratives into the creative space.”

They added: “It’s interesting that I’m not offered male parts, but I would equally be drawn to that! I suppose it’s also what the industry sees you as, and I think, hopefully, that is shifting.”

However, they stressed that despite being interested in these non-binary and male roles in the future, they still enjoyed playing roles of all kinds, having risen to fame playing female-presenting characters in Lady Chatterley’s Lover and My Policeman, most notably as Princess Diana in the fourth season of The Crown.

“Being nonbinary for me is a very fluid space where it’s not a rejection of femininity or masculinity, it’s sort of an embrace of both. My experience on this earth has been a female one, up until recently, and I still love all those parts of me… But I would love to play nonbinary, new parts, male parts. Anything, as long as it’s right.”

Last year, Emma revealed in an interview with US Vogue that they felt “more seen” when referred to as “they” – while adding that they experienced some difficulty when having to wear bras for acting roles. 

Emma is currently one of the most high-profile non-binary celebrities, in a line-up that includes Demi Lovato, Jonathan Van Ness and Sam Smith. According to the most recent census, some 30,000 people in the UK (0.06% of the population) currently identity as non-binary, while 0.5% reported they no longer identified with the gender identity they had been assigned at birth.