# Lilly Wachowski Born Andrew Paul Wachowski on December 29, 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. American filmmaker, co-director with her sister [[Lana Wachowski]] of ***The Matrix*** franchise (1999-2003) and the other major Wachowski filmography through *Sense8* (2015-2018). Lilly Wachowski came out publicly as transgender in **March 2016** — four years after Lana's coming-out — and has subsequently focused her work on television creator roles. ## Major Co-Directed Work In partnership with [[Lana Wachowski]]: - ***Bound*** (1996), ***The Matrix*** (1999), ***The Matrix Reloaded*** (2003), ***The Matrix Revolutions*** (2003), ***Speed Racer*** (2008), ***Cloud Atlas*** (2012), ***Jupiter Ascending*** (2015), ***Sense8*** (Netflix, 2015-2018) Lilly Wachowski **did not return** for ***The Matrix Resurrections*** (2021), which Lana directed solo. ## Coming Out (2016) Wachowski came out publicly in a March 2016 essay in the *Windy City Times* (Chicago's LGBTQ newspaper). The essay opened with a sardonic acknowledgment that she was coming out "much like Eddie Izzard's coming out, but I was forced to make this statement by 'sources close to the family' threatening to out me, ready or not." The forced-by-media-pressure framing of her coming-out — by *The Daily Mail*, which had threatened to publish a feature on her transition — was widely covered as evidence of the continued media hostility transgender public figures face. ## Post-Matrix Work Lilly Wachowski's post-2018 work has been substantially focused on television and on explicitly trans-themed storytelling: - ***Work in Progress*** (Showtime, 2019-2021) — comedy series she co-created with Abby McEnany; one of the few American TV series with a butch lesbian lead and substantial trans-character storytelling - Continued production-and-writing work on independent television and film projects ## Place in the Vault Lilly Wachowski's career sits in close parallel to her sister [[Lana Wachowski]]'s — both as a foundational Hollywood-industry trans-director presence and as a creator whose post-2016 work has shifted toward explicit trans-and-queer storytelling for smaller-scale TV audiences. The Wachowski sisters together are the **most consequential filmmaker pair in the broader [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]]'s cultural-production front** — and their successive 2012 and 2016 coming-outs frame the early-2010s Hollywood-industry trans-rights inflection point. --- ## See Also - [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] - [[Queer Liberation Timeline]] - [[Lana Wachowski]]