Shakina Nayfack (born December 8, 1980) is an American actress and transgender activist. She is most notable for her series regular role as Lola, a "trans-truther", on the second and third seasons of the

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...

television program ''

Difficult People ''Difficult People'' is an American dark comedy streaming television series created by Julie Klausner. Klausner stars alongside Billy Eichner as two struggling and jaded comedians living in New York City; the duo seemingly hate everyone but each ...

'', on which she was also a writing consultant. In 2020, she became the first trans person to have a starring role on a major network comedy show, ''

Connecting ''Connecting...'' is an American television sitcom co-created and co-executive produced by Martin Gero and Brendan Gall for Universal Television. The series premiered on October 8, 2020 on NBC. In November 2020, the series was canceled after f ...

''.

Education

Nayfack attended University of California Santa Cruz where she received a B.A. in Community Studies with a minor in Theater Arts as well as a Graduate Certificate in Theater Arts. She went on to pursue an MFA in Experimental Choreography and Ph.D. in Critical Dance Studies at University of California Riverside.

Career

She previously appeared on the show '' The Detour'', and in the 2014 film ''

Death Drive In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive (german: Todestrieb) is the drive toward death and destruction, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness.Eric Berne, ''Wha ...

''. Nayfack was a founding member and artistic director of New York's Musical Theatre Factory, and her one-woman show ''Manifest Pussy'' was highly regarded by the Manhattan theater scene. In 2016, she took ''Manifest Pussy'' on tour in North Carolina in response to HB2. In 2015, she received the Lilly Award, which supports women in the theater and promotes gender parity for theatrical productions, in the "working miracles" category. Nayfack has also received the TRU Humanitarian Award from Theatre Resources Unlimited (2016) and the Beatrice Terry Fellowship Award from the Drama League (2017). She plays the role of Ava in the 2019 musical finale of

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show ''

Transparent Transparency, transparence or transparent most often refer to: * Transparency (optics), the physical property of allowing the transmission of light through a material They may also refer to: Literal uses * Transparency (photography), a still, ...

'', directed by

Joey Soloway Joey Soloway (previously Jill Soloway; born September 26, 1965) is an American television creator, showrunner, director and writer. Soloway is known for creating, writing, executive producing and directing the Amazon original series ''Transparent' ...

. Nayfack also served as a writer and producer on the finale. She is the voice of Hana in the English dub of ''

Tokyo Godfathers is a 2003 Japanese animated tragicomedy adventure film written and directed by Satoshi Kon. The film stars live-action actors such as Toru Emori, Yoshiaki Umegaki, and Aya Okamoto as the lead voice actors. Kon was inspired by the 1948 American ...

.'' She played the role of Ellis in

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

's ''Connecting...'' in 2020. This makes her the first trans person to have a starring role on an American network comedy.

Personal life

In 2013, Nayfack

crowd-funded Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance. In 2015, over was rais ...

her

gender confirmation surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...

through a " Kickstart Her" campaign. She is Jewish. In June 2021 she came out as non-binary and uses she/her pronouns.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nayfack, Shakina 21st-century American actresses American television actresses LGBT rights activists from the United States Living people Transgender actresses Transgender rights activists American non-binary actors Transfeminists Transgender Jews Jewish American actresses University of California, Santa Cruz alumni 1980 births Non-binary activists 21st-century American Jews Transgender non-binary people