Meet Transgender, Deaf and Genderqueer Actor Chella Man

Chella Man is known for sharing his experiences as a transgender, deaf, genderqueer, Asian, and Jewish person of color.

Chella was born on November 26, 1998, and he is of Jewish and Chinese descent, who was raised in a small town in Central Pennsylvania. The 24-year-old actor grew up in a conservative community where he “did not consider myself beautiful.”

He was assigned female at birth, and experienced gender dysphoria throughout his childhood. Chella also started to lose his hearing at the age of 4, and he was profoundly deaf by the time he was 13 years old.

He then received his first cochlear implant at the age of 14, and he was 16 when a second implant was placed in his other ear. 2017 was the year when the actor began transitioning with testosterone. The use of masculinizing hormone therapy, as well as top surgery also helped with his identity, self-esteem, and body image.

In a 2018 interview with Teen Vogue, Chella opened up about his childhood in Central Pennsylvania, and how it affected his perception of beauty and identity.

“Growing up in narrow-minded Central Pennsylvania, I did not consider myself beautiful. This was before testosterone and top surgery, when I identified as a cisgender girl. Now, I realize the conservative culture and lack of representation clouded my perceptions of beauty as well as my struggles with identity and gender dysphoria. True beauty is defined by confidence, pure hearts, and strength,” he expressed.

Moreover, he is a student at The New School in Manhattan, where he studies virtual reality programming as of 2019. As an actor, Chella is known for playing the role of mute superhero Jericho in the DC series ‘Titans’ Season 2.

Aside from acting, he is also an artist, YouTuber, LGBTQ+ activist, and model who signed with IMG as their first Deaf Jewish-Asian model back in 2018. Not to mention, he is also a director who created ‘The Device That Turned Me Into A Cyborg Was Born The Same Year I Was.’

On top of directing the film, he is also the writer, co-editor and co-producer of the short drama, which is described as “an anthem on self-love and exploration, paralleling many lessons intimacy has granted me [Chella].”

According to his Instagram post, Chella grew up “without representation,” and he “never felt intimately desired…let alone beautiful in my trans, disabled, multiracial form.” That being said, he created the short film “partially due to my desire to be validated by those who did not care to expand the standards of beauty they were conditioned to believe. Many of them may never be courageous enough to question.”

On March 24, ‘The Device That Turned Me Into A Cyborg Was Born The Same Year I Was’ was released on Nowness, and is now available for viewing. Furthermore, Chella worked with queer sex worker/liberator Sammy Kim in the sex scenes, where the actor and director shows that “disabled, trans masc people can TOP…although we never see it in media…”