At 59, Micky Angelo Petrillo became himself; now he shows others it’s never too late

The first time Micky Angelo Petrillo saw himself on a movie screen, he didn’t recognize the person staring back. It was December 2025 at New York City’s Copacabana, where a five-minute film about his life was being screened. Petrillo watched himself on the big screen and started to cry.

Not because he was sad. Not because he was happy. He simply didn’t recognize the person on the screen. “Who is that?” he remembers thinking. “Whose voice is that? Whose body is that? Who is that?”

Petrillo had spent 59 years living as a woman. In his words, he was “a man born in a woman’s body.”

“I’m still learning to see myself in the mirror,” Petrillo said. “I mean, I love it, but, you know, 59 years as a woman. Now I’m a two-and-a-half-year-old man. It’s something I have to get used to.”

For Petrillo, 62, coming out as a trans man was not a single moment. His story is now the subject of Call Me Micky, a 22-minute documentary directed by Andrew Rasmussen and executive-produced by actor and activist Dominique Jackson.

But Petrillo’s story is also about what happened after coming out: finding people who understood him and helping others see him for who he is.

Petrillo, who lives in Fort Lee, grew up in Ridgefield in an Italian Catholic family. He described his childhood as a good one and remains friends with people he knew growing up. He was popular in high school and excelled at sports. But he did not have the language to understand his gender identity or sexual orientation. He said he never thought about either one; he simply thought of himself as a tomboy.

Petrillo has said that at 30, kissing a woman helped him realize he wasn’t broken. He was attracted to women. He would later live as a lesbian for 29 years before understanding that he is a transgender man.

Petrillo said he knew he was different as early as age 5, but he thought he was a tomboy. His transition at 59 came after a lifetime of suicidal thoughts, anger, depression and self-hatred.

In June 2023, after being sexually assaulted at an airport in Morocco, Petrillo returned home afraid to leave the house. His fear caused him to look for ways to flatten his chest, and he eventually found a binder. When he put it on and looked in the mirror, something changed. “Holy shit! I like me!” he recalled telling himself in a January 2026 interview with Lavender After Dark.

The realization set off a rapid period of research, therapy and medical care. He began hormone therapy on Oct. 28, 2023. His legal name and gender were finalized by a court, and on Dec. 27, 2023, he had top and torso masculinization surgery. So on Jan. 3, 2024, when he turned 60, he was legally and physically Micky Angelo Petrillo — the man he was born to be.

Dominique Jackson was there that night, and that is where Petrillo and Jackson met. Petrillo now describes the meeting as something that was meant to happen.

But becoming Micky did not mean suddenly having everything figured out. It meant beginning again. When Petrillo came out, he did have a gay community. He had lived as a lesbian for nearly three decades. What he didn’t have was a trans community. “I didn’t know anyone that was trans,” he said.

Instead, he leaned on straight childhood friends who encouraged him to get out and meet people like him. One friend, Carla, repeatedly pushed him to find that support network, he said. Eventually, she and another childhood friend convinced Petrillo to attend a screening of I’m Your Venus, a documentary about Venus Xtravaganza, a transgender woman whose life was featured in the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning.

Initially, he didn’t want to go. Dominique Jackson was there that night, and that is where Petrillo and Jackson met. Petrillo now describes the meeting as something that was meant to happen. “My father and maybe a higher power brought us together that night,” he said.

Jackson, known for her role as Elektra Abundance in FX’s Pose, would eventually become executive producer of Call Me Micky. The relationship became one of the unexpected sources of support Petrillo found after transitioning.

He did not meet people in the trans community until after his transition in 2024. Then, suddenly, he began meeting them. They were seeing something in him that he already knew about himself.

“Michele,” he explained, “kept me alive for 59 years.” Because Michele survived, Micky could be born.

At the Copacabana screening, Petrillo’s experience watching himself was followed by something he wasn’t prepared for. People approached him afterward. Some hugged him. Some told him he was brave. Others apologized for what had happened with Genny, his mother, whose relationship with Petrillo is featured prominently in Call Me Micky.

Then a transgender man approached him and talked about something Petrillo had said about his birth name. Petrillo had never felt that his birth name, Michele, should automatically be considered his “dead name.” Instead, he said, he views that earlier identity as part of the life that brought him here. “Michele,” he explained, “kept me alive for 59 years.” Because Michele survived, Micky could be born.

The trans man told Petrillo that the idea of honoring Michele rather than erasing that part of his life resonated with him. Petrillo had given him another way to understand his own identity. The encounter stayed with him, he said, as did the realization that his story was reaching people in ways he could not always understand. “I still to this day don’t even get or understand the impact I have on people,” Petrillo said. “I am not really understanding it.”

Petrillo said he still finds it difficult to watch recordings of himself, and there is a disconnect between the person on the screen and the person he knows himself to be. Yet he also knows his story is affecting people. “Some cry, some are happy,” he said.

Petrillo said he expects that experience to continue as Call Me Micky moved into the film-festival circuit this fall. Call Me Micky was shown during the Black Bear Film Festival, in Milford, Pennsylvania, as well as the New York Transgender Film Festival, the Newark International Film Festival, the Fresno Reel Pride LGBTQ+ Film Festival in California and the Susquehanna LGBTQ Film Festival in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It will be screened at the Teaneck International Film Festival, which goes from Nov. 5 to 12.

The project is also being supported through a fundraiser intended to help the film continue on the festival circuit. Those who wish to donate and help reach the project’s $20,000 goal can visit mickyangelopetrillo.com/donate/.

As far as coming out is concerned, Petrillo said, it’s never too late to become your authentic self.

That growing visibility is part of what makes Petrillo’s story especially relevant this month. Petrillo said he knows his experience is not universal. When he came out, he was older, financially independent. He lived in his own home and owned his own business. He did not face some of the immediate risks a teenager might have when coming out to their parents who control their housing, finances and education.

But Petrillo also knows that coming out can be complicated at any age. “Everybody’s story is different,” he said.

Petrillo has also learned that coming out does not necessarily mean telling everyone everything. Not everybody is comfortable being as open as he is, he noted, and some people may only talk about their identity in a support group. What matters, Petrillo said, is finding people who make you feel safe.

“Find your community. Find support. Your tribe,” he said, adding that those people can become chosen family. “They will see you for you,” Petrillo said. “They will not judge you. They will love you for you. They will accept you for you. They will respect you for you.” Petrillo’s own chosen family has become part of the story he is now telling through film.

The larger project surrounding Call Me Micky includes his speaking engagements, advocacy and his 2026 memoir, Walking the Earth First as a Woman, Then as a Man, extending his story beyond the LGBTQ+ community.

Petrillo has publicly discussed setbacks along the way, including losing $20,000 to a former producer and facing rejection from friends and family who loved Michele but never stuck around to get to know Micky.

Still, he keeps moving. At 59, he finally found his authentic self. At 62, he is looking forward to what lies ahead.

And the irony is that while Petrillo once couldn’t recognize himself on a movie screen, strangers are now approaching him to tell him they recognize themselves in his story.

Petrillo admits he still doesn’t fully grasp his own impact. “I just don’t get it,” he said, even as he sees how deeply his story resonates with people. He knows he is making people feel something. Some cry. Some laugh. Some see their own experiences reflected back at them.
And some, like the transgender man at the Copacabana screening, walk away with a different understanding of themselves.

For Petrillo, that is reason enough to keep telling his story. He wants people who are questioning themselves to understand that there is no expiration date on becoming who they are. “It’s never too late to become your authentic self,” he said.

Whether someone has 20 years left or 50, Petrillo said, they deserve the chance to be happy. And if coming out feels frightening, he has one piece of advice: “Find your community.”

And that’s the lesson Petrillo wants to leave with people who are still searching for themselves: It’s never too late.

mickyangelopetrillo.com