Yellowjackets Star Liv Hewson Calls Out ‘Disgust Reactions’ People Have to Their Top Surgery

Yellowjackets star Liv Hewson, who plays young Van on the show, spoke eloquently in a new interview about the “disgust reaction” many transphobes have to trans and nonbinary people having gender-affirming surgeries.

“When people talk about gender-affirming surgery using words like “mutilation,” that’s not very nice. Is that how you think about people who’ve had surgery for other things? It’s a disgust reaction, and I do not take disgust into account as a legitimate point of discourse,” Hewson told Teen Vogue in a new profile published Wednesday, in which they bared their nipple and surgery scar in a photoshoot. “I don’t have to entertain it and I’m not going to. It’s a waste of everybody’s time, it’s knee-jerk, it’s not grounded in reality, and it’s not useful.”

While it might be obvious, Hewson said their beliefs “misogynistic.” Transphobes have “a squeamishness about medical intervention,” they said. “I think the idea of making legislative or cultural decisions in and around [that] is laughable. Your squeamishness is not what the world turns on; it doesn’t matter.”

Hewson knew their gender was a stressor for a long time. By 2012, when they were only 16, Hewson finally learned about being nonbinary. It explained everything they had been feeling for years. “It was this beautiful, celebratory thing of that’s me. I know exactly who I am, I’ve fixed it,” they said. “But I couldn’t tell anyone because, at the time, it really felt impossible.”

They were still a minor, and the year 2012 was just so different. The Supreme Court hadn’t even issued its landmark ruling approving the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, and Hewson realized they were ahead of the mainstream in terms of having an expansive understanding of gender identity. “But very quickly on the heels of that was, I can’t do anything with this. It’s 2012, and I’m 16,” they said. “It was a simultaneous opening and closing of a door.”

But now, Hewson is free from all that. “I am not going to entertain anybody’s disgust over my body,” they told Teen Vogue. “It’s my body, it’s healthy and strong and beautiful, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Point blank.”