Hari Nef

Hari Nef is a transgender actress, model, and writer who has been one of the most visible and culturally influential trans women in American entertainment since she broke through in the mid-2010s. She came out as a trans woman during her time at Columbia University and quickly became a model and spokesperson whose visibility coincided with a pivotal moment in trans cultural recognition. She had a recurring role in the groundbreaking Amazon series "Transparent" (2015) and has appeared in "Assassination Nation" (2018), "Ratched" (2020), "The Idol" (2023), and "You" (2023). Her most visible role to date was as one of the Barbies in Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" (2023), a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster in which a trans woman played a key part without her transness being a plot point — a milestone in normalized trans representation. Nef has written and spoken at length about trans identity, visibility, and the particular pressures on trans women who exist in public life, and has been an outspoken advocate against transphobia in both media and policy.