Josie Totah (Joseph) was 12 years old when the world met Stuart Wooten, the boy who was in love with Zuri on the Disney Channel series ‘Jessie’.
Behind that character was a truth she had known for a long time. As she told Time, when she was little, she would tell her mother she wanted to be a girl, and at five years old she would ask her: “Give me a dress”.
For years, she held on to that certainty while making millions laugh on screen.
In August 2018, at 17, she published an essay in Time titled “I’m Ready to Be Free”. Her statement was direct: “I identify as a woman and, specifically, as a transgender woman. My name is Josie Totah”.
She didn’t stop there. She acted in Netflix’s Moxie and in Saved by the Bell, where she played Lexi, one of the first trans characters portrayed by a trans actress in a major series.
In 2026, she stars in the horror movie Faces of Death, alongside Barbie Ferreira and Charli XCX. She is also part of the new Carrie series.
The boy many remembered from TV was only one part of the story. She told the other part herself.