Warren Beatty's Son on Being a 'Trans Man'

Stephen Ira Beatty doesn't mention his famous parents in YouTube video.

ByABC News
July 19, 2012, 11:41 AM

July 19, 2012 — -- Stephen Ira Beatty, the 20-year-old son of actors Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, has been openly transgender for years. Now, he's opened up about his transition from a woman to a man in a YouTube video posted on the site WeHappyTrans.com.

"My name is Stephen," he begins. "I identify as a trans man, a f***y queen, a homosexual, a queer, a nerd fighter, a writer, an artist and a guy who needs a haircut."

Beatty is the oldest of the Hollywood couple's four children. In the video, he reveals that he began transitioning from a girl to a boy in his early teens. Explaining who supported him through his transition, he says, "My friends, my peers, who I'm lucky to have a lot of." He doesn't mention his parents during the more than six minute long video.

Beatty is undergoing hormone therapy, but says he still likes to present himself as "fem," with "lots of necklaces and rings and all and ribbons around my neck and things like that." He says he takes style cues from the famous gay author Truman Capote.

As for his future, the Sarah Lawrence College graduate says he wants to teach English and "write poetry and fiction and critical work" to encourage open-mindedness. He also plans to have a family. "I am going to have babies and give them onesies with 'This is what a transfeminist looks like' on them," he says.

Beatty made headlines last year when he blasted former "Dancing with the Stars" contestant Chaz Bono, calling the transgender son of Cher "a misogynist who does not represent us" on his blog.

He particularly took issue with Bono, who chronicled his transition from woman to man in a documentary and multiple TV specials on Oprah Winfrey's network, saying transgenderism is "a birth defect, like a cleft palate," and that "being male and having breasts is about the worst thing I could imagine."

ABC News' Susan James contributed reporting.