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Kai Schreiber and Liev Schreiber attend the "Stranger Things: The First Shadow" Broadway Opening Night at Nederlander Theatre on April 22, 2025 in New York City.
"To be honest with you, it didn’t feel like that big of a deal," Schreiber said in a new interview.
Liev Schreiber is opening up about his trans daughter and how proud he is of her for being “a fighter.”
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In a new interview with Variety, Schreiber said that his daughter Kai never had to come out as trans to him and her mom, actress Naomi Watts, because they already knew.
“Kai was always who Kai is,” Schreiber told the publication.
The biggest change came when she asked to switch her pronouns, “But I suppose the most profound moment was her asking us to change her pronouns. To be honest with you, it didn’t feel like that big of a deal to me only because Kai had been so feminine for so long,” he said.
Less than two weeks after Robert De Niro spoke publicly for the first time about his “love and support” for his trans daughter Airyn, Schreiber opened up for the first time and said that he couldn’t be more proud of this daughter’s confidence in her identity.
“Kai is such a fighter,” the 57-year-old Ray Donovan actor said. “It’s important that she goes, ‘Hey, I am trans,’ and, ‘Look at me.’”
Watts is also supportive of their trans daughter. When Kai turned 14, Watts showed her love by posting a photo and birthday message on Instagram, "My darling Kai. Happy Birthday to you! Your fierce talent, sharp mind, hilarious wit and gentle soul fills my heart every day.”
Kai may not have had a big coming out experience with her parents, but she put herself out on the world stage back in March when she made her modeling debit by walking the runway for Valentino and then starring in one of the fashion brand’s ad campaigns.
Schreiber also had advice for other parents out there of children who have come out as trans. “I don’t know the answer for your kid,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s like for you to be a trans dad. I don’t know how you were brought up. I don’t know what religion you encountered or what your spirituality is. And for me to tell you what I think about my kid feels like an overstep.”
But he reminded parents that trans or not, raising a teenager is challenging.
“I guess if I would say anything to someone who’s having trouble with their trans teen or their adolescent trans kid it’s ‘Teenagers are a headache. They’re hard,’” Schreiber explained. “It doesn’t matter whether they’re trans or not because you’ll come out of this. But a trans teen is going to be a teen. They’re such a pain so much of the time, and Kai is as feisty and outspoken as they come.”
The father of two also acknowledged that the trans community is under attack from right-wing politicians, but said he doesn’t like to “dwell” on the negativity.
“I don’t like to dwell on it too much,” he said. “To some degree, I feel like I don’t want to overcook that fear or that anxiety. There’s enough in the world to be anxious and afraid about.”
But that hasn’t stopped him from supporting the trans community. Kai will join her dad and his wife Taylor at a gala on May 9 for the Ali Forney Center’s A Place at the Table, which is a center that provides housing and support for homeless LGBTQ+ youth.
Schreiber explained that this is a way to raise money for the organization and support “a community of people who don’t have great resources, who don’t have access to help, who aren’t being protected and looked after by their families.”
“These are people who are being rejected. These are people who are experiencing the harshest version of humanity that we can offer, and some of them are not surviving it,” he shared.
