Broadway star Lea Salonga on helping her trans son to be 'a successful human being'

Lea Salonga, one of the Broadway divas featured on Out’s May/June cover, is a champion for young transgender people — including her 18-year-old son, Nic.

“It’s important for me to speak up for kids like my own kid, because trans folks are being erased, as if their existence never happened. But trans folks have been around forever,” she tells The Advocate’s sibling publication.

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Being on the cover of Out was an “easy ask,” she says, and it “felt timely” considering the rash of anti-LGBTQ+ attacks in the U.S.

“The only thing that trans folks, any LGBT person wants, is to exist and to live and to love in the way that they were born to. Full stop,” she adds. “And so I am advocating for my son to be a successful human being, to be the person that he has always meant to be. My job is just to usher this young person into figuring all of that out. And to try to defend him as best as I can.”

She urges other parents of LGBTQ+ kids to be supportive. “Just love your kids and be proud that they are brave enough to fight for who they are,” she says.

Salonga, a Tony winner for Miss Saigon — she was the first actress of Asian descent to win the award — is currently starring on Broadway with Bernadette Peters in Old Friends, a revue of Stephen Sondheim’s songs. Salonga sings one of them for Nic: “Loving You” from Passion. “Every night I sing it for Nic, wearing a purple jacket, which is Nic’s favorite color, so it’s like I’m channeling my son as I sing this anthem of love,” she says.

Next, Salonga will play the Witch in Sondheim’s Into the Woods in the Philippines, her native country, and Nic will play Jack. “It’s gonna be a lot of fun,” she says.

Other divas featured in Out are Kristin Chenoweth, Megan Hilty, Idina Menzel, and Maleah Joi Moon. Read about all of them here.