Cloud Atlas co-director Lana Wachowski opened up about her difficult past of growing up transgender in a speech at the Human Rights Campaign's gala fundraiser in San Francisco this weekend, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Wachowski, one half of the sibling duo behind The Matrix trilogy, said that when she was a young adult, she nearly committed suicide on a subway platform before a man nearby stared her down. "I don't know why he wouldn't look away," said Wachowski. "All I know is that because he didn't, I am still here." Wachowski also shared an incident in which she was beaten by a Catholic nun for not joining a line of boys and shared the support she received from her mother and father upon coming out. "Having good parents is just like the lottery," she added.

Wachowski attended the gala to accept the Visibility Award for her recent decision to dispel her previous policy of avoiding press, public appearances and open acknowledgement of her "transition" into becoming a woman. She also noted that she dislikes that word "because of its complicity in a binary gender narrative."