Did The Daily Mail Try to Out Lilly Wachowski?

Director Lilly Wachowski came out as transgender Tuesday night, and in her statement to the Windy City Times claimed she decided to go public about her identity after a journalist from the British newspaper the Daily Mail tried to out her, the Guardian reports.

Wachowski, formerly known as Andy, said the reporter's approach, and previous approaches by reporters who reached out to her agent and asked for a statement regarding rumors of her gender transition, "threatened public outing against my will."

Officials of the DailyMail.com, the U.S. digital version of Mail Online (a separate Daily Mail newspaper), said the encounter did not happen in the way Wachowski tells it, however.

"DailyMail.com categorically denies that it in any way tried to coerce Lilly Wachowski into revealing her gender transition," a spokesperson said, according to the Guardian. They added that the site's reporter was "extremely sympathetic and courteous at all times."

"As Ms Wachowski herself says, we were not the first media organisation to approach her and we made absolutely clear at several points in the conversation that we were only interested in reporting the story if and when she was happy for us to do so and with her cooperation," the added.

The spokesperson added the Daily Mail wishes Wachowski well on her "journey" but was surprised by her reaction "given the courtesy and sensitivity with which the reporter approached her."

In her statement, "The Matrix" director took aim at the Daily Mail and said the publication was a "huge part in the national public outing" of Lucy Meadows, a transgender woman and teacher who took her own life in 2013 after the Daily Mail published a column by Richard Littlejohn called "He's not only in the wrong body...he's in the wrong job."

A spokesperson for the Daily Mail, however, sees it differently.

"The story emerged after the school wrote announcing the change to parents, some of whom contacted the local media because they were concerned their children might be too young to understand what had happened," the spokesperson said, according to the Guardian.

Wachowski came out as a trans woman four years after her sister, Lana, came out as a trans woman.