Transgender actress Alexis Arquette died Sunday morning, her brother Richmond Arquette revealed in a Facebook post. She was 47.
“Our brother Robert, who became our brother Alexis, who became our sister Alexis, who became our brother Alexis, passed this morning September 11, at 12:32 am,” Richmond wrote.
“He was surrounded by all of his brothers and sisters, one of his nieces and several other loved ones. We were playing music for him and he passed during David Bowie’s Starman. As per his wishes, we cheered at the moment that he transitioned to another dimension.”
A cause of death has not been yet released. Later on Sunday, the Alexis’ siblings Rosanna, Richmond, Patricia and David Arquette issued a statement about the news, calling her a “brilliant artist and painter, a singer, an entertainer and an actor.”
“Her career was cut short, not by her passing, but by her decision to live her truth and her life as a transgender woman,” the statement goes on. “Despite the fact that there are few parts for trans actors, she refused to play roles that were demeaning or stereotypical. She was a vanguard in the fight for understanding and acceptance for all trans people. She fiercely lived her reality in a world where it is dangerous to be a trans person — a world largely unready to accept differences among human beings, and where there is still the ugliness of violence and hostility towards people that we may not understand.”
“Alexis was born as Robert, our brother,” the statement goes on. “We loved him the moment he arrived. But he came in as more than a sibling — he came as our great teacher. As Alexis transitioned into being a woman, she taught us tolerance and acceptance. As she moved through her process, she became our sister, teaching us what real love is. We learned what real bravery is through watching her journey of living as a trans woman. We came to discover the one truth — that love is everything. In the days leading to her death, she told us she was already visiting the other side, and that where she was going, there was only one gender. That on the other side, we are free from all of the things that separate us in this life, and that we are all one.”
Patricia also paid tribute to Alexis by tweeting David Bowie’s “Starman” and T. Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer.”
