‘Supernatural’ star Misha Collins says transgender rights should be Republican cause

Actor Misha Collins, who played the angel Castiel from Season 4 through the show’s final season of “Supernatural,” released a video Wednesday calling transgender rights a cause Republicans should embrace — and declaring that he and his co-host are “deeply ashamed” of the country during Pride Month over what he described as a government campaign against the transgender community.

In a post on his Substack, Mr. Collins wrote that he and co-host Emily Farallon “wish we could be proud of our country this Pride Month, but instead, we are deeply ashamed — particularly of how our trans community has been attacked by our government.” He cited the discharge of transgender service members, passport restrictions on gender identity markers — which he said effectively bars travel for many Americans — and what he described as a spike in hate crimes linked to anti-trans rhetoric from the White House. 

Mr. Collins also pointed to state-level legislation, including a Kansas law he said voided the driver’s licenses of transgender people immediately upon passage, making it “literally illegal for them to even drive to the DMV to update their licenses.” He called it part of “a systemic pattern of oppression, legislating away the rights, freedoms, and even safety of trans people across our nation.” 

In the accompanying video, Mr. Collins argued that transgender rights should resonate with Republican voters on libertarian grounds.

“The Republican ethos for so long has been: ’Government, stay out of my business,’” he said, adding that he found it “maddening” that conservatives had not adopted transgender protections as their own cause. “Stay out of our business. Let people make their own choices in life,” Mr. Collins said. “It seems this almost should be something that is a conservative rallying call.”

Mr. Collins hosted transgender rights journalist Erin Reed, who publishes the newsletter “Erin in the Morning” and is the creator of the Trans Safety Map project, and Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr for the conversation. 

Ms. Zephyr, a Democrat from Missoula, is the first openly transgender lawmaker elected in Montana. She won reelection in November 2024 after being censured and barred from the House floor in 2023 following remarks she made opposing a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Mr. Collins portrayed Castiel in nearly 150 episodes of “Supernatural” from the character’s introduction in Season 4 in 2008 through the show’s conclusion in 2020.