Shakina Nayfack
Quick Facts
Biography
Shakina Nayfack is an American actress and transgender activist.
She is most notable for her series regular role as Lola, a "trans-truther", on three seasons of the Hulu television program Difficult People, on which she is also a writing consultant.
She previously appeared on the show The Detour, and in the 2014 film Death Drive.
Nayfack is a founding member and artistic director of New York's Musical Theatre Factory, and her one-woman show Manifest Pussy was highly regarded by the Manhattan theater scene. In 2016, she took Manifest Pussy on tour in North Carolina in response to HB2.
In 2013, Nayfack crowd-funded her gender confirmation surgery through a "Kickstart Her" campaign.
In 2015, she received the Lilly Award, which supports women in the theater and promotes gender parity for theatrical productions, in the "working miracles" category. Nayfack has also received the TRU Humanitarian Award from Theatre Resources Unlimited (2016) and the Beatrice Terry Fellowship Award from the Drama League (2017).