Karla Sofía Gascón just made history.

On Thursday, the breakthrough star earned an Academy Award nomination for best actress for the Spanish-language movie musical “Emilia Pérez,” becoming the first openly trans actress to receive an Oscar nod. She was nominated in the category alongside Demi Moore (‘The Substance”), Mikey Madison (“Anora”), Cynthia Erivo (“Wicked”) and Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”).

Over the last half century, many cisgender actors have been nominated at the Oscars for portraying trans characters, including Jared Leto (“The Dallas Buyers Club”), Jaye Davidson (“The Crying Game”), John Lithgow (“The World According to Garp”), Glenn Close (“Albert Nobbs”) and Felicity Huffman (“Transamerica”). Elliot Page, too, was nominated for best actress for the 2007 pregnancy comedy “Juno,” before announcing he is transgender in 2020.

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But Gascón, 52, is the first instance of an openly trans actor earning Oscar recognition for a character who is also trans. In “Emilia Pérez,” she plays a Mexican drug kingpin who undergoes gender-affirming surgery and starts a new life as a social worker. The film co-stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz, all of whom shared the best actress prize at Cannes Film Festival in France last spring.

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Born in Madrid, Gascón moved from Spain to Mexico in 2009, where she appeared in telenovelas such as “Hasta el fin del mundo” and “Llena de amor.” With the support of her wife and now-teenage daughter, she began her transition in 2018, and was cast in “Emilia Pérez” in 2022.

The movie has been heavily scrutinized by critics and social media users, drawing comparisons to everything from “Mrs. Doubtfire” to the much-maligned Oscar best picture winner “Crash.” Gascón has also encountered ignorance on the awards campaign trail these last few months.

“The other day, this woman came up to me and was telling me how wonderful my work was,” she told USA TODAY in November. “Then she asked me, ‘If you get nominated, will you be nominated for best actress or best actor?’ And I told her, ‘Ma’am, I am an actress! If I played a monster or an old dog, I would still be nominated as an actress!’ ”

But with her visibility throughout awards season, the outspoken actress hopes to educate people about what it means to be trans.

“All I can do is focus on planting the seed by doing my work and showing that I am no different than anybody else,” Gascón says. “I just want to live my life without anybody bothering me – everyone deserves to be themselves.”