At the Human Rights Campaign’s gala fundraising dinner, "Cloud Atlas" director Lana Wachowski shared her painful and personal story about growing up transgendered.

In her 30-minute speech, she revealed that she had been beaten by a Catholic school nun after she refused to stand in a line of boys. Her personal torment got so bad that she had planned to commit suicide as a young adult. Wachowski explained that if it were not for a stranger who had wandered onto the subway platform where she was standing, refusing to leave, she would not have made it.

“I don’t know why he wouldn’t look away,” Wachowski said. “All I know is that because he didn’t, I am still here.”