Challenging the Film Industry to Save Trans Lives

“The level of violence targeting transgender people, particularly transgender women of color, is a national crisis that the LGBT movement has a responsibility to confront.” — Chad Griffin, HRC President

At the time the Human Rights Campaign issued this report declaring the violence against transgender people as a national crisis in January of 2015, two trans-women had already been killed within the year. At least 13 transgender women were killed the year before in 2014 on account of their gender identity. As the number of deaths that occur as a result of individuals being targeted for being transgender rise year after year, it is imperative that as a nation we challenge one of the institutions that has the greatest influences over our modern society- the film and television industries- to end their practices which contribute to this rampant violence. Firstly, the current lack of any trans roles in recent major works serve to reinforce the social constructs of cis-normativity and misogyny which allow violence and discrimination to propagate unchecked. Then, the roles that do exist paint trans individuals as either threats or objects of ridicule that are inherently disparaging. Finally, the roles of trans characters are currently almost exclusively played by cis-men who fail to represent the trans community accurately and undermine the femininity of trans women. Thus, in order to save trans lives, there needs to be an entire upheaval in the entertainment industry to end roles like Rayon played by Jared Leto in the Dallas Buyers Club and to create more works like Orange is the New Black that allow trans-actresses like Laverne Cox in to gain visibility in order to end the objectification of trans people that dehumanizes them to the point where many view their lives as being disposable.

Though the past decades have resulted in many milestones for the LGBTQ community in the media and beyond, the transgender community continues to lag behind in the terms of the gaining of legal rights and social acceptance. In a study conducted by GLAAD in 2014, the 114 films released by the seven largest movie studios that year were reviewed and it was found that, “17.5 percent of them included characters identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual” (Movies lack LGBT Roles, 2015). While this is an increase from the 16.7 percent of films that included LGBT roles the year before, none of the characters in these popular films were visibly transgender. Many popular T.V shows today like ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and ABC Family’s The Fosters and Chasing Life among many others also now have gay, lesbian, or bisexual roles that bring these issues of sexual identity right into the living rooms of viewers with characters that win over their support and love. Missing from these shows, however, are characters that go against the gender binary. This lack of representation is indicative of the larger struggle for equality in context of society on the whole that transgender individuals have been facing for a countless number of years. While great strides have been made in the legalization of gay marriage in many states and the mainstreaming of bisexuality, our culture remains highly cis-normative and it is reinforced by a media which fails to capture the existence of the trans community while other members of the LGBTQ community who still identify with the sex that they were assigned at birth gain more visibility.

There are even discrepancies in terms of equality of screen time within the trans community as trans-men are featured in popular film even less frequently than trans-women by a wide margin. This imbalance is a reflection of a misogynistic society that views men as powerful and women as inferior; therefore, it is not viewed as noteworthy for women to transition to live as men because they are simply “choosing” the gender that is perceived as superior and dominant and thus these characters do not capture the attention of the entertainment industry. While women who wear men’s closed are simply viewed as being butch or mannish, any man who dons women’s clothes is immediately perceived as being trans or as having a gender identity disorder, and this double standard is reinforced by current media representation. Because of the present lack of transgender characters in film, the entertainment industry is is feeding into the societal constructs of cis-normativity and misogyny that are keeping the trans community from gaining the acceptance they need to live free of harassment. Gaining visibility in popular film will undoubtedly be a key step towards being perceived as “normal” in the eyes of society- a step that will keep the community from being targeted as outsiders with acts of violent discrimination.

Beyond simply increasing screen time, however, is the necessity of gaining positive exposure for the trans community. When films do give visibility to transgender issues, it is often in a way that is meant to dismiss them in order to reaffirm our patriarchal and cis-normative society; thus, many current representations of trans individuals are even more harmful in terms of repercussions for the treatment of trans individuals than the effects of having no visibly trans characters appear in films. Julia Serano explains in a chapter of Whipping Girl entitled “Trans Woman Manifesto” that, “there is no greater perceived threat than the existence of trans women, who despite being born male and inheriting male privilege “choose” to be female instead (Serano, 15). Therefore, it is unsurprising that the study conducted by GLAAD also found that studio comedies account for nearly half of all “LGBT inclusive” films that have been produced since 2013 (Movies Lack LGBT Roles, 2015). The existence of these weak, laughable characters serve only to reinforce the validity of the gender binary and the element of comedy, “thus helps to ridicule and hence domesticate a transvestism that might otherwise prove threatening” (Phillips, 26). To accept that men would seriously want to become women would undermine our society that is built on the premise that masculinity represents strength and power and femininity is weakness; therefore, by creating roles that depict trans woman as subjects of laughter, the film industry is attempting to reaffirm these misogynistic beliefs that are so deeply entrenched in our nation’s history by re-assuring audiences that trans women are simply frivolous, fringe members of society. As a result, these depictions also send the message that it is alright to abuse or even kill trans women because they are nothing more than subjects of ridicule. Without question, to address the issues regarding discrimination against trans women, we must also look to upheave our nation’s attitude towards women in general by aligning femininity with positive connotations. By depicting strong cis and trans female roles in more works that are not comedies, the entertainment industry could make great strides in ending the current system of misogyny that is working to oppress and dehumanize trans women in particular.

Whipping Girl also describes how the archetypal roles of the “deceptive transexual” and “pathetic transsexual” are really the only representation of trans women in film, and thus the public is given a very one-dimensional view of the trans individual. Many of the aforementioned comedies cast characters which fulfill the role of the “pathetic transsexual”- characters that are marked by an overtly masculine look and a cowardly demeanor (Serano, 36). Whereas the pathetic transexual intends to convey that trans women are simply men in dresses who should be ridiculed yet regarded as harmless, the “deceptive transsexual” is someone who is able to “pass” as the opposite gender and thus is rendered as a threat and someone to be despised. The 1992 movie The Crying Game is a perfect example of the trans woman as a “deceiver”. Viewers watched as Fergus, a member of the Irish Republican Army, fell for Dill, the former girlfriend of his British prisoner, Jody, who asked him to protect her upon his death. The movie drew people to theaters as rumors swirled that there was a shocking twist, and almost all who watched were floored by Dill’s reveal as a transsexual when she was shot full body nude before what would have been her and Fergus’s first sexual encounter. Fergus responded by hitting her and running into the bathroom to throw up in disgust. This representation has severe implications in terms of the condoning of violence against trans women because it sends the message that it is understandable to lash out physically against the “deceptive transsexual”. The trans-panic defense had been used in numerous cases, like the homicide of Gwen Araujo, and oftentimes has been enough to allow the murderers of trans women to walk free. This defense continues to be used by defensive teams in today’s cases of trans homicides and is a reflection of the pervasiveness of this idea of the deceptive trans woman that films have helped to create. One of these recent cases is the murder of Jennifer Laude, a Fillipina trans woman who was killed in the fall of 2014. Joseph Pemberton, a United States marine and the last person known to have been with Jennifer, is currently waiting to stand trial for the murder in the Philippines. Pemberton and his lawyers petitioned to have the murder charged dismissed on the grounds that Laude’s deception effectively justified his actions as they referenced “treachery as a qualifying circumstance in the crime of murder” when speaking of how Laude solicited Pemberton for sex while “passing” as a cis-woman. The fact that some still believe that simply being transgender is reason enough to be murdered is a clear indication of the how dire of an intervention is needed; therefore, in order to save trans lives, the industry must stop painting trans women as “decievers” in the eyes of the public.

While analyzing how works repeatedly fall into the pattern of representing the “pathetic” and “deceptive” transsexual, it cannot be ignored that movies almost exclusively have filled these roles with heterosexual, white, cis-male actors who do not know better than to feed into these traditional trans archetypes. These cis-genderd actors cannot accurately reflect what it means to be transgender in today’s society thus these works only serve to further misinform a public which is highly dependent on the media for their knowledge on what it means to be transgender as many individuals are only surrounded by cis-gendered people in their day-to-day lives and the implications of this fact can be severe. Firstly, by not even casting cis-women in these roles, the industry is sending the message that trans women are really just men masquerading as women and that their femininity is nothing more than a costume. By fueling the idea that trans women are nothing more than “men in dresses”, the casting of cis-gendered men for the role is undermining the entire fight of the trans community to inform the public that their gender is real and cannot be defined by genitals or clothing.

Additionally, by casting white, heterosexual men who have the privilege of auditioning for an almost endless list of parts to fill these roles, the industry is denying work for trans-actors and actresses who often rely on type-casting. Therefore, they are denied the opportunity of gaining fame or even of making a living; Thus, in addition to issues of misrepresentation, there are severe economic implications of hiring cis-men that only add to the current rates of unemployment in the trans community that is almost even more crippling of an epidemic than the rampant violence. According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey conducted in 2011, people who identify with a gender that differs from the sex they were assigned at birth experience an unemployment rate that is double the national average (14% vs. 7%). For trans women of color, that number is a staggering figure of quadruple the national unemployment average. By contributing to the wage an employment gap experienced by the trans community, the entertainment industry is also contributing to the discriminatory violence faced by trans individuals because their low socio-economic status also dehumanizes them in the eyes of many who then view their lives as being entirely disposable.

A film that has recently come under a lot of fire from the trans community is the Dallas Buyers Club (2013) which featured Jared Leto, a white cis-male, as Rayon, a trans woman dying from AIDS in the 1980s. Steve Friess writing for TIME comments that Rayon is, “ a sad-sack, clothes-obsessed, constantly flirting transgender drug addict prostitute, of course. There are no stereotypes about transgender women that Leto’s concoction does not tap. She’s an exaggerated, trivialized version of how men who pretend to be women — as opposed to those who feel at their core they are women — behave.” Rayon only appears to be a comic relief, suffering from jokes like having a gun pointed at her crotch and being told she would be given “the sex change she always wanted”. Many accused Leto of being the new “Mammy”, and one cannot help but draw the parallel between these depictions of trans characters and the portrayal of African Americans by white actors in the early and mid 20th century that are now perceived as intolerant and cringe-worthy. Just as the advancement of colored people was hindered by these misguided representations by white men, transgendered individuals are being severely negatively impacted by these cis-gendered men playing the role of trans women and in order for full equality to be achieved, this barrier in the film industry must be destroyed.

Though some may argue that actors like Leto are simply professionals, hired for their skill of representing a character that may not embody any of their personal characteristics, the social implications of having people who are not transgender represent the trans community are significant. John Dyer explains this principle in his book, The Matter of Images, as he notes, “how social groups are treated in cultural representations is part and parcel of how they are treated in life” (Dyer (as cited by Miller), 33). Therefore, having cis-men such as Jared Leto play trans women in film that are hyper-fetishived propagates stereotypes that then translate into how trans individuals are viewed in the context of society. Because our culture is so susceptible to the perceived truths that are fed to us by the media, these representations have the power to influence attitudes that result in actions such as violence and discrimination. In a series of interviews conducted by Trans Media Watch, a trans individual who remained anonymous commented that, “People think we are child molesting perverts because of … how we are portrayed in the media as figures to ridicule, to be pointed out and laughed at regardless of our feelings,” and their experience is shared by many in the trans community that have felt personally victimized as a result of these actors’ representations (7). Thus, it is critical that the industry refrain from hiring cis-men to fill these roles so that the character can reflect a realness that can only come from true lived experience so that viewers can identify with the trans character and feel an emotional connection with them rather than a sense of scorn.

There is a new glimmer of hope for change, however, as recently, one African American trans actress, Laverne Cox, has broken through the industry’s barriers against the trans community by making waves in the Netflix series that she stars in, Orange is the New Black (2013). Cox plays the character of inmate Sophia Burset and is challenging this trend of misrepresentation of transgender people in the media with the role. While most media representations have traditionally focused on the physical transition, capturing scenes of trans women putting on their make-up and donning highly feminine attire, Sophia Burset is a highly developed, complex character and the show puts an emphasis on her relationship with her wife and her son instead of objectifying her body. Through both the use of plot and cinematography, Orange is the New Black aims to educate the general public about challenges faced by individuals who identify with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth without hyper-focusing on her sexuality.

For example, in Season 1 Episode 3, “Lesbian Request Denied,” the viewer receives glimpses of Burset’s life before transitioning and landing in prison for credit card fraud. While most of the fraudulent charges were related to funding Sophia’s transition, the guilt Sophia feels for her son’s confusion and anger are also made evident in this episode by the use of the credit cards. The episode flashes back to Sophia with her son trying on sneakers in a shoe store. After being told the sneakers are $300, Sophia hesitates but then gives in after looking at her son’s longing eyes. Then, one of Sophia’s former friend’s from the fire department where she worked before she transitioned comes in and acts clearly uncomfortable, embarrassing her son Michael who ends up taking off, running out of the store with the new shoes still on. “Sir, mam… you still need to pay for those” the salesman addresses, highlighting the ignorance trans people are met with on a daily basis as we sympathize with this parental figure who simply wants the best for her son, a sense of nurturing that is a universal characteristic that transcends gender identity.

The show also attempts to deconstruct our society’s misogynistic ideals as the prison warden’s wife makes a statement about Burset later in the same episode by questioning, “Why would anyone want to give up being a man. It’s like winning the lottery and giving the ticket back.” Because this character is presented from the beginning as being greedy, cold, and manipulative, her words evoke a sense of anger in the viewer that subsequently further align them with Sophia and thus with the trans movement. Clearly Orange is the New Black is a show that could be used as model for the film and television industries’s future works as the attacking of misogynistic ideals and focus on the relationships with family and friends that humanize transgender characters like Sophia Burset are critical steps towards educating the public and ultimately saving trans lives.

This change in focus from the objectification of the trans body to the understanding of the struggle that plagues the community is a significant step in the right direction and is consistent with Laverne Cox’s mission in regards to using her fame to become an activist for trans rights. Cox is currently spear-heading a movement that has been gaining a considerable amount of traction in the media and is often compared to Stonewall. After Cox was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine, she was interviewed by Katie Couric along with transgender model Carmen Carrera in a segment that has since gone viral. Couric was pressing to learn intimidate details regarding the women’s sex change operations, and when Carrera politely declined speaking of such intimate details, Couric redirected the question to Cox who took a stand against the invasive line of questioning. “The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people,” she explained, “And then we don’t get to really deal with the real lived experiences.” Cox then when on to cite the issues regarding violence, unemployment, and homelessness affecting trans individuals every day, garnering applause from both the trans community and general public alike for fighting to remind the world that the most important thing to know about transgendered people, is that they’re still people. Openly discussing genitalia is inherently dehumanizing, and if the media actively attempts to shift their focus to issues of discrimination and violence then they will be raising awareness and evoking sympathy from the general public instead of objectifying them as if they were a sideshow at a circus. Because of the efforts of transgender actresses like Laverne Cox, monumental advances have been made towards trans equality both legally and socially. Ending the trends of violence and discrimination will undoubtedly require both laws to protect the rights and social movements to heal the climate of fear an unrest surrounding transgenderism. By casting trans-actors and actresses, allowing them to gain visibility in order to fight for legal rights, in films which seek to portray the trans community in a positive light, advances towards peace are made on both of these fronts.

While many are focusing on healthcare reform, education, and housing initiatives to end the oppression of the trans community, it is time to challenge one of the greatest forces in our modern society, the media, to take responsibility for their role in the current crisis of violence and discrimination. Until visibly transgender characters, portrayed by actual trans actors and actresses, become commonplace in today’s film and television industries, it is unlikely that the public will be able to fully accept the trans-men and women as being “normal” and thus view them as people who deserve to be treated with respect. Also, depictions that aim purely to ridicule, hyper-sexualize, or demonize trans men and women are a huge contributor to this current epidemic of violence and they must be eliminated from our culture. The media can be a powerful tool in ending the mystery and ignorance that currently surrounds transsexualism, and by producing works like Orange is the New Black that accurately reflect the transgender community, the world could be one giant step closer to achieving equality and saving of trans lives.

Works Cited

Dyer, Richard. The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print

Friess, Steve. “Don’t Applaud Jared Leto’s Transgender ‘Mammy’.” Www.time.com. TIME, 28 Feb. 2014. Web.

Kohan, Jenji. “Lesbian Request Denied.” Orange Is the New Black. Dir. Jodie Foster. Netflix. 11 July 2013. Television.

Miller, Jeremy Russell. “Crossdressing Cinema: An Analysis of Transgender Representation in Film.” 3532068 Texas A&M University, 2012. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. 22 Apr. 2015. Web

Phillips, John. Transgender on Screen. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Serano, Julia. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Emeryville, CA: Seal, 2007. Print.

“How Transgender People Experience the Media”. Trans Media Watch. Apr. 2010. Web.

“Study: movies lack LGBT roles.” Westerly Sun, The (RI) 17 Apr. 2015, B: Sports: B04. NewsBank. 22 Apr. 2015. Web