How Can We Have More Authentic Trans Representation?
Think ‘process’ rather than ‘product,’ for starters
For as much social progress as we’ve made, American culture continues to favor and effortlessly showcase cisgender, heterosexual people (cishet, for short). Which, of course, is to be expected in a (cis)heteronormative society; if you’re straight and not trans, congratulations! You’re viewed as the default norm. This goes hand-in-hand with most folks assuming you also represent the majority. (Which is not necessarily accurate; many gay people still live in the closet — outnumbered, perhaps, only by trans people living in the closet). But cishet folks are collectively accepted as the American “gold standard.”
At the opposite end of that acceptance is where trans non-binary people fall. ‘Trans’ doesn’t simply refer to one type of person, like, male-to-female, or female-to-male trans individuals, or transsexuals, or however else someone identifies that is understood as the binary opposite of the sex they were assigned at birth. Rather, trans is an umbrella term that encompasses any person who is not cisgender. Trans includes non-binary people (or “enby” for short), genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, any and all combinations of these, and so on.
