Please Just Get a Trans Actor For Your Movie

After the past year and a half of COVID-19, I think I have consumed more media content than in the past five years. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, I often find my Netflix recommendations with various queer stories. We get plenty of gay stories, like Call Me By Your Name (2017), and Love Simon (2018). But even these stories are played by heterosexual actors. I realize it is quite an accomplishment to step into shoes that are not your own as an actor, but does this give audiences the wrong idea? The answer is yes.

But the true crime comes into play when depicting transgender stories. The stories of my transgender brothers, sisters, and others are not being played by trans actors. Therefore, that communicates to audiences that it is only a costume and not an integral part of their identity. When you have so much violence against transgender individuals, these seemingly small disparities become huge problems. We see a male actor play a trans woman, only to see him take off his facade for the premiere. This tells audiences that transgender individuals are no different from their assigned-at-birth gender, which only invalidates their existence. We should have trans stories told by trans actors, because why would we have it any differently in the first place? A trans individual is not some acting challenge for a cis actor, it is an identity that real trans individuals have to fight for their own validation on a daily basis. We are still fighting for basic human rights such as using the bathroom, so empathy through trans stories in main media is crucial in bridging the gap. These actors get to step out of the costume and reclaim their cisgender privilege, free from the violence and abuse transpeople know all too well. It is not a costume, so we should stop portraying it like it is.