Transphobia in Hollywood: Trans Stories Without Trans Actors

With the upcoming debut of the new movie About Ray where another non-trans actor, in this case Elle Fanning, plays a trans character, I believe it is relevant to discuss trans exclusion in Hollywood. We see this time and time again, cisgender actors being hired to play trans characters. Buzzfeed has an article citing 21 different instances of this dating all the way back to 1975. Some may argue that this is at least bringing light to the trans community, which may be true; but it isn’t okay that they are taking valuable opportunities from an already marginalized group. However, as Mari Brighe of Autostraddle argues, the repetition of Hollywood’s choice of actors shows more than meets the eye. Hollywood is clearly sitting up and taking notice of the increased attention being paid… Read more »