Transgender Actress Jamie Clayton Talks to In Touch About Stepping Into Her New

[Shana A]

Jul 14 2011
Matt Kane, GLAAD's Associate Director of Entertainment Media

Transgender Actress Jamie Clayton Talks to In Touch About Stepping Into Her New Role

http://glaadblog.org/2011/07/14/transgender-actress-jamie-clayton-talks-to-in-touch-about-stepping-into-her-new-role/

Jamie Clayton discussed filming her upcoming role on HBO's Hung in and interview with In Touch Magazine recently, in which she talked about realizing a personal dream of hers and representing the transgender community on television.

Audiences may remember her as one third of the glamour squad on VH1's TRANSform Me, in which Clayton and two other trans women traveled the country giving other women makeovers and a few choice lessons in personal empowerment.  The show was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award last year for Outstanding Reality Program.

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Jamie Clayton is Breaking Boundaries on Hung

http://www.intouchweekly.com/2011/07/jamie_clayton_is_breaking_boun.php

HBO's Hung, which follows the life of Ray Drecker, a small town male prostitute is about to get even more interesting when it introduces a transgender love interest. Up and Coming actress, Jamie Clayton has been cast to play the role of Kyla, a pre-op transgender woman that hires Thomas Jayne's character for his sexual services for the show's upcoming third season. In a exclusive interview with In Touch, Jamie opens up about her big break. "The people in my life that know that I have been pursuing an acting career know this has been a long journey of taking acting classes and auditioning," she says. "The moment I walked on set I felt happy to be there."

[Julie Marie]

On one hand it's good to see a trans person being accepted for who she is.  But on the other hand, the part about "transgender" preceding "actress" or "woman" makes me wonder when it will be something more like, "Jamie Clayton, who BTW was born transgender...", making the TG identification more of a sidebar than a focal point.  And this would also convey the transgender part of her life is in the past.  She's a woman now.