Don't Call me Ma'am: On the Politics of Trans Casting
MJ Kaufman
September 29, 2013
http://www.howlround.com/don%E2%80%99t-call-me-ma%E2%80%99am-on-the-politics-of-trans-castingCasting gets at the very root of how we tell our stories. The bodies we see onstage make our experiences visible. For invisible people, like trans and gender nonconforming people, it is necessary that we use ourselves to tell our stories. When I write transgender roles in my plays they are almost exclusively cast with cisgender actors (a person who identifies with the gender assigned at birth, basically someone who is not trans). Producers and casting directors suggest very feminine women to play characters I understand as male. When I've asked for trans actors they report knowing none. When I've suggested trans actors I know, I've been told they didn't have enough experience, or wouldn't be able to fit into a festival because of double casting between plays, as though all roles in all other plays are by default cisgender and can only be played by cis actors.
Over the last three months I interviewed fifteen trans, gender nonconforming, and allied theater artists around the country. I wanted to gather as much evidence as I could about transphobia in the theater so that I could understand why transpeople still aren't being cast in the roles written for them. I also wanted to understand the specific ways these casting choices were limiting the work of telling our stories.
