Heroines of Cinema: 10 Trans Actors Who Could Have Played Jared Leto's Role

[Shana A]

Heroines of Cinema: 10 Trans Actors Who Could Have Played Jared Leto's Role in 'Dallas Buyers Club'

by Matthew Hammett Knott
February 20, 2014 12:18 PM

http://www.indiewire.com/article/heroines-of-cinema-10-trans-actors-who-could-have-played-jared-letos-role-in-dallas-buyers-club

I was going to start this article by saying that I don't want to take anything away from Jared Leto's performance in "Dallas Buyers Club". But in a sense, I do. The performance certainly holds up as a piece of art, but as a part of our culture, I believe it needs contextualizing.

I am not the first person to suggest this. Chelsea Hawkins wrote in PolicyMic that "Dallas Buyers Club" fails trans actors while Paris Lees in the Independent was perhaps more equivocal but still asked "Why can't we cast trans people in trans roles?". Of course, nobody wants to limit trans actors to trans roles, but in the context of the status quo and general acceptability of handing the role to an actor such as Leto, it would be an undeniably liberating move.

But wait, you say - Leto was playing a pre-op trans woman. Surely it would be appropriate for the character to be played by a biological male? This doesn't strike me as exquisite logic. Laverne Cox famously spoke out against the objectifying focus on the status of trans people's genitalia, while Janet Mock talks about the obsession with "passing", pointing out that in her mind she is not passing as anything, but simply being herself.

The concept of "passing" betrays a corrosive misunderstanding that being transgender is in some sense a performance as opposed to a reality. By casting a well-known cis actor in a trans role, it makes it all about the performance. Anyone who has watched "Orange is the New Black" will know that watching a real trans actor in a trans role has an entirely different, utterly compelling and humanizing effect.

[Michelle-G]

This is just so tiresome.  A comment posted after the article sums it up nicely -

Looking forward for the next article, "10 HIV positive actors who could have played Matthew McConaughey's role in Dallas Buyers Club"

COULD they have cast a trans actor to play Jared Leto's role? Of course!  SHOULD they have cast a trans actor to play Jared Leto's role? Not necessarily. 

People get hired for jobs based on their qualifications. If we really want to have equality for trans people then we need to stop looking at being trans as a special characteristic that makes us specifically suited for a given task. 

When the cis world singles us out for something based on our supposed characteristics it's usually done in a negative way.  That's called discrimination. But this seems to be a case of us doing it to ourselves.  Those who are advocating that "transness" is the one factor that a trans actor has that makes him or her a superior choice to play a certain role are singling us out for something based on our supposed characteristics, which don't even exist at all and if they did they wouldn't exist for any reason other than our gender histories. How is it possible that talent or experience suddenly take a back seat to the fact that the actress was once gendered male and is for that reason alone a better choice?

This is not equality. This is blog writers getting some Twitter likes because they sound like trans activists. If we want real equality then let's demand fair and authentic portrayals of trans people (regardless of who gets the part) and quit begging for Hollywood's table scraps just because we're transgender.

All of those actors listed in this article are known for portraying trans characters and not for any mainstream characters that have any depth or identity beyond their gender status. Instead of wringing our hands and lamenting that trans actors aren't getting trans parts why don't we get upset when trans actors don't get great roles portraying cisgender characters?

Real trans equality means that actors are hired DESPITE being trans and not BECAUSE of our transgender status.