What People Don't Get About Dismay Over Jared Leto

BY PARKER MARIE MOLLOY MARCH 10 2014 in The Advocate

http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/03/10/op-ed-what-people-dont-get-about-dismay-over-jared-leto

Because the media portrays trans women in this very specific way, the public comes to accept that this must be what trans individuals are like.

These monolithic portrayals undoubtedly contribute to the sense of surprise people share when they first meet me, clad in jeans, a sweater, and with muted makeup.

"But you look so normal," a friend of a friend once told me as a backhanded compliment. "You don't look trans! I would have never known."

The single-image narrative put out by the media is one of the primary reasons I didn't feel certain about who I was until I was in my mid-20s. As a teenager, I'd see trans women in fictional and factual TV portrayals, and I'd think, I'm nothing like that.


edited by LH to comply with Posting Guideline's word count limit

I very rarely read a media piece that so precisely speaks my mind set and source of displeasure. I so completely agree with these statements that they might as well be a permanent part of me:

QuoteBecause the media portrays trans women in this very specific way, the public comes to accept that this must be what trans individuals are like.

Imagine how much harder it makes life for those of us who are fighting for improved rights for trans folks, when the voters only see one portrayal of us over and over.

QuoteThe single-image narrative put out by the media is one of the primary reasons I didn't feel certain about who I was until I was in my mid-20s

Substitute mid-20s for early 50s and that would be my story exactly.

QuoteFinally, stop depicting trans people as image-obsessed, fake people. There's no need to repeatedly show someone putting on makeup in front of a mirror. There's no need to include uncomfortably clichéd phrases like "trapped in the wrong body," or to suggest that "transition is a journey" that "ends with surgery, which will finally make me a woman!"

How many times have I shouted something very similar to a TV screen?

I don't really have a problem with the media misrepresenting trans women, or not representing me at all. The more outlandish the public expects, the less likely I am to be read. Just as shown in my avatar from Busch Stadium-Cardinals game, I move about in crowds just fine.
Further I'm not out to be a trans woman at all, I just intend to live my life. If I occasionally am "read" so what, again it's pretty radically different than public expectation.

edit added: I did watch Dallas Buyers Club and have no particular problem with Rayon's character, or Jared Leto's acting of her. Given context I see few problems with it.