Why Trans People Need to be Involved in Telling Trans Stories

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jules-horowitz/why-trans-people-need-to_b_7865840.html?utm_hp_ref=transgender

The Huffington Post/by Jules Horowitz    07/24/2015
 
"In 2014, Jared Leto received an Oscar for portraying a transgender woman in Dallas Buyers Club. When the director, Jean-Marc Vallée, was asked whether he ever considered casting a transgender actor to play the role, he promptly responded, "never."

It is exciting to see our stories being told and winning awards, but should we be concerned that transgender people have little involvement in the story telling?

Jeffery Tambor plays a transwoman in the critically acclaimed show Transparent, a series that has brought national attention to transgender issues. This begs the question: is any and all publicity beneficial since it is raising awareness about transgender identities, or are there issues with cisgender people (i.e. people who do not identify as transgender) portraying a transgender narrative"

From the experiences of the author of this article, it seems the project in question wasn't interested in telling our stories at all. It was interested in exploiting us. There's a big difference.

My Initial raction to this was, We dont need to be nvlved with the telling of our stories, as long as its  an accurate portrayal.

But I think after reading this article in full, that maybe we do need to be involved more often, to prevent exsploitation.

I watched some transparent and got fairly annoyed. I didnt originally have issue with the idea, but on some level it seems more like blackface. Almost a mockery rather than portrayal. I think it has become important that we take the roles, to sidestep the stereotypes involved. I admit a transgender character can certainly be well done even by a cisgendered actor. However on some level it simply brings an air of "nothing about us, without us".


I am clearly biased, but I would also argue that there should be more non binary individuals as well.

Edited: To better explain myself. I do not believe it is necessarily bad for the role, just lack of representation