Trans actors should be playing not-trans roles

When I saw Hari Nef in You I actually thought (and commented to my husband) how nice it was that they had chosen a less attractive woman in an American show, when normally everyone is so attractive that it’s unbelievable.

He just looked at me and went “I’m pretty sure it’s a bloke”.

breakfastpizza what do you mean by underrepresented group? It is never brought up whether or not the character is trans as it’s not part of the storyline. Maybe she is, in which case it’s definitely not taking away anybody else. Even if she’s not, white young American women are really not an underrepresented group in acting. The show itself has a balance of male and female characters and this isn’t even a massive role.

Well, yes.

I'm a teacher & remember a particularly ebullient production of Grease by a colleague where Danny was played by a 15 year old girl just because there wasn't a lad who could sing or act as well as she could.

It looked decidedly unusual (she was a curvy lass, & the costume was thoroughly unflattering) but she was really, really good.

So that's a high school production where a leading male role went to a talented young woman because, in the limited pool of 14-16 year olds willing to put themselves forward, she was considerably better than the best of the boys.

Does that translate to theatre generally where you might blind cast an actor who doesn't have some/all of the attributes of the character?

I don't know.

But I can't see any reason not to cast trans actors in non trans roles. Or then, equally, non trans actors in trans roles. Or men as women - solid Shakespearean tradition there. Or women as men - feminist theatre tradition there too.

I do suspect there's a trans activist lens of 'only we can act as trans characters but ALSO how dare you say we can't also play all the non trans roles & we'd like dibs on everything actually so shut up bigots' though.

It's tricky, but I think I'm coming down on the side of yes it's valid for any actor to play any role...leave it to the director to justify incongruous casting.

That kind of casting can be interesting sometimes, but for myself I've found it most successful when there really isn't any reason for it, except it's a community theatre group or something similar and they are just working with what they've got. Most times when I've seen it done for something experimental or to make some sort of point, I haven't enjoyed it much or connected to it - it becomes an intellectual exercise.

I was just thinking, one barrier that we don't tend to cross in these kinds of experimental things is age. They will push actors' ages in terms of believability in order to put who they want in a role, but you don't get the equivalent of the deliberately reversed cast in Othello or Taming of the Shrew - where Hamlet is clearly an old man and his mother is a young woman, for example.

I enjoyed (most of) You, but I can't support an underrepresented group having parts taken by the opposite sex.

I know Julie Hesmondhalgh (Hayley from Corrie) slightly as we were both directors of the same charity a few years ago - she played Sophie Lancaster's mum Sylvia in the amazing drama Black Roses.

She's an absolutely brilliant actress & a seriously nice woman. I doubt she'd be cast in the Hayley role now, & I think that's possibly fair enough - you could certainly argue that it would be better to cast a TW who would a) be more physically convincing & b) could bring more lived experience to the role.

Generally, I think it's interesting to cast AGAINST physical appearance though - Patrick Stewart playing Othello with an otherwise black cast, anyone? Glenda Jackson as Lear?

Nothing wrong with a bit of reinterpretation to add a whole new set of nuances. Wouldn't work in soap, maybe, where the audience is already doing some heavy lifting to suspend disbelief re the entire population of a Yorkshire village living their entire lives in the local pub or whatever.

It's tricky, but I think I'm coming down on the side of yes it's valid for any actor to play any role...leave it to the director to justify incongruous casting. Sometimes it's incidental & sometimes it's a deliberate choice. Both are defensible positions.

@Pota2
"I think the passing thing is important though. Passing determines whether you are treated by society as a man or a woman. Someone like Blair White will be perceived to be a woman, unless someone knows the background. Someone like JY, Jane Fae, Jess Bradley etc really will not and will not experience the same treatment as those perceived to be female do. That’s why I find the TRA arguments that ‘sex is on a spectrum’ to be idiotic. It may be, but who cares? The point is that society divides between those it perceives to be male and those it perceives to be female. I could have hidden testes that I am unaware of but it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t change the fact that society saw me and treated me as a woman."

It does seem like many of them (that don't pass) just want the world to play along with their fantasy. There must be a solution where they feel comfortable in their own body and it doesn't require people being dishonest.

I googled straightaway when I saw the trans character in You. Hari Nef isn't convincing at all if HN is playing a woman.

There is a character in the OU as well who is trans, I didn't actually realise until it was mentioned but I had the sex correct.

The good girls has a trans storyline which is quite sad. It seems like it could go either way with that but they will probably go with positive.

I don't think there should be any limits on who actors can play in roles, it's about whether they are convincing in that role. That will in most cases put certain limits on who can reasonably play a role, most people are not convincing in opposite sex roles as an example even with extensive make up and padding.

I think it's also worthwhile to try and hire actors from a variety of backgrounds just like it's generally a good thing to do that in other industries. But I wouldn't want to tell anyone that they always have to play people like themselves even though they would be convincing playing some other sort of person, and that includes actors of a particular sex, or gender presentation, or ethnicity, or anything else. I honestly can't think that any actor would be thrilled to be told he could only play trans characters, or Hispanic characters, or gay characters.

30to50 now that I watch it, I can tell, but at the time, I really didn’t twig, probably because it did not feature in any of the story. But as others have said, not really relevant to the story.

I think the passing thing is important though. Passing determines whether you are treated by society as a man or a woman. Someone like Blair White will be perceived to be a woman, unless someone knows the background. Someone like JY, Jane Fae, Jess Bradley etc really will not and will not experience the same treatment as those perceived to be female do. That’s why I find the TRA arguments that ‘sex is on a spectrum’ to be idiotic. It may be, but who cares? The point is that society divides between those it perceives to be male and those it perceives to be female. I could have hidden testes that I am unaware of but it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t change the fact that society saw me and treated me as a woman.

I see the 48% statistical lie is getting another airing.

I think a problem with this is that in order to cast a transwoman in a female role, they will have to absolutely, completely pass (achieved through actual physical appearance & camera / editing trickery). Otherwise audiences won't suspend disbelief. This will cause problems on both sides of the fence.

For gender critical feminists, the problem is that it feeds what I'm calling the 'invisible' version of transwomen, which is the idea that you don't need to worry about TW in woman only spaces because you wouldn't even notice they were trans, so stop moaning because it's all fine. Very different from the reality of finding a 6'2" transwoman, who has made no physical changes beyond clothes, hair and makeup, in the toilets, on the hospital ward, etc.

For TRAs it creates a split. There's transwomen who pass, who are accepted, and transwoman who don't. Given that many (most) transwomen don't pass, yet seem to be deluded into believing that they do, how will they react when that line is drawn, and they find themselves on the wrong side of it? (Am thinking about the confrontation between Jessica Yaniv and Blair White, am sure that there was some angry bonkers ranting from JY about how JY passes and is way more stunning and gorgeous than BW, which is clearly drivel. BW is bloody lovely looking.)

Blind casting is a great thing, appoint the best actor to the role with no preconceptions. I'm all for that. If that means more trans actors are cast that's great, along with more diversity of actors in race, age, bodyshape etc, anyone can pitch for any part and the best actor gets the role.

Casting merely to ram identity politics down everyone's throats Because Its Good For Them however will just piss everyone off, it's an own goal. Like the unholy fuss kicked up whenever a non trans actor is cast in a trans or anything even remotely gender non conforming role, which has led to at least one major film being abandoned. The word has surely gone out in the industry not to touch the subject, it's not worth the pain and aggro and you'll never be able to be right for being wrong.

There's also the difficulty with the TRA lobby comprehending that when a huge amount of money is involved and dependent on an audience, there has to be usually a big name or two who will pull them in. Casting an unknown in a major role is too great a financial risk.

Anyone have the link to Owl's film trailer?

Just so I can see the bit where the transphobe next door gets told off really

To be totally honest, I watched all the episodes of You and I didn’t twig at all that Hari Nef was a transwoman. And as you say, it was not part of the character. So that is a good example then.

I twigged straight away and googled who Hari Nef was, but as you say, didn't make any difference to the role or story, so not really an issue. Certainly didn't go unnoticed though, and I think it was appropriate given the boyfriend's character - Ethan.

I can see why it would make sense to cast trans people as trans people and why they might take issue at eg natal women being cast as trans women, taking a role that they would be perfect for.

I feel the same about Kevin McHale being cast as Arti in Glee, I'm sure there must be many amazing performers who actually use a wheelchair that could have played that role. And obviously its frowned upon these days to be cast outside of your ethnicity.

However, if you start saying who can/can't be cast in whatever roles then you're playing an impossible game, as some of the examples upthread suggest.

By all means, make sure to be represented where appropriate and to include trans actors without making a song and dance about it, but that doesn't mean shoe-horning trans actors into non-trans roles just to make a point.

Horse

More Jewish actors should play Muslim roles! More left-handed actors should play right-handed roles! More dyslexic actors should play non-dyslexic roles! More tone-deaf actors should play singing roles!

Yeah I would not know that Talisa Garcia was trans either. That’s obviously totally fine. In fact, someone like Garcia probably wouldn’t be ideal for a trans role because she doesn’t look trans. In films that involve an actual transition then a non-trans person might be best to show the before and after.

Basically, anyone who wants to audition for any parts should be allowed to do so!

Talisa Garcia! That's the one.

The transwoman would play a woman. They'd have to be very passable. It can be done - I saw a transwoman actor in a crime drama once who looked quite convincing. That particular actor had SRS quite young.