Casting a woman as a transwoman

[Hazchem]

So there is a show about to air on the Australian ABC about Carlotta who is an incredibly well known and important entertainer in Australia. She Les Girls, was the first transexual in an Australian soap opera. An icon, someone whose very being has made changes to the Australian cultural landscape. She was original born male and very early on had surgery

So the person they have picked to play her is a ciswomen. Surely there was a trans actor who could have taken the role. My feeling is that a women has been cast because she can be sexy in the Les Girls numbers without making people feel uncomfortable about seeing her as sexy.

Am I over thinking this? Is it gender equality to have a ciswomen plan a transwomen?

I think we're back into using the term privilege in a nonsensical way.

It isn't a privilege not to be murdered, to have access to basic sanitation, to receive adequate mental health care or to have access to doing work necessary to your own survival.

These are basic human rights. They are not privileges.

Added to which, these are gendered issues and some of the most important issues globally for women. This has been covered recently in other threads and in the media.

In the recent press linked to in this section, it stated that one in ten of the girls who are allowed to attend school miss days of school every month because there are inadequate toilet facilities for them to menstruate in school.

I looked up the feminist response to this and immediately found people calling the campaign for better sanitation for school girls transphobic, because it suggests menstruation is a women's issue, and people want it to be referred to as a menstruator's issue not a women's issue because woman is an identity. So we now have to refer to girls as menstruators to get them toilet facilities, that is their identity. It would seem as if I am being told it is none of my business what is in trans people's pants, but other women must refer to themselves as menstruators if they want any access to toilets, or they are transphobes.

Then women will come on here and claim it is a female privilege to access toilets, when it is something they have as an individual and a great many women do not. Again, this should be a class analysis of women, not you and your life.

Then even though mentioning anything to do with female bodies can and has been considered transphobic, it is also apparently offensive for a biological woman to play a woman because she has never had a male body.

So the only body that it is acceptable now for a woman to have that can be talked about and represented accurately is a male one, according to feminism.

Or am I missing something here?

I largely agree, but I do think MtoF should be played by a man or a MtoF. Surgery does not alter the frame of a male body.

It also isn't a privilege to be pregnant, any more than it is a privilege to be able to run.

Pregnancy can be wonderful and amazing. I assume that is why people want to oppress women.

Perhaps a little like seeing some people living on a nice piece of land and thinking you'd like control of that land and the people.

Or seeing an amazing craftsman enjoying his work, andthinking you would like to exploit him in a factory.

That is the point of patriarchy isn't it? To covet what others have, and to make it terrible for them so that the powerful can benefit and control.

I think much programming reflects who is in charge in society, white, straight, males. Everyone is is assigned to the 'other' and just serve as minor plot points to the real people. Often the only time women and LGBT get centre stage is when the programme is about our 'issues' and made specifically, and normally patronisingly, for 'us.'

Yeah, what Trevor said. The fact that women are rarely "just women" in films is why so many fail the Bechdel test.

I think whether pregnancy itself is lovely or not, is a red herring.

The point is to do with belonging to the class who're expected to get pregnant (the sex class). It's true, pregnancy carries a lot of health risks, and many of these could be minimized if people didn't take the attitude pregnancy is 'natural' and therefore (for example) anal fistulae are 'natural'. But the oppression is based on differentiating men and women because women are expected to be able to get pregnant. If this were not so, then every childless woman would be doing great, and that's patently not the case.

I don't think there is much choice about cis people playing trans roles.

Take Los Angeles, this is where almost all of the Hollywood studio movie roles are auditioned for and cast.

Los Angeles has an estimated 108,640 actors.

The number of people who identify as transgender in the US is an estimated 700,000, which is just under 0.23% of the then 310.5m US population.

Assuming the same percentage of transpeople become actors as cispeople do: 0.23% of 108,640 = 250 trans* actors in L.A.

And that 108,640 includes anyone who's ever done any union acting in L.A., even a single cameo years ago. If you use the number of working actors, you get 50 trans* actors.

Of those 50 working actors, how many are good enough to carry a starring role? How many are the right race and gender to play the character?

Yes LRD, I agree. While the situation arises because women get pregnant, the whole structure of control has to target a whole load of other people to remain in place, trans women, gay men, women who don't want kids, women who are too old to have them or can't havethem for other reasons.

The potential for pregnancy is part of the root of women's oppression. Lack of that potential privileges men as a class over women as a class. It is not a source of privilege for women. The notion that it is a privilege is laughable.

"Normally trans people are portrayed as victims in most TV stuff or their trans status is the only thing about them. Ever seen a film or drama with someone who is trans but that is irrelevant ? They just happen to be trans?"

The Crying Game? Sure it was introduced as a twist to the budding romantic relationship between Dil and Fergus but thereafter ( if I recall) the character never really talks about her sexuality/gender and we don't really find out is she is transvestite/ transexual or just living as a woman in a relationship with a man.

I think I'm more confused then when I started.

I thought privilege related more how people where placed/recognized within the current system. so a cis hetro sexual women will have a privileged position within the current system because she fits into how women should be. I thought one way to work against this was to know your own privileged and to understand that from position you might miss or not understand things that are important to those less privileged.

I had though that casting transwomen as transwomen provides roles for them at the same time as breaking down the the myth that only certain types of bodies are sexy.

'How women should be' is oppressed, though, within patriarchy.
I don't know what it's like to fully conform to a feminine gender role, but it sure as fuck doesn't look like privilege to me, from the outside. And as a woman, I know I experience oppression.
I am disabled from pregnancy. That is not amazing. It is shite. I hate it.

I do think it's important to recognise ways in which other people are seen as having lower status than oneself. I think this is crucial with regard to race and class and physical and mental health and ability. I think it's relevant to men wrt how closely they conform to the masculine ideal. But not so much for women who cannot win, it seems, whether hyperfeminine or butch.

Hazchem, if you think that, explain why. How can not being murdered be a privilege? What about if I get murdered and my friend gets tortured and murdered? Is my murder a privilege?

And would you say how privileged I was to my family?

You may think it is laughable Flora, but think within that patriarchal system what is the status of a woman who cannot get pregnant? We already see women who do not want to get have children labelled many an unpleasant thing. There is a long history of medical abuse against women who could not perform her patriarchal duty of bearing children (even when it is not her fault) and many are still coerced to go through a lot for that social ideal. A fertile woman has a social advantage and privilege over one who is not - society practically defines women by their periods and ability to get pregnant and women who don't have that often get lost if not cast aside both all parties.

In my mother's line, premature ovarian failure runs really strong - I do not know one womanhadn't gone through menopause by 40, most before 35. I started going through menopause at 28. My great grandmother was done by 25 - and she lived in a farming community and...it was really rough for her - the load was really placed on her to make her make up for that perceived lack. Some never became fertile, never had a period, and they went to great lengths to hide it - not only because of the greater risks of being alone because they couldn't have kids, but because of the often flung out attitude that the definition of a woman is in her period and ability to get pregnant. They may not get stuck with an unwanted child, but they were stuck in very different ways that left them vulnerable as well. And that definition damages women of all stripes. To laugh at that is to laugh at the current social situation that women are seen as damaged and far more disposable when that don't meet that fertile ideal.

Getting pregnant is not a privilege, but being able to get pregnant is a privilege for a woman because that is the ideal and those that fail to be able to meet that are considered even less woman, less human. And that definition of womanhood damages a lot of people - it causes a lot of heartache (all women will be infertile eventually) and it causes a lot pain and unneeded divides. It is a patriarchal definition in the first place yet still so commonly used to hurt people even by women.

breaking down the the myth that only certain types of bodies are sexy

Is it breaking it down or reinforcing it? All it says is that some transwomen (as well as only some born women) can achieve what patriarchy says is attractive. That is not me saying that those women shouldn't be cast just that it is not changing anything, the same message about what constitutes beauty is being forced down our throats.

Kim makes the point of older transwomen lacking role models as many can still look quite manly. Any woman that is not considered to be conventionally attractive is rarely depicted in a positive manner in TV and Film.

I don't mean prividlge in terms of using a toilet or pregnancy, which is a bullshit and hurtful way to define who is a women. I mean that within our current system there are some people who fit within the boundaries of what is "acceptable". Being a white women for example is darn sight easier (in my country) then being a black women. That gives me a position of privilege it doesn't mean that I don't or other white women don't suffer oppression. It also doesn't mean I think that our current system is good or should be upheld.

I mentioned prividlge in this thread because I am unsure how mine might affect my viewing of the casting of transwomen. Maybe transwomen think having a ciswomen (or other better expression) play a transwomen is amazing an ace and truly celebrates equality and recognition.

I knew I initially viewed the casting as yet another way the womens bodies should be used for sexy viewing because it might make people uncomfortable to see a transwomen as sexy. But I also thought about the implication for casting in a wider industry context.

Spork Flora is talking that we are oppressed by the expectation that we will become pregnant, as a class it is what we are defined by. That does not mean that being infertile is then a privilege, quite the contrary, when we are solely defined by our reproductive capabilities lacking the purpose we are supposed to have makes us even lower down the scale. We've failed to provide the man with what he deserves.

You do have privilege as a white person, and those privileges should be taken away from white people as a group. There are no privileges that women as a group have.

So no women's privilege but there is sexual orientation privilege would that not apply to gender orientation too?

The idea that meeting patriarchy's ideal of womanhood makes you more privileged is nonsensical. Patriarchy's ideal woman is one who has no power and is entirely subordinate to men. By definition, such a woman has no privilege.

Hazchem, women are the subordinate gender.

Yes they are but but if you are born women and remain that way you don't for instance have to fight to have your gender recognized. This is a good example of the sort of thing I don't have to do because my gender matches my birth sex High court rules on can be sex not specified.

The final quote sort of says what i have been trying to get across. That is what am I taking for granted because I don't even need to think about it.

"Sex and gender diverse people face problems every day accessing services and facilities that most Australians can use without thinking twice. It's essential that our legal systems accurately reflect and accommodate the reality of sex and gender diversity that exists in our society, and the High Court has taken an enormous leap today in achieving that goal," said Ms Brown.

But the gender I have had assigned to me at birth is subordinate. How can I be privileged by subordination?It is an oxymoron.

What services and facilities do you think Australian women should have removed from them to end their privilege?

I don't think services should be removed rather others should have the same level of access. I think for me representation is important too. Want to see more representation of women I also think there should be more representation of Trans people, gay people, black people. I don't see how that is losing out of white straight people rather it is representing the actual society we live which is better for all people. I also to be clear don't htink just have access is always enough because it doesn't help if people have difficulties accessing services or representation. For example the ABC have recently started making dramas by, about and for black people. They had the opportunity when making Carlotta to do the same. Give the lead role to a transwomen to increase there representation in the media particularly in a way that is positive.