Yes it's a trans thread! New supergirl series USA will have trans lead

[NothingOnTellyAgain]

[[I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

Supergirl to feature TV's first transgender superhero - www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-44915149 here]]

I don't know anything about this actor, I'm sure they're v nice, reading this this morning though, I think it is a good example of where things are headed.

Girls have historically had far fewer role models of this type than boys. There are way less mainstream female super heroes. Same as in lots of other areas. In male dominated worlds like graphic novels/ cartoons, and in entertainment generally, our role is often restricted to furthering the storyline of the male lead while looking attractive.

This role which is one of the few mainstream superheroes goes to a trans girl. That is more right and fitting, probably, in subconscious minds than giving it to a girl.

It is also the most recent example of things that we have fought for, going. We are told that a 50% TW 50% men parliament will be a triumph for female equality. TW are starting to win in various sports competitions. Various firsts go to them (fist women to direct a movie trilogy-wachowskis. First woman to join UK frontline army unit (sorry not sure terminology) is a TW who was already there and it was literally before it would have been possible for a cunty woman to do it due to rules). Also, labour AWS. And more I'm sure.

Meanwhile TW are fighting and winning access to areas which we had as respite/ safety: prisons, sports stuff, clubs and groups.

I think the thing with all of this is that there are few positions for women, we have fought for them, and they are being turned over to tw. Why not a new trans superhero? There are way more girls than transgirls who have so few of these characters to see themselves in, why do girls need to lose theirs?

Have transmen been hired into these roles in similar numbers, are they taking the place of men in positions of power, accolades, sports wins etc? No not really.

We also have retrospective transing of historical women, women who often feminists have uncovered and brought to the public eye, as historical women who achieve are often erased. Now the ones we have, many of them are being claimed as transmen.

It's obvious where this leads, in line with society and ideas around men being superior to women.

I think we will be left with shitwork- cooking cleaning caring behind the scenes for little or no compensation, producing babies, prostitution and porn. Which is where the men always wanted us, right?

Reading this today is just the latest but I just felt, that's another thing gone for girls.

"Poor misguided child" he always said of the female supervillains, it was hilarious, he was presented as having a blind spot when it came to beautiful women+ villany :D

I wasn't a girl in the 60s but it was on all the time in the early 80s along with star trek :)

Do you know who’s the most successful female film directors of all time, in terms of box office?

The Wachowski sisters, for a trilogy made while presenting as male.

The film industry is utterly shit to women - there are about 10x more women battling for about 40% fewer roles in the first place, not to mention the way they are treated by men within the industry.

This doesn’t bother me too much to be honest, since this person is trying to work as female actress, they haven’t made their way in as a male and then moved across to female roles.

I do support disabled people taking traditionally able bodied roles, black people takinh traditionally white roles and so on, I can’t get too worked up about this.

The problem is the lack of decent disabled / non-white / trans parts - address that and then this won’t be so much of an issue.

I'm not getting why one identical twin is trans and the other one is not?

To be fair, “identical twin” is a misnomer. They are not identical by any means, they originated from the same zygote but after the zygote splits into two, all sorts of things can impact their development. You can have identical twins where one is black and one is white, where they have different eye colours, where genetic mutations lead to congenital illnesses and so on.

They could have addressed that by making a trans character.

Instead they took a female character and transed her.

It's not the same.

The point about super heroes being transed is also related to historical transing.

The idea that "heroes " are male. So it makes sense for strong female superheroes to have been born male, if you see what I mean.

Those asking where are the transmen actors?

Emmerdale have just introduced a main regular character who is the ex sister now brother of one of the main family played by a real transman.

"Dastardly- the character isn't trans though. She's been around since 1964."

I know op, I hear you, guess it's the woman in me, making concessions and willing to overlook it

I guess it just wouldn't seem so bad to me if it was presented as a reboot and acknowledgement that it's a different Supergirl if that makes sense (very fucking different )

It won't be watched in this house anyway, reboots are tedius, Supergirl was never a fave of mine, super'girl' even less so.

The fact that it's superMAN v superGIRL has been a long term irritant for a lot of feminist leaning women :D

Why is it okay for over 90% of the "transgender inclusivity" to be male people only?

Ah but transmen have male privilege. And always have done, regardless of how obviously female they are So transmen are already 'ahead' so all help must go to transwomen, who are held back in every area of life

Is this the same Nicole Maines that was on Louis Theroux's transgender kids programme? The child of yet another set of homophobic parents yanking their familt round the celebrity trans kid circuit. The bit on Theroux's programme with this family was easily one of the worst and most blatant cases of 'correcting' the gay away.

I'm not sure I care. I think Supergirl is a bit shit actually. Flash is ok in small doses, and Arrow is relentlessly dark and downbeat. Legends is often good fun, though. The first three are so mired in overblown melodrama it becomes hard to give a sod which character is designed to tick which demographic.

I am aware of the irony of a Doctor Who fan writing this post.

I love it when they change the sex of a character. Usually it’s male to female.
One of my favourite characters ever is the newer, female Starbuck from the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. (Oh dear, I think that’s ten years ago now, but it feels like yesterday).
Now, they should have made her a lesbian, but she was disappointingly heterosexual, just so she could have a love interest thing with the main bloke character (can’t remember his name- who cares? He didn’t deserve her).
I fancied her way more than the old Starbuck (played by Face from the A-Team!).

What bugs me is that the person being transed has always been known to be female. If Batman came out now saying he'd been unhappy heroing as a man for years and felt female all along, that would be the ideal role for a trans actor.

Don't take one of the - fewer female - characters with an established history and rewrite it.

People often comment on supergirl pushing a political agenda
Anti gun etc
Seems to annoy fans

Don't know why they didn't create a new character although they have already changed some characters ethnicity and created new ones- White Canary who is really cool👍🏻

What bugs me is that the person being transed has always been known to be female. If Batman came out now saying he'd been unhappy heroing as a man for years and felt female all along, that would be the ideal role for a trans actor.

Exactly...in all of this...who is winning? It is never women.

Is rewriting characters that bad?

Hannibal did it at least twice - black Jack Crawford, female Freddie Lowndes. I really liked that about it.

If anyone is looking for a good super "hero" TV series with a female lead Jessica Jones is good (very dark though). lots of subversion of noir private detective tropes.

Another one who took h** school to court over using the girls' loos. What is that, some sort of "rite of passage"?

I'm more confused by the fact that Super Girl is trans. Since when?

Supergirl isn’t trans it’s a minor character.

More diverse characters on telly is good. Shame to lose a badass female character when they could’ve written in an extra sidekick just as easily.

As for the identical twin thing, isn’t there an unusual pravalence of trans twins (only one twin being trans)? And twins are also more susceptible to anorexia, iirc?

I don't know much about it at all, Betty. And I hadn't heard about anorexia being associated with being a twin.

Might start a new thread so as not to derail this one.

She's not playing supergirl! She's playing a trans character. It's really fine

The character has existed since the 60s. Interested to see your evidence that she has always been trans? Nothing about it on the relevant wiki.