Trans actors can play cis but cis can't play trans. Why am I bothering to try and see the sense?

[Doyoumind]

A trans woman was due to play a woman in a play but declined when it turned out a trans woman would be played by a man. As far as I can tell, the trans character undergoes no medical or surgical transition so would have a wholly male physique anyway.

The casting decision could cause violence and death, apparently.

I'm sure the talent pool is limited just down the numbers. Would it have been acceptable for a woman to play the part?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8098373/Transgender-actress-Kate-ODonnell-pulls-Breakfast-Pluto-musical-casting-row.html

I’m holding out for only Scottish actors to play Scots. I am oppressed by atrocious faux Scots accents. It’s colonialism! From the oppressor!

Yours is the same argument used by the right wing press who have brained washed their gullible readers (ahem) into thinking that being fair is now liberal/left wing and that all outlets should agree to their right wing bias.

I don't think the right wing press are trying to persuade everyone that 'being fair is now liberal/left wing'.

Are you seriously arguing that this transwoman's demand is unquestionably fair.

Didn't Eddie Redmayne actually play (in The Danish Girl?) a very early transwoman who had surgery in the 1920s and eventually died of complications from that surgery?

Or have we simply advanced a long way into anti-science AND purity casting since 2015 or whenever that film came out?

I’m holding out for only Scottish actors to play Scots.

Something wrong with Mel Gibson's accent in Braveheart ?

(Didn't he dodge the Vietnam Draft by saying he was Australian in the USA and a US Citizen in Australia - Now that's being what you're not.)

Frankly, and to my lasting fury, the only media outlets even vaguely interested in fairness when it comes to women's rights are the right wing ones.

Honestly, I think the casting directors should go with this 100% - trans people for trans parts only, women for women's, men for men's. (Parts in which the sex or gender is unimportant to the story should, as with race, not take it into account at all. )

Then if there's a trans actor who can play the part convincingly fine, if not then scrap the project.

Something wrong with Mel Gibson's accent in Braveheart ?

It wandered from accuracy even more than the plot did

...Not to mention Saoirse Ronan's impeccable Marcia Blaine Edinburghian when Marie Stuart was a Frog.

But if the actor cast to play the trans part uttered the magic words 'I feel like a woman' he would cease being 'a man in a dress' and would instead be sufficiently stunning and brave to play that role; and then the trans actor would have felt it ok for them to play the role of a woman (which they are perfectly qualified for by dint of having said the magic words...)

Have I got that right?

But if the actor cast to play the trans part uttered the magic words 'I feel like a woman'...

Not good enough if you're a Stanislavski practicioner. You must Believe...

This is really piggybacking on the same kind of sentiment about casting of minority ethnicities. If you are an American Hispanic actor you can play whomever but if you get Angelina Joli to play a Hispanic role that is racism.

The most coherent argument for this is that some groups have been consistently marginalised in terms of being given roles, and so if you don't even give them so-called ethnic roles, it's really bad. But many people now see this all as the equivalent of blackface. So it's no wonder we are seeing similar things around other identities.

It's nothing new. American Equity once said Johnathan Pryce could not play a half-French, half-Vietnamese character in Miss Saigon on Broadway because it had to be a Chinese-American.

Samuel Jackson was recently also complaining that black British actors can't bring the same experience to black American characters as an American would. To which the directors all think "Yeah, but at least they can act". But they don't say it out loud.

It's payback, Sam-you-ell. For decades the plum black roles in British films went to yanks: Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love, Forrest Whittaker in The Crying Game, (worst bowling action in cinematic history,) Denzel Washington in Queen and Country.

I hope Samyouell gets the joke in Supergirl with the villain Manchester Black, who does exactly what it says on the tin.

I’m holding out for only Scottish actors to play Scots. I am oppressed by atrocious faux Scots accents. It’s colonialism! From the oppressor!

Oh God yes. Please. Just, if you can't do the accent (or even if you think you can.. you probably can't), don't do the accent. It's fine, I'll notice it much less than some awful impression of an accent.

It's called acting FFS.

The only good thing to come out of this sort of crap is that the trans activists are shooting themselves in the foot (feet?) as the whole rationale behind their campaign was to keep a low profile and eschew publicity thereby sneaking all the insanity through under the radar. That's going well isn't it?

Publicity? Bring it on. The more the public sees this shit the more they will understand the agenda.

Not to mention Saoirse Ronan's impeccable Marcia Blaine Edinburghian when Marie Stuart was a Frog

Always reminds me of Ludwig’s MQoS impersonation in Blackadder: “hoots mon, where’s ma heid?”

OK it seems I didn't realise the lack of understanding I was dealing with.
Firstly Transgender ppl are not a horde of hairy men who are only doing it to perve on women. They are as many female transgender as men and they do feel an absolute need to express who they are, for that purpose only and not to harass women.
Secondly the reason that the incident occurred was because there are so few roles for transgender ppl, that having one that is specifically written for them played by someone who then played by someone else would be a slap in the face. Having a mother played by a transgender is not a comparison.
For ease it would be like a film about the Justice league where all the characters were men save WW (which is almost as it is now), would we be happy if Wonder Woman was played by a man if the role of her uncle was played by a woman- or would be rightly saying that there are so few superhero roles for females that those that exist should be played by women?
As the trans-led charity Gendered Intelligence expressed , having an actor who was born male playing a trans woman increases prejudice because "many people internalise the myth that being trans is a performance, a deception, that trans women are 'really men'."
and it is no more evident than some of the comments on here.

Stop the patronising shite, Cheese. People “understand” perfectly well.

There's a new Scooby-Doo film coming soon, and yet again the casting is Dogface.

Somewhere, there's a flatuelnt great dane who's been cheated out of that part.

Correct me if I’m wrong, cheese, but surely only someone born male can be a trans woman, yes? I mean, I can’t be a trans woman, can I, and the reason for that is that I was born* female.

*and remain

Ooooh. I read this briefly this morning but could make neither head nor tail of it. Funny how it’s perfectly ok for a male to play a woman but not okay for a male to play a MTF transgender woman. Still, not the most bonkers this I’ve read this week.

or would be rightly saying that there are so few superhero roles for females that those that exist should be played by women?

Women are already undervalued on Hollywood (Indeed the transwoman in the article is taking a role from a woman) the issue in the scenario you describe is that it would be silly- inhibiting suspension of disbelief.

What difference does it make to a performance of the biological man playing a transwoman is trans in real life or not?

and it is no more evident than some of the comments on here.

Well, since you're keen to educate me, I can't wait to learn. So, how is a man a woman just because he says he is?

TRAs would paste you for using the term 'a transgender', just so you know.

And I've always thought Gendered Intelligence one of the least accurately named charities around.

But by all means, scold us some more. It always works so well.