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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Well, hello Emma Watson

884 replies

crumpet · 24/09/2025 22:11

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-15130209/Harry-Potter-Emma-Watson-treasures-J-K-Rowling-trans-rights.html

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teawamutu · 01/10/2025 20:40

Man who claims to be women but isn't, claims that straight men are interested in men who claim to be women but aren't. Well, he would, wouldn't he?

CleopatraSelene · 01/10/2025 20:47

teawamutu · 01/10/2025 20:40

Man who claims to be women but isn't, claims that straight men are interested in men who claim to be women but aren't. Well, he would, wouldn't he?

Haha, exactly.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 20:49

CleopatraSelene · 01/10/2025 20:29

Tbf they could make a thriller, drama etc where the plot is not romantic so there's not that issue, & use a trans MC. I agree romance is an issue.

Edited

I wonder what percentage of thrillers and dramas don't feature any kind of romantic storyline. I bet it's not high. For some reason humans like to watch other humans getting off with each other.

The point is that having a trans character introduces constraints that just aren't there when you don't have a trans character, and limits where the plot can go.

Say you've written a script for a crime thriller which isn't supposed to have a romantic subplot. One of your detectives is called Sarah Jones. Following an open audition, you decide to cast a trans woman in the role because there's no reason why Sarah Jones can't be trans. (Problem no.1, you've taken a role meant for a female actor and given it to a male actor.) You get halfway through filming and you think, "Hmm, this would be so much better if Sarah had a brief, steamy affair with her married boss." If Sarah is played by a woman, you can just write that in. If Sarah is played by a trans woman, it's not going to work. Or perhaps in order to get a crucial piece of intelligence, Sarah catfishes a key suspect on Tinder and goes on a date with him, during which she records their conversation and manages to secretly bug his phone when he's in the gents. That storyline won't work if Sarah is played by a trans woman, because in real life if a man turned up and found out that his Tinder date was a trans woman, he probably wouldn't be best pleased. Sarah also would be terrible at doing surveillance or going undercover, because most people would do a double take and immediately clock the trans woman.

It's just not that easy to cast a trans actor as a regular character. They don't pass. The only characters they can convincingly play are trans characters, and then you run the risk of the story becoming all about their trans identity instead of whatever it was actually supposed to be about.

I also think there is another big problem, which is difficult to talk about. There are undoubtedly people who are genuinely transphobic, and would turn the TV off or change the channel because they find trans people disgusting. But there are also a lot of other people who have no particular beef with trans people but are sick of hearing about them. They're sick of Pride Month and transgender visibility day and transgender day of remembrance and being asked to share their pronouns at work and all the constant DEI stuff that seems to focus disproportionately on the T at the expense of all the other protected characteristics. And a lot of those people, if they start watching a crime drama and realise that the only "female" detective is actually a trans woman, are going to be annoyed and think, "Oh for God's sake, I just wanted to watch a crime drama, not another lecture about inclusion" and change the channel.

To put it bluntly, trans inclusion isn't what most people are looking for in their entertainment, and production companies which prioritise this instead of giving audiences what they actually want are going to lose money.

CleopatraSelene · 01/10/2025 20:54

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 20:49

I wonder what percentage of thrillers and dramas don't feature any kind of romantic storyline. I bet it's not high. For some reason humans like to watch other humans getting off with each other.

The point is that having a trans character introduces constraints that just aren't there when you don't have a trans character, and limits where the plot can go.

Say you've written a script for a crime thriller which isn't supposed to have a romantic subplot. One of your detectives is called Sarah Jones. Following an open audition, you decide to cast a trans woman in the role because there's no reason why Sarah Jones can't be trans. (Problem no.1, you've taken a role meant for a female actor and given it to a male actor.) You get halfway through filming and you think, "Hmm, this would be so much better if Sarah had a brief, steamy affair with her married boss." If Sarah is played by a woman, you can just write that in. If Sarah is played by a trans woman, it's not going to work. Or perhaps in order to get a crucial piece of intelligence, Sarah catfishes a key suspect on Tinder and goes on a date with him, during which she records their conversation and manages to secretly bug his phone when he's in the gents. That storyline won't work if Sarah is played by a trans woman, because in real life if a man turned up and found out that his Tinder date was a trans woman, he probably wouldn't be best pleased. Sarah also would be terrible at doing surveillance or going undercover, because most people would do a double take and immediately clock the trans woman.

It's just not that easy to cast a trans actor as a regular character. They don't pass. The only characters they can convincingly play are trans characters, and then you run the risk of the story becoming all about their trans identity instead of whatever it was actually supposed to be about.

I also think there is another big problem, which is difficult to talk about. There are undoubtedly people who are genuinely transphobic, and would turn the TV off or change the channel because they find trans people disgusting. But there are also a lot of other people who have no particular beef with trans people but are sick of hearing about them. They're sick of Pride Month and transgender visibility day and transgender day of remembrance and being asked to share their pronouns at work and all the constant DEI stuff that seems to focus disproportionately on the T at the expense of all the other protected characteristics. And a lot of those people, if they start watching a crime drama and realise that the only "female" detective is actually a trans woman, are going to be annoyed and think, "Oh for God's sake, I just wanted to watch a crime drama, not another lecture about inclusion" and change the channel.

To put it bluntly, trans inclusion isn't what most people are looking for in their entertainment, and production companies which prioritise this instead of giving audiences what they actually want are going to lose money.

That's true, thinking about it. I can think of quite a few films without romantic subplots but generally there will be some kind of romance/relationship involved.

I don't think a different from straight relationship is the main issue, as films with gay romance like The Wedding Banquet, Carol, Call Me By Your Name, Brokeback Mountain, My Beautiful Laundrette, Portrait of a Lady on Fire etc have been successful, some back in the 80s & 90s when gay rights were less advanced.

I think as you say the key isdue is that trans relationships raise difficult questions that gay relationships do not.

CleopatraSelene · 01/10/2025 20:55

Good point also that a trans cop or spy or whatever would raise issues.

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:00

.

CleopatraSelene · 01/10/2025 21:01

CleopatraSelene · 01/10/2025 20:54

That's true, thinking about it. I can think of quite a few films without romantic subplots but generally there will be some kind of romance/relationship involved.

I don't think a different from straight relationship is the main issue, as films with gay romance like The Wedding Banquet, Carol, Call Me By Your Name, Brokeback Mountain, My Beautiful Laundrette, Portrait of a Lady on Fire etc have been successful, some back in the 80s & 90s when gay rights were less advanced.

I think as you say the key isdue is that trans relationships raise difficult questions that gay relationships do not.

Edited

The gay example also shows it's not about minorities per se either. Trans people are in many ways a very unique group & lumping them with others has made things worse & worse.

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:01

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 20:09

OK, there's quite a lot to unpack there. Three main points I'd say.

Dealing with them in reverse order.

"All of Hollywood has been genderist until recently" doesn't mean actually doing anything meaningful to promote trans inclusion. It means parroting a party line. It means saying, "Of course trans women are women" even when, as a heterosexual man, you know full well you would never date one. It means all jumping on that bandwagon to denounce JK Rowling and her awful transphobic views because believing in gender ideology is fashionable and insisting on the reality of biological sex is not. I don't think half the people parroting these things genuinely believe them, but it certainly has been and still is the only acceptable viewpoint in Hollywood. I think this is particularly the case for women in Hollywood, most of whom are either so young that they're just starting out and desperately need to get breakthrough roles, or ever so slightly older and therefore need to still be considered young and fashionable and relevant otherwise they'll age out of the business even quicker than most female actresses already do. One ill-advised comment about how JK Rowling might have a point can easily see you consigned to the "has-been" heap and never get another role.

In terms of trans people being represented in films, I mean, yes, there are a few, but the reality is that there aren't that many trans people in real life as a percentage of the population and so most stories are not about them. You can't put a trans character in something like Shakespeare or Jane Austen without making a decision that you're going to "queer" the whole production, which many audiences will find off-putting. It's difficult to cast a trans person in a regular movie role involving a romantic storyline or a sex scene, because most viewers aren't going to relate to that, and people like to watch things they find relatable. There's also the issue of how you portray the relationship. If it's between a man and a trans woman, are you portraying it as a heterosexual relationship or a gay relationship? Because either way you risk offending someone. You could write a trans character into something like Emily in Paris, for example, in the role of "eccentric friend/sidekick". But ultimately it's going to be quite difficult to give a trans character proper character development (and avoid tokenism) unless they are the main character. It's much easier if you're making a series and the trans character can be one of many characters who get plenty of development over several seasons of the show. But in Hollywood, in a two hour feature film? Not so much. Either you're making a film about a trans person, or you might have opportunities for token trans people at best. This obviously has a big impact for trans actors, because trans actors are generally limited to playing trans characters. Elliot Page has only ever played trans characters since transitioning. A trans woman actor can't convincingly play a female character, and probably wouldn't want to play a male character. So opportunities are obviously going to be limited.

As for the dating trans people issue... Well, that's possibly the most awkward one.

I think Hollywood has reached the point where more, hopefully even most gay and lesbian actors feel comfortable being open about their sexuality and being seen with a same sex partner on the red carpet. (That said, we have no way of knowing how many actors are gay but not out.)

Dating a trans partner is on another level though. The uncomfortable truth is that most people do not want to date a trans person. Most of us are sexually attracted to people of one sex only, and we like the external presentation to match what is underneath. I would describe myself as a 95% straight woman (I have had experiences with other women but I am only really interested in men), and yet I would consider dating a woman but not a trans woman. Even though a trans woman may have all the same body parts as a man, and I am attracted to men, and even though I do actually believe that trans women are men, I am not attracted to men who present as though they are women. Nancy Kelley, the former CEO of Stonewall, who likened lesbians who would not consider dating a trans woman to "sexual racists", is not known to have ever dated a trans woman herself. Neither is Layla "I'm pansexual" Moran. They're all a bit "TRA in the streets, TERF in the sheets".

I think that if you are not trans and you date someone who is trans, it raises all kinds of uncomfortable questions about your sexuality. If you're a straight man and you date a trans woman, does that mean you're actually gay or bisexual but in denial? (In my opinion, yes.) If you're a gay man and you date a trans woman, does that mean you don't believe they are really a woman? (In my opinion, also yes.) If you're a lesbian and your wife, let's call her Ellen Page, transitions to become a man named Elliott Page, are you now in a heterosexual relationship? (In my opinion, no. You are still a couple of lesbians, albeit one of you is very confused.)

Do you not think it would be far more scary to step out onto the red carpet with a trans partner, knowing that the internet will be buzzing with people speculating about the quite literal ins and outs of your sexuality, when you may not really understand or accept it yourself? Much more invasive than press coverage of, say, Portia di Rossi and her wife both looking beautiful, or Neil Patrick Harris holding hands with his husband.

I can quite understand why nobody is walking down the red carpet with their trans love interest, and no amount of measures designed to promote the inclusion and acceptance of trans people are going to make much difference to that.

jumping on that bandwagon to denounce JK Rowling and her awful transphobic views… has been and still is the only acceptable viewpoint in Hollywood.

This is provably untrue.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/oct/25/ralph-fiennes-defends-jk-rowling

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/28/helena-bonham-carter-defends-jk-rowling-and-johnny-depp

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jun/09/harry-potter-tom-felton-supports-jk-rowling-trans-controversy

Re your second point: saying ‘you can’t put a trans character in Shakespeare’ is mildly hilarious, given that all his female roles would have been played by boy actors in his own time and several of his comedies feature female characters who spend most of the play dressed as men. Beyond that I’m not sure what we’re arguing about. I’ve already said I wouldn’t expect a large number of roles to be trans. My point was about Hollywood’s history of representations that significantly stigmatise trans people. You’ve said you think their inclusion is only lip service, so maybe we’re in agreement there. Though I’d suggest the success of a show like ‘Euphoria’, which has a trans actor Hunter Schafer as the love interest, implies the future of trans representation doesn’t have to be as negative as you’re arguing.

In general I think you’ve gone off on several tangents that don’t really have anything to do with my original point. Which was that it’s not convincing to claim that ‘all of Hollywood’ or ‘all of the media’ have until recently been captured by gender ideology (to use the GC framing). I think people who want to make arguments like that have got enough examples of actual capture that they could use, e.g. Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP. ‘All of Hollywood’ and ‘all of the media’ doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Tom Felton expresses support for JK Rowling despite controversy over her views on trans issues

The actor who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films says he is ‘incredibly grateful’ to Rowling, and that her books have ‘brought the world together’

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jun/09/harry-potter-tom-felton-supports-jk-rowling-trans-controversy

spannasaurus · 01/10/2025 21:04

I'm not sure the views of 3 British actors is reflective of Hollywood's attitude

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 21:07

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:01

jumping on that bandwagon to denounce JK Rowling and her awful transphobic views… has been and still is the only acceptable viewpoint in Hollywood.

This is provably untrue.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/oct/25/ralph-fiennes-defends-jk-rowling

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/28/helena-bonham-carter-defends-jk-rowling-and-johnny-depp

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jun/09/harry-potter-tom-felton-supports-jk-rowling-trans-controversy

Re your second point: saying ‘you can’t put a trans character in Shakespeare’ is mildly hilarious, given that all his female roles would have been played by boy actors in his own time and several of his comedies feature female characters who spend most of the play dressed as men. Beyond that I’m not sure what we’re arguing about. I’ve already said I wouldn’t expect a large number of roles to be trans. My point was about Hollywood’s history of representations that significantly stigmatise trans people. You’ve said you think their inclusion is only lip service, so maybe we’re in agreement there. Though I’d suggest the success of a show like ‘Euphoria’, which has a trans actor Hunter Schafer as the love interest, implies the future of trans representation doesn’t have to be as negative as you’re arguing.

In general I think you’ve gone off on several tangents that don’t really have anything to do with my original point. Which was that it’s not convincing to claim that ‘all of Hollywood’ or ‘all of the media’ have until recently been captured by gender ideology (to use the GC framing). I think people who want to make arguments like that have got enough examples of actual capture that they could use, e.g. Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP. ‘All of Hollywood’ and ‘all of the media’ doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Have you seen the vitriol those actors have been subjected to for failing to participate in the daily hate of JK Rowling? And they haven't even said anything as shocking as "trans women are not women".

SionnachRuadh · 01/10/2025 21:09

There's another aspect which is that many films are structured as love stories even if there's no overt sexual/romantic element. Your classic example is the mismatched buddy cop movie. It may not seem obvious, but any screenwriter will tell you that Lethal Weapon is a love story - Mel Gibson and Danny Glover clearly aren't getting it on with each other, but just as surely as in a romcom, what drives the story are these two characters who are thrown together, start off hating each other, and gradually grow as people through knowing each other.

You could just as easily replace the Mel and Danny characters with two women. It hasn't been done very often, but it's been done.

Obviously you could write the two men (or two women) in a gay relationship, but that would massively change the dynamics. And with an opposite-sex pairing it's almost obligatory to have sexual tension between them.

Of course the audience will pick up on the love story vibe whether it's overt or not, which is where fanfic comes in.

But even in this case where you're not writing a sexual relationship, I still think it would be difficult to put a trans character in there without it being all about them being trans. So if you want trans representation outside of a film that's about a trans main character and their struggles... really the only option is something akin to the "gay best friend" character in 1990s sitcoms. And it would feel very obviously shoehorned in for political reasons.

It might be that there's a talented writer out there who could script a movie with an engaging character who just happens to be trans, the way Hollywood moved from making worthy movies about racism to the place we're in where characters are just black and nobody cares unless you're trying to make a story about Vikings racially diverse. But as Scarlet has brilliantly explained, there are elements to transness that would make that really challenging.

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:10

spannasaurus · 01/10/2025 21:04

I'm not sure the views of 3 British actors is reflective of Hollywood's attitude

Well you can play that game both ways - why are we saying Emma Watson or Daniel Radcliffe are reflective of Hollywood’s attitudes either? Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter are much bigger and longer established stars, they’ve appeared in lots of Hollywood movies and been nominated for multiple Oscars, in Ralph Fiennes’s case most recently for Conclave in 2024. HBC was married to Tim Burton who is a big Hollywood director and is mates with Johnny Depp who is a big Hollywood star. I’d say they’re as good a finger in the wind for Hollywood attitudes as any, and quite a bit better than some.

teawamutu · 01/10/2025 21:13

"Re your second point: saying ‘you can’t put a trans character in Shakespeare’ is mildly hilarious, given that all his female roles would have been played by boy actors in his own time and several of his comedies feature female characters who spend most of the play dressed as men."

Yes, but Shakespeare's female roles were played by men because women literally weren't allowed to act.

And the female characters dress up as men in furtherance of plot points because women wouldn't have been allowed to do the things they needed to do to keep the story moving.

Far from proving gender fluidity, it's a stark example of biological realism. They knew fine well who the males and who the females were.

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:16

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 21:07

Have you seen the vitriol those actors have been subjected to for failing to participate in the daily hate of JK Rowling? And they haven't even said anything as shocking as "trans women are not women".

Vitriol from who? Hollywood power players? Or anonymous people on the internet? Because if it’s the latter, it doesn’t really prove anything about what’s acceptable in Hollywood.

Theswiveleyeballsinthesky · 01/10/2025 21:18

teawamutu · 01/10/2025 21:13

"Re your second point: saying ‘you can’t put a trans character in Shakespeare’ is mildly hilarious, given that all his female roles would have been played by boy actors in his own time and several of his comedies feature female characters who spend most of the play dressed as men."

Yes, but Shakespeare's female roles were played by men because women literally weren't allowed to act.

And the female characters dress up as men in furtherance of plot points because women wouldn't have been allowed to do the things they needed to do to keep the story moving.

Far from proving gender fluidity, it's a stark example of biological realism. They knew fine well who the males and who the females were.

Quite! The anachronism makes my head hurt

women's lives in previous centuries were incredibly curtailed and yet TRA just slap 21st century views over the top and insist it backs up their argument eg deciding Joan of arc was non binary

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:22

teawamutu · 01/10/2025 21:13

"Re your second point: saying ‘you can’t put a trans character in Shakespeare’ is mildly hilarious, given that all his female roles would have been played by boy actors in his own time and several of his comedies feature female characters who spend most of the play dressed as men."

Yes, but Shakespeare's female roles were played by men because women literally weren't allowed to act.

And the female characters dress up as men in furtherance of plot points because women wouldn't have been allowed to do the things they needed to do to keep the story moving.

Far from proving gender fluidity, it's a stark example of biological realism. They knew fine well who the males and who the females were.

I wasn’t trying to ‘prove gender fluidity’ (whatever that means), or say that you have to interpret those characters as trans. I’m just saying it would be really easy to do so.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 21:30

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:16

Vitriol from who? Hollywood power players? Or anonymous people on the internet? Because if it’s the latter, it doesn’t really prove anything about what’s acceptable in Hollywood.

OK, can you name anyone in Hollywood who is on record as saying that they don't believe trans women are women?

Or saying that they agree with JK Rowling? (Saying that you are very fond of her or that you don't agree that people should be sending her death threats is not the same as saying that you agree with her opinion.)

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 21:31

Theswiveleyeballsinthesky · 01/10/2025 21:18

Quite! The anachronism makes my head hurt

women's lives in previous centuries were incredibly curtailed and yet TRA just slap 21st century views over the top and insist it backs up their argument eg deciding Joan of arc was non binary

Absolutely this, watch Shakespeare in Love if you don't understand this point.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 21:32

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:10

Well you can play that game both ways - why are we saying Emma Watson or Daniel Radcliffe are reflective of Hollywood’s attitudes either? Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter are much bigger and longer established stars, they’ve appeared in lots of Hollywood movies and been nominated for multiple Oscars, in Ralph Fiennes’s case most recently for Conclave in 2024. HBC was married to Tim Burton who is a big Hollywood director and is mates with Johnny Depp who is a big Hollywood star. I’d say they’re as good a finger in the wind for Hollywood attitudes as any, and quite a bit better than some.

None of them have said that trans women are not women, to my knowledge.

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:34

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 21:31

Absolutely this, watch Shakespeare in Love if you don't understand this point.

Ah yes, that totally reliable and not at all fictional or modern source, that shows ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ as being written about a woman when in fact it’s on record that it was written about a man.

teawamutu · 01/10/2025 21:36

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:22

I wasn’t trying to ‘prove gender fluidity’ (whatever that means), or say that you have to interpret those characters as trans. I’m just saying it would be really easy to do so.

You could do it, and it has been done - Prospero played by Sigourney Weaver, for example (admittedly she got crap reviews).

But I'd say it's different. The talking point for the above production was, she's a woman. Everyone knows this is a woman playing a part written for and portraying a man, not a woman pretending to be a man, or indeed a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be an actual man.

Perhaps in the years to come storytelling will mature, but in most productions (as described above) the trans characters are there to be trans. They're not interesting, or rounded, and mostly I roll my eyes and wait for a hamfisted thinly-disguised lecture on inclusion and Being Kind, usually to the detriment of nasty bigoted women who want to keep their single sex provision. Honourable exception to Squid Game, whose trans character is rather sweet (but still has to be pointedly shoehorned into women's facilities because inclusion innit).

CleopatraSelene · 01/10/2025 21:37

SionnachRuadh · 01/10/2025 21:09

There's another aspect which is that many films are structured as love stories even if there's no overt sexual/romantic element. Your classic example is the mismatched buddy cop movie. It may not seem obvious, but any screenwriter will tell you that Lethal Weapon is a love story - Mel Gibson and Danny Glover clearly aren't getting it on with each other, but just as surely as in a romcom, what drives the story are these two characters who are thrown together, start off hating each other, and gradually grow as people through knowing each other.

You could just as easily replace the Mel and Danny characters with two women. It hasn't been done very often, but it's been done.

Obviously you could write the two men (or two women) in a gay relationship, but that would massively change the dynamics. And with an opposite-sex pairing it's almost obligatory to have sexual tension between them.

Of course the audience will pick up on the love story vibe whether it's overt or not, which is where fanfic comes in.

But even in this case where you're not writing a sexual relationship, I still think it would be difficult to put a trans character in there without it being all about them being trans. So if you want trans representation outside of a film that's about a trans main character and their struggles... really the only option is something akin to the "gay best friend" character in 1990s sitcoms. And it would feel very obviously shoehorned in for political reasons.

It might be that there's a talented writer out there who could script a movie with an engaging character who just happens to be trans, the way Hollywood moved from making worthy movies about racism to the place we're in where characters are just black and nobody cares unless you're trying to make a story about Vikings racially diverse. But as Scarlet has brilliantly explained, there are elements to transness that would make that really challenging.

Yes. I do think you could do a buddy type film with a gay man and straight man : the TV series Hap and Leonard did this very well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hap_and_Leonard_(TV_series)

(Arguably Philadelphia back in the 90s had that in that Denzel grows through helping Tom Hanks)

I think it would also be easier to do a lesbian-straight woman buddy film, since women don't tend to fall for their friends as reliably as men do. There are quite a few TV shows with a lesbian unproblematically being one of a friend group (Derry Girls, We Are Lady Parts). Booksmart had a good dynamic between the lesbian-straight woman BFFs, so did Do Revenge. There's also been quite a few films where a close platonic friendship between 2 lesbians is shown (Carol for one), I think this would be harder but possible for 2 gay men. Celine Sciamma's Water Lilies is interesting in that MC Marie is lesbian but the real love story is ultimately not with the unkind love interest Floriane but her friendship with her straight best friend Anne.

I agree re opposite-sex dynamics needing romance usually, but Aziz Ansari's Master Of None TV series worked well with his character being best friends with a lesbian writer. Will & Grace was in some ways a bit stereotypical but did create a nice dynamic imo.

So I guess the bottom line is that gay characters can be fit into different friendship dynamics bur it's much harder to see trans characters doing the same. Being with someone who requires you to participate in a masquerade is not very conducive to closer friendship.

Hap and Leonard (TV series) - Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hap_and_Leonard_(TV_series)

JNicholson · 01/10/2025 21:40

teawamutu · 01/10/2025 21:13

"Re your second point: saying ‘you can’t put a trans character in Shakespeare’ is mildly hilarious, given that all his female roles would have been played by boy actors in his own time and several of his comedies feature female characters who spend most of the play dressed as men."

Yes, but Shakespeare's female roles were played by men because women literally weren't allowed to act.

And the female characters dress up as men in furtherance of plot points because women wouldn't have been allowed to do the things they needed to do to keep the story moving.

Far from proving gender fluidity, it's a stark example of biological realism. They knew fine well who the males and who the females were.

Yes, but Shakespeare's female roles were played by men because women literally weren't allowed to act.
And the female characters dress up as men in furtherance of plot points because women wouldn't have been allowed to do the things they needed to do to keep the story moving.

Sure, but you can argue this the other way as well: trans identities weren’t acceptable in Shakespeare’s time, so it’s much easier to tell people you’re dressing as a boy to mourn your dead brother or have a job or go into the woods for a while and that you’ll stop doing it at the end of the play, rather than saying you want to dress as a boy because you feel male.

Lady Macbeth seems to have managed to keep the story moving without dressing up as a boy, so it’s not a catch-all explanation.

PriOn1 · 01/10/2025 21:42

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 20:49

I wonder what percentage of thrillers and dramas don't feature any kind of romantic storyline. I bet it's not high. For some reason humans like to watch other humans getting off with each other.

The point is that having a trans character introduces constraints that just aren't there when you don't have a trans character, and limits where the plot can go.

Say you've written a script for a crime thriller which isn't supposed to have a romantic subplot. One of your detectives is called Sarah Jones. Following an open audition, you decide to cast a trans woman in the role because there's no reason why Sarah Jones can't be trans. (Problem no.1, you've taken a role meant for a female actor and given it to a male actor.) You get halfway through filming and you think, "Hmm, this would be so much better if Sarah had a brief, steamy affair with her married boss." If Sarah is played by a woman, you can just write that in. If Sarah is played by a trans woman, it's not going to work. Or perhaps in order to get a crucial piece of intelligence, Sarah catfishes a key suspect on Tinder and goes on a date with him, during which she records their conversation and manages to secretly bug his phone when he's in the gents. That storyline won't work if Sarah is played by a trans woman, because in real life if a man turned up and found out that his Tinder date was a trans woman, he probably wouldn't be best pleased. Sarah also would be terrible at doing surveillance or going undercover, because most people would do a double take and immediately clock the trans woman.

It's just not that easy to cast a trans actor as a regular character. They don't pass. The only characters they can convincingly play are trans characters, and then you run the risk of the story becoming all about their trans identity instead of whatever it was actually supposed to be about.

I also think there is another big problem, which is difficult to talk about. There are undoubtedly people who are genuinely transphobic, and would turn the TV off or change the channel because they find trans people disgusting. But there are also a lot of other people who have no particular beef with trans people but are sick of hearing about them. They're sick of Pride Month and transgender visibility day and transgender day of remembrance and being asked to share their pronouns at work and all the constant DEI stuff that seems to focus disproportionately on the T at the expense of all the other protected characteristics. And a lot of those people, if they start watching a crime drama and realise that the only "female" detective is actually a trans woman, are going to be annoyed and think, "Oh for God's sake, I just wanted to watch a crime drama, not another lecture about inclusion" and change the channel.

To put it bluntly, trans inclusion isn't what most people are looking for in their entertainment, and production companies which prioritise this instead of giving audiences what they actually want are going to lose money.

It all went so well with Hayley in Corrie!

Trans character! ✅

Romance! ✅

Small screen magic! I wonder where it all went wrong? 🤔

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/10/2025 21:43

SionnachRuadh · 01/10/2025 21:09

There's another aspect which is that many films are structured as love stories even if there's no overt sexual/romantic element. Your classic example is the mismatched buddy cop movie. It may not seem obvious, but any screenwriter will tell you that Lethal Weapon is a love story - Mel Gibson and Danny Glover clearly aren't getting it on with each other, but just as surely as in a romcom, what drives the story are these two characters who are thrown together, start off hating each other, and gradually grow as people through knowing each other.

You could just as easily replace the Mel and Danny characters with two women. It hasn't been done very often, but it's been done.

Obviously you could write the two men (or two women) in a gay relationship, but that would massively change the dynamics. And with an opposite-sex pairing it's almost obligatory to have sexual tension between them.

Of course the audience will pick up on the love story vibe whether it's overt or not, which is where fanfic comes in.

But even in this case where you're not writing a sexual relationship, I still think it would be difficult to put a trans character in there without it being all about them being trans. So if you want trans representation outside of a film that's about a trans main character and their struggles... really the only option is something akin to the "gay best friend" character in 1990s sitcoms. And it would feel very obviously shoehorned in for political reasons.

It might be that there's a talented writer out there who could script a movie with an engaging character who just happens to be trans, the way Hollywood moved from making worthy movies about racism to the place we're in where characters are just black and nobody cares unless you're trying to make a story about Vikings racially diverse. But as Scarlet has brilliantly explained, there are elements to transness that would make that really challenging.

I think it would be much more difficult to do this with trans characters because it's a sheer numbers game.

Black people, for example, make up a significant minority of people in the UK and the US. In localised parts of the UK and the US they may even be a majority. I'd be surprised if you could find an Oxford college or a police department or a law firm or a school in any urban area without any black people in it. In rural areas it may be a different matter, and yes, perhaps in a remote village in Scotland with a population of 60 a black visitor would be noticeable in a "you're not from round here" sort of way. So seeing a black detective in a crime drama or a black family in a soap opera set in the UK isn't likely to strike people as inauthentic, because almost everyone living in the UK knows black people in real life. (Same for other ethnicities.)

There just aren't that many trans people and many people don't know any trans people at all and have never knowingly met one. So it's much harder to just randomly stick them into TV programmes in the name of diversity, because people will quite rightly say, "In real life we're not running into trans people every five minutes so why is it like that on TV?"

And also, as previously alluded to, there are no particular plot constraints involved in casting a black person in a role. I suppose the only impact would be that if other characters are supposed to be their blood relatives you would need to cast people of the same ethnicity. But that's the same for all characters really.

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