I don’t want to see any more male actors play trans women

Casting cisgender men to play transgender women and cis women to play trans men has long been a contentious issue for theatre and film.

Last week major theatres across the UK, including London’s The Royal Court, Oxford Playhouse and Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, signed a statement pledging to only cast transgender people for trans, non-binary or gender-non conforming roles.

It’s a huge milestone and also addresses some of the barriers that stop transgender people, and in particular Black trans women, from being able to access the industry in the same way as other actors.

A report from the University of London, released earlier this year, showed that the majority of work led by trans creators was still at the fringe of theatre production, and was rarely commissioned by mainstream venues and, where recognised productions did have trans roles, the majority were given to cisgender actors.

This statement is therefore a welcome move, and I hope more theatres will follow suit. It seems obvious to me that the best people to portray trans stories are the ones living them. 

It’s clear there is a bias against trans people in the theatre world when it comes down to commissioning and casting, and it’s indicative of a larger problem in wider society. Where do people learn about transgender people? Who is telling their stories? When it comes to theatre, it’s evidently not often from transgender people themselves. 

So if people aren’t hearing trans people share their stories personally, they are learning about them through the interpretations of those who don’t have that experience. In short, they’re learning about it from people who have no idea what it’s actually like to be trans. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that this is problematic. 

Media reportage on trans issues has increased by 400% in the past five years alone, meaning that on average 224 articles are released every month.

It’s bizarre that such a small minority, estimated to be below 1% of society, gets such attention. In my view it is nothing short of an obsession — and often very unhealthy and damaging as much of the coverage I read is negative and misleading.

At the same time, transphobic hate crimes have quadrupled in the past five years. It’s clear now more than ever that we need engaging and truthful storytelling, including in theatre, in order to educate the general public on real issues that are affecting trans people.

Theatre and art can play such a key role in raising public consciousness and not taking that opportunity is an incredible shame.

We need to be the ones telling our stories because we are the ones who live them every single day

Even if people are of the mind that the best actor should be cast for the role, I’d argue that being trans gives you valuable insight into an experience that is still largely misunderstood by the majority of people. If we rarely give trans actors that chance, we’ll never know just how great a performance could be when portrayed by an actual trans person.

Until we reach a point of universal understanding, or at least a certain level of comprehension, to me it remains questionable at best to repeatedly cast cisgender actors to play transgender roles. Because at the end of the day, trans people can’t just go home and ‘take it off’.

Cisgender people can — and by constantly casting them to play transgender roles we are perpetuating the narrative that being trans is something you can pick and choose, instead of being an integral part of who you are.

To me, it’s comparable to non-disabled people playing disabled characters, or even white people putting on blackface. It’s taking an identity that you don’t fully understand, while having to suffer none of the disadvantages or understanding the harm it can do.

After Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne, Jeffrey Tambor, and the other countless men who have played trans women on screen or in theatre left the set, they stepped into their normal clothes, went home, and were able to go back to safely enjoying the privilege of being men in society.

They are who they are at all times. Meanwhile, trans women continue not to be seen as who they truly are because of the harmful viewpoint that they are just ‘men who are dressing up as women’ – partly because of productions that reinforce that narrative.

Cisgender actors are celebrated for these roles, and have even won awards for them, whereas it is rarely the case for trans actors or indeed trans people in general — trans people aren’t celebrated for being who they are, but instead are often demonised.

The very least casting agents could do would be to cast cisgender men to play trans men and cis women to play trans women. It wouldn’t be ideal, but it would certainly be better. It would mean that trans people are really seen as the gender they are, and would avoid many stereotypes about appearance.

Casting men in female roles has not been practiced in British theatre since the 1600s, so why should it be any different when the character happens to be a trans woman? 

We are so far behind on accepting and recognising trans people as their authentic selves, which means it’s even more crucial that trans actors are given the chance to take on those parts.

Not just in theatre or TV, but in all aspects of society. We need to be the ones at the heart of content created about us otherwise the general population will never see the truth. If we aren’t, misleading and harmful stereotypes about transgender people and their lives will perpetuate.

We need to be the ones telling our stories because we are the ones who live them every single day.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing angela.pearson@metro.co.uk. 

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