THE ERA OF THE TRANSGENDER HEROINE: A glance at trans femme-inclusion in media

There’s a man in a synthetic wig, the fibers shining on camera, eyes coated in blue, heavy eyeshadow and cheap plastic-y lashes that look like they were applied by a 6-year-old experiencing cough syrup for the first time.

His stubble is visible, intentionally, the actor going unshaved for the day, and a sequin — perhaps another garish fabric — adorns their body. This person is either a corpse or a gag, and the audience is made to feel a distance from the character regardless of the role, because of their proximity to deviance, their occupation: likely sex worker, or closeted family man, reflecting an innate fear in the society of dangerous, life-ruining secrets that threaten the nuclear family model. Or, maybe, they’re played by a woman, and the character’s purpose is to trick, demean, or humiliate a male character as a gag. “I didn’t know she was a man!” The male character would say, rushing to brush his teeth or vomit. His friends laugh. The audience laughs. The people at home laugh.

On screen, there was a trans representation that was neither trans nor true, and for a long time, growing up in the early 2000s, I often felt diminished or humiliated by my gender dysphoria. I didn’t want to be the man in the shiny synthetic wig, going out only at night and finding myself dead in a ditch like all the trans characters on CSI, or literally any other movie or show that had a similar plot. Dead tranny hooker never resonated with me, and the inner discomfort I felt at the portrayal, even today, never left me as I became increasingly worried about what impression people may have of trans people.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that this media perspective changed, and with it, so did a perspective on trans people: there wasn’t outrage when trans women were portrayed on screen as corpses, jokes, hookers and cross-dressers: the anger and attention came when they started making us heroines, protagonists, and rounded out characters with backstories and motivations that didn’t provoke a laugh. The mere mention of “this character is trans”, seemed to be enough to incite comments of forced inclusion, a gay agenda, or some societal unweaving that people suddenly seemed to care about in between their affairs, substance abuse, or general lack of morality. “Society is ending because of these faggots and what they’re forcing on kids!” I’d read, from a man actually on the sex offenders registry and a hairline is receding faster than the economy. I’d think he’d have more problems to worry about than trans women having dialogue, but alas, I’ve found myself mistaken time and time again.

HBO’s Euphoria featured trans actress and model Hunter Schaefer, playing Jules Vaughn, a young and troubled trans girl attempting to navigate relationships and a fetishizing culture towards trans women: the character notably goes on Grindr hookups for validation, lying about her age, and finds herself embroiled in several love plots: which was fucking insane to me! I don’t think in any piece of media I had ever seen a trans character portrayed as desirable without it being a joke: Jules didn’t overtly face transphobia from her peers, and attracted the the show antagonist enough to have a *very* toxic love plot — along with being in a relationship with a woman, the show’s protagonist (played by Zendaya). It marked a shift in media that felt comfortable, authentic, and personable: Jules was fun, she wore colorful outfits and makeup that exuded creativity, her transness was explored in a self-directed episode, and her sexuality was unquestionable: it was not a joke to be attracted to her, as many characters, even unknowingly, were. And there wasn’t a punchline to it— she simply was the heroine of the story, the manic pixie dream girl, the object of several desires and center of conflicts for several characters, and she was allowed to be this. I had never witnessed someone like *me* being this. Trans characters weren’t allowed to be the fantasy, the person people wanted to attain in daylight. 

Media has been flush with trans representation and characters outside of this, and I’ve been pleased to indulge in series where that representation is not a space reserved for white trans women. While I avoided watching Orange is the New Black for a variety of reasons, Laverne Cox was one of the black actresses who I felt gained a lot of traction and clout for her acting in that series —- which also explored social themes and the difficult nuance of trans femme incarceration. Pose remains one of my favorite series that demands a yearly rewatch of the first two seasons —- the lens consistently focused on the struggles and the community of BIPOC trans femmes, with complicated, too real and too bittersweet love stories making it a memorable experience —- I had never dreamed of seeing something with MULTIPLE seasons feature so many trans actresses —- the phenomenally gorgeous Indya Moore and her sex work plots, Michaela Jae and her immense charisma, beauty and acting skill carrying the series, and Dominique Jackson’s iconic character Electra (who is the most quotable character from any program that aired after Buffy and Scream Queens.)

It feels as if trans actresses and models have secured their place in entertainment, and while loud, frumpy masses are threatened by this, I adore it: while I will say that many times trans characters or queer characters are used to mark boxes, there were so many unique shows that captured our experiences and characterized us in a way that wasn’t cringe or heavy handed. 

The trans narrative doesn’t need a 2 episode special on pronouns or how people are born different. The trans narrative needs rawness, it needs experience, it needs glamour and attraction and the same magnetization and focus given to cisgender actresses — unpopularly, I don’t want to see the inclusion of the month characters. I don’t want the unglamorous, awkward portrayals I’ve seen in certain media: I do not feel truly represented or understood in media unless the dolls are DOLLS —- many of the girls who have slayed a series do so in tandem with a runway, and it’s difficult to detract from their beauty and reality: Zion Moreno, Indya, Hunter, Hari Nef (Who is playing a trans Barbie DJ in the Barbie movie!) —- all of these girls who have been CAST and cast again have origins in runway or editorial fashion, and I feel as if the pursuit of glamour and attention to fashion has always been tantamount of the trans experience. Trans women consistently draw and capture attention, and we may as well have the most slay of us on screen and normalize the attraction people feel as all eyes remain on us.

I feel as if the *real* inclusion is necessary. I feel as if real, breathing, living experiences are fine to a degree, but the medium is film and television, and those mediums have consistently been about the sexiest and most unearthly people rising to attention. Attaching real narratives of the trans experience to the beauty and artifice of the screen is what I feel to be essential with so much negativity and hatred are strewn about, I feel as if now is the time to double down and protect these heroines, existing and coming, and allow their beauty to be undeniable. Representation in the media has mattered immensely, as my first bouts of identity were brought about internally and solved and made to feel less disgusting through wholesome portrayal — I don’t believe media converts, or glamorizes what isn’t already a thought. Years of seeing straight men didn’t make me a straight man. I find that the more humanely a story is approached, the more tact and care and attraction placed into something leads to an easier bout of acceptance.

In a recent interview, a friend said to me, “Seeing is believing,” regarding her experiences with transitioning, and I felt like that applied to mine as well — the closer I got to passing, the closer I got to making my life more authentically presented to those around me, the easier society became around me and the safer I became in it: It was easier for people to accept me when I became beautiful: so the principle of surrounding with beauty applies, and is exemplified through media. Until people see the experience in a way that captures the eye, there may be no sympathy. It is always the most… For lack of a better word, “clocky” features of the trans experience or its imitators create the most vitriol, misunderstanding, and hatred. I’m not an expert of TV consumerism, but I do know that many people I know who lacked an understanding of the queer experience gained a sense of clarity or respect from it from the media they consumed, and they don’t cite heavy-handed diversity checklist content as what made them more sympathetic or get it: it was the dolls, it was always the dolls, and will likely continue to be the dolls.

I’m not saying that this is the only valid form of presentation, but it is the one in line with the same presentation given to cis women and other icons of glamour: TV and Media are not about reality, they are about a veneer that looks like it with: there’s a method to the artifice, and trans people deserve every right to participate in it and be adorned with the same societally enforced beauty as the rest of the world and celebrated for success within it. The sincere portrayals of trans beauty, of trans slay, of trans femmes dominating a scene with wit, charisma, power, and beauty, to me, have been more empowering and more comforting than any thought piece on dysphoria by a visible man in purple lipstick. The portrayals that stick, become legendary, look up to and become idolized are that of the graceful, pretty, often nymphish heroine — and now, the heroine can be transgender.