Abigail Thorn just made a fantastic point about trans acting roles

It’s no secret that the past few years have ushered in a new wave of exciting trans talent. The late lamented The Acolyte gave us an incredible display of trans and nonbinary creatives both behind and in front of the camera, from Jen Richards to Amandla Stenberg. We’ve seen Suzy Izzard and the trans stars of Netflix’s Kaos absolutely crush it in the new series, and just this past week trans actress Nava Mau rocked the Emmys red carpet representing Baby Reindeer.

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But even with such a bevy of trans luminaries to cast in new projects, Hollywood is still managing to royally screw things up behind the scenes. Why, with all these success stories, do we keep running up against the same tired trans tropes from cis writers?

That’s what YouTuber and The Acolyte star Abigail Thorn wants to know, per a recent tweet.

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>looking for acting role
>ask the casting director if the role is “sad tran” or “tr***y hooker”
>they don’t understand
>pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is “sad tran” & what is “tr***y hooker”
>they laugh and say “It’s a good role”
>go to audition
>it’s tr***y hooker

— Abigail Thorn (@PhilosophyTube) September 18, 2024

Now let’s get something straight: being cast as a sex worker isn’t by itself a bad thing. What Thorn is talking about is the unfortunate problem trans actresses come up against when working within an industry that would rather stereotype them than give them meaty, complex roles. Instead of casting directors being more open to casting trans women in fantasy roles, as romantic interests, or as characters previously imagined as cis, it seems like we’re seeing a reversion to type casting, which in turn creates its own stigma.

Thorn isn’t the only trans woman in Hollywood who’s fed up with only being shown a limited, stereotypical range of trans roles. Tech trailblazer, icon and Pose actress Angelica Ross spoke out about this same problem earlier this year, when she discussed being ghosted by Ryan Murphy after she pitched an American Horror Story season that would focus on Black women. Ross has since remained vocal about the many problems she continues to face in Hollywood, where despite much talk of DEI initiatives, little has changed in terms of making the industry more accessible and welcoming to Black trans talent.

So what gives? Why are trans actresses celebrated for their breakout performances and then only shown scripts that place them into harmfully stereotypical roles? Well, in a word, transmisogny!

The sad reality seems to be that Hollywood doesn’t actually want to show trans folks playing roles that aren’t basic tragedy p*rn. Cis creators keep writing these roles because some part of them seems to believe that it’s the truth—or maybe they’d just like it to be the truth. But trans women deserve so much better.

As with everything, if we want something done, we just have to do it ourselves. That’s why Thorn is making a vampire movie based on her own original script. Others, like Ross, have spoken about leaving the industry for good. The message is clear: if we want to keep this powerful new wave of trans actresses working, we need Hollywood to start creating roles that are worthy of them.