Why does Hollywood still struggle with trans representation on screen?

People outside the trans community can resist the unprecedented injustices by keeping trans people visible, telling our stories in ways that expose the lunacy of our nation’s politics and casting trans actors in roles that have nothing to do with gender. 

Hollywood and anyone watching the ‘For Your Consideration’ film and TV series, should agree it’s time to lay this issue to rest.

Star of Beyond the Gates,  Karla Mosley, told People she will not be playing another transgender role, calling it “truly inappropriate.” Mosley has always been a strong advocate on this issue of transgender representation on film and TV.

I’m personally sick of this debate I’ve embodied for a decade as a transgender actor. It needs to end – and yet the talking points persist.

I was the first out trans actor in Daytime television as the actually trans counterpart to Mosely’s transgender character on The Bold and The Beautiful. Ten years ago, Hollywood insisted, ‘actors should be able to play anything.’ Our response?

‘Then why weren’t trans actors cast in anything—even our own stories? Why was playing trans Oscar-worthy for cis actors while trans actors struggled to book speaking roles?’

There are always exceptions such as Jazzmun Crayton and Alexandra Billings – who deserve Lifetime Achievement Awards. But those divas each represent a dozen equally talented artists who couldn’t even get an audition.

Denying Hollywood’s past transphobia disrespects the transformation many Hollywood powerbrokers underwent to measurably level the playing field. And I was there – our fight in 2015 was against rampant transphobic employment discrimination. 

Once we finally gained access and visibility, we wanted better representation. Watch the Netflix documentary Disclosure, for decades of psychotic killers and punchlines that trapped trans people in life offscreen. We’ve got receipts!

In the now quaint era of diverse entertainment (2015-2024, R.I.P.), we collaborated with cis executives who, even as they included us, still clung to their own idea of who we are.

But we made progress. 

With a dozen others, I consulted behind the scenes on countless tv shows and films. We enriched storytelling with accuracy, vivid detail, and dialogue that leapt off the page.

Audiences had never seen anything like it.

Most creatives and production teams embraced this project; many had trans kids and wanted to create an inclusive world for them. Those who resisted lamented that the Hollywood system they dominated — founded in exclusion, maintained by abuse — had to change at all. As you consider my proposal, ask yourself: is that really the side you really want to take? 

Trans actors agree — we can play any role!

First we must be called in to audition, then we must meet approval by approximately five levels of producers and executives to light up your screen. Too often, we run into Old Hollywood gatekeepers, or outright transphobia. The solution? See us for more roles—all roles. Flood the gates. 

The urgency for showrunners and filmmakers to take this next step has never been greater. The frontman of this increasingly fascistic government now controls the Kennedy Center and mandated that the National Endowment for the Arts focus on America’s semi-quincentennial — while explicitly excluding diversity, drag, and trans stories.

Filmmakers and executives, now is not the time to pre-comply. Now is the time to uphold freedom of expression on any platform that will still allow it. Trans people embody freedom of expression! When a repressive government insists on rigid gender binaries, expand what it means to be a man or a woman. In a country determined to erase trans people from public life, star us in your stories, let us shine.