All The World's A Stage

Unless you are a trans actress/actor then there are very few jobs open to you. There is a good article in Think Progress about transgender people being played by cisgender actors/actresses,

As for the fact that Elbe, a transgender woman, will be portrayed in the film by a cisgender man, Stryker said, “I’m on the fence about that one.” Redmayne’s response on this front has been both diplomatic (“There is an incredibly valid discussion for why a trans actress isn’t playing the part, because there are so many brilliant trans actresses, and I’m sure there are many who could play this part sensationally.”) and somewhat unsatisfying. He told The Telegraph that “one of the complications is that nowadays you have hormones, and many trans women have taken hormones. But to start this part playing male you’d have to come off the hormones, so that has been a discussion as well. Because back in that period there weren’t hormones.”

Stryker didn’t totally buy that justification. “It’s like, as if you’re not going to have to use prosthesis for the after. To me, that’s a little bit of a cop-out. Which says nothing about whether he’s going to do a good job.”

“There are an increasing number of trans actresses who could do just fine,” she said. “And I hope they get the breaks that they deserve. This does seem like a missed opportunity, to not cast a trans person. And the thing that I think casting non-trans actors in trans roles perpetuates is the sense that the trans person always kind of looks like their other-birth-assigned sex, and it doesn’t really account for what hormones do, what surgery does, what it’s like to live in a social gender long term. It has the effect of making all trans people appear to be early-transitioning people.”

“However good a job Eddie does on this,” she said. “It’s about time that we have trans people playing trans characters.”

She goes on to write about Amazon’s Transparent starring Jeffrey Tambor that as the show proceeds it is going to be harder to show the effects of hormones and the later stages of transition.

I agree with Susan Stryker, there are very many talented transgender actresses and actors who are not even giving the opportunity to audition for the movies and TV shows. Those that are giving a chance to perform in indie films are winning awards at places like Sundance Film Festival. Those who say that the best actress/actor should get the part, I agree. However, trans actors/actresses are being locked out from even getting their foot in the door and being asked to try out for the parts.