Cisgender actors don't take trans roles out of malice. I think it's just failure to realize the context behind having cisgender people play transgender characters because we don't see the same issue with sexuality.
I'm not saying transgender characters should be only interpreted by transgender actors - because that would be as rigid as saying transgender actors cannot play cisgender roles, and that's not the idea.
There's been a huge history of cisgender success on the back of trans stories, which is something I'm deeply aware of. My take on it, I suppose, was that I do think actors should be able to play anything.
Many in the trans community are fed up with L.G.B.T. organizations that continue to erase trans identity or just give lip service to trans issues. We need our cisgender allies - gay and straight - to treat transgender lives as if they matter, and trans people need multiple seats at the tables in the organizations that say they're interested in L.G.B.T. equality; this absence has been painful since Stonewall.
I can only imagine how much more fun it's going to be to play someone who shares my identity rather than having to contort myself to play a boy. I'm going to gun for those roles, be it a transgender female or a cisgender female.
This entire issue of transgender people posing a kind of threat to cisgender women in bathrooms is made up. We are just like everybody else - we go into the bathroom, we keep our heads down, we don't look at anybody.
The first time I heard the word 'transgender' had been in a sitcom episode that mocked the potential for cisgender people to find people like me attractive. Every time someone expressed any interest in the gorgeous trans guest character - her identity still a secret to most of the main characters in the show - the laugh track would cue.
I would not be unhappy were I the last cisgender male to play a female transgender on television.
Because trans people are marked as artificial, unnatural, and illegitimate, our bodies and identities are often open to public dissection. Plainly, cisgender folks often take it as their duty to investigate our lives to see if we're real.
We need more Black, cisgender straight men to be willing to come out and say: 'I stand with Black trans people.'
So often, trans roles don't even go to trans actors. Most of the fabulous trans roles that have won people Oscars, we didn't get to play. A lot of folks have said we're not trained enough and that we're not prepared to do whatever.
What I would love to happen is to have people at the top of their game - straight, gay, cisgender, transgender, whatever - to volunteer with us, as long as they have something of value to offer and they see the value in our community.
If you're anything other than a white, cisgender, able-bodied dude, people are going to project narratives, imagery, and context onto you that you might not necessarily see for yourself.
You wish that everyone knew what cisgender meant. Everyone has access to Google. You can find out what's appropriate to ask a trans person.
When we have trans actors play trans characters, people can look onscreen and say, 'OK, this is what trans is.'
We rarely see cisgender heterosexual men in positions where they're nurturers. We only paint femmes, trans women, and cis women as nurturers, and because of toxic masculinity, men are taught not to be that way.
Cisgender people tend to want trans stories of triumph that are easy to metabolize. I want to make things that are subversive and not so entry-level.