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Transphobia is the umbrella term for negative attitudes and feelings for transgender people, skepticism of transgender identities, and resentment or fear of the existence of transgender people changing the manner in which many societies have traditionally viewed gender. Transphobia has been seen everywhere from legislation to limit transgender people's access to public spaces, casual transphobia and transmisogyny in social circles, and negative representations of transgender people in popular media.
Transgender people in film and television are often portrayed as deceivers, villains, killers, less than human or the subject of mockery. Criticizing media portrayals of marginalized people often summons defensiveness among those in the majority. “Well, we don't complain when straight white guys are bashed in movies!” First of all, this is untrue. Straight, cis white men have become noticeably upset simply when there are not enough straight, cis white men in a film or television show, even though straight white guys are the most common group in all popular media in the western world. Whiteness in white majority countries is impervious to marginalization due to their numbers. Heterosexuality is impervious to marginalization the world over for the same reason. Ditto for cisgender people. A negative representation of a straight white man in media cannot harm the standing of straight white men, particularly in white majority countries. Conversely, marginalized groups are obviously in a more vulnerable position in society.
Second of all, and perhaps more on topic, it's different because portrayals of transgender characters are so rare, and when trans characters are portrayed, their characterizations are either profoundly negatively or at least inaccurate. In 2002, GLAAD began cataloging trans portrayals in media. Ten years later, they revealed their findings. In movies and television shows with a transgender character, these characters were cast in a "victim" role at least 40% of the time. Transgender characters were cast as killers or villains in at least 21% of the catalogued episodes and storylines. The most common profession transgender characters were depicted as having was that of sex workers. Anti-transgender slurs, language and dialogue was present in at least 61% of the catalogued episodes and storylines. 54% of trans characters were depicted as completely negative representations, and only 12% were depicted fairly and accurately. This is not “outrage” at a handful of poor choices in representations. This is a trend, and it has been going on for a long time.
Transgender characters, particularly transgender women, have a history of being portrayed as deceivers. Their identities are plot twists and empty jokes for the cisgender audience. Oftentimes, the revelation of a character as trans causes the cis character who was attracted to her to become uncontrollably sick. In Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Jim Carrey's titular character kisses Lois Einhorn. Later in the film, Ventura makes the startling discovery that Lois is a trans woman, vomits in the toilet and cries in the bathtub in a scene that is meant to summon the image of someone who is attempting to become clean after being sexually assaulted. Ventura was not assaulted, their physical interaction was consensual, but the film portrays the way many cisgender people think of trans people, that their very existence is deceptive and that any sexual or romantic interaction is the product of that deception. Toward the end of the film, Ventura humiliates Einhorn by revealing she has had top surgery but not bottom surgery, which is not unusual among transgender people. One does not have to have surgery in order to be trans, and many transgender people use hormones only for a variety of reasons, one being cost. Ventura does not refer to Lois as a transgender woman. He misgenders her as a “man.” More than that, Lois becomes an object of ridicule, a little less human in the eyes of both Ventura and his colleagues, who also become physically sickened by a trans woman. This plot twist is common in comedies. The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult contains a similar revelation with a similar reaction from Leslie Nielsen's iconic comedy character Frank Drebin. An episode of Family Guy follows this almost beat for beat. This also true of Soapdish, Dude Where's My Car, Crocodile Dundee and various others. [The Cleveland Show] The Crying Game portrays its trans character more sympathetically than most, but it still contains the trend of a cis man becoming ill and being “deceived.” These films and television shows generally conflate trans women with gay men – not only a matter of poor terminology but a matter of complete misunderstanding about trans identities. The reactions from presumably cisgender and straight men are meant to be comical, but it nonetheless taps into a prevalent societal attitude that depicts trans women as inherently deceptive. Ace Ventura and many of the other examples are from years ago, but this attitude persists in the real world, as evidenced by a common slur which identifies them by this alleged characteristic. It should be noted, however, that this characterization of trans people has appeared in media this decade, such as in the aforementioned Family Guy episode and The Hangover: Part II.
The popular misconception of trans people as “deceivers” both on and off the screen has consequences beyond someone comically throwing up in a toilet. Trans people, more often trans women and even more often trans women of color, are subject to physical abuse or even murder when their so-called “deception” is uncovered. In July of 2008, 18-year-old Angie Zapata met 31 year old Allen Andrade. They spent three days together, during which they had at least one sexual encounter. When Andrade discovered that Zapata was transgender, he viciously beat her with a fire extinguisher. Upon his arrest, Andrade said he thought he had “killed it.” During the trial, Andrade's defense attorney claimed that Zapata “smiling” at Andrade was too “provocative” and that smiling was justification and a proper explanation for the murder. He was convicted of first degree murder. There are countless other examples. Worse still, others who have committed similar crimes have avoided the sentence that Andrade received. This abuse and murder of trans people is often legally defended under what is commonly called the “trans panic” defense. This is a legal strategy which asks the jury to find that the victim's gender identity is to blame for the defendant's violent reaction or even murder. The defendant claims that the victim's gender identity either explains or excuses their loss of self-control. When defendants are fully or partially acquitted under this legal tactic, the courts send the message that trans lives matter less and that trans identities are inherently deceptive. The defendant often alleges that a sexual attraction or interaction triggered a nervous breakdown, a “gay panic” which was debunked by the American Psychiatric Association in 1952. Defendants claim that even a flirtation was “provocative” enough to warrant violence, which stigmatizes behavior which, on its own, is not illegal or harmful, but is considered “provocative” when it comes from a trans person. Defendants claim a kind of “self-defense” even when not attacked. According to the LGBT Bar, this defense has been used to acquit dozens of murderers. Such a defense does not always work, but the fact that it is even partially effective shows a pattern of bias against transgender people in the legal system.
Outside of the legal system and in social circles, transphobic people have justified these attacks as “fighting back” against trans people and that sex with a trans person who has not disclosed their life story is somehow tantamount to rape. Not only is this not legally defined as such, but it is also logically unsound and showcases a kind of social inequality because cis people are not held under the same scrutiny for their sexual encounters. Cis people are not expected to disclose their sexual history, physical history or anything else related to their body, past, previous sexual encounters, etc. It is deeply dehumanizing to think that it is the right of cisgender people to judge when transgender people are “allowed” to be sexually active. Trans people do not have to walk around with signs around their necks and warning labels across their bodies in order for cis people to judge them to be acceptable for sexual activity. More importantly, the argument that trans people would be safe if they would disclose their gender identity and past immediately falls apart when trans women are sometimes attacked and killed even without engaging with the cis man. A trans woman named Islan Nettles was murdered simply for walking down the street near cis men. It is not sexual intercourse that makes cis men murder trans women. It is their very identity, which is mistakenly believed to be inherently deceptive and therefore “fair game” for violence and retribution. This common denominator in all of this violence is not deception among trans people but a desire among cisgender heterosexual men to protect their own status and the status of cis heteronormativity in society. It's not retaliation for deception. It's retaliation for mere existence.
A recent episode of Jack Ryan features a character with a black eye mocked by his peers, claiming that a transgender sex worker must have done it. In addition to the episode carelessly using a transphobic slur, it reinforced the idea that transgender people are the aggressors whereas legal history and statistics show that not to be the case. At best, scenes like this are unhelpful, and at worst, they propagate dangerous, pre-existing attitudes about transgender people.
In Psycho, Norman Bates has been metaphorically castrated by his mother, the result of which is a feminine man who takes on feminine traits. That, combined with Norman dressing in women's clothes at the end, is meant to frighten the audience by his “otherness.” Norman is not explicitly identified by the word transgender and probably would not be called that, but the intention of his characterization is to create that “panic” among the audience. Norman's psychotic break and crossdressing are blurred together. Norman is not a serial killer who happens to be queer. He is a serial killer whose queerness is part of why the audience is meant to fear him. This is a film from 1960, but films made decades later follow similar paths. The Silence of the Lambs features a transgender character called Buffalo Bill. She is also not a serial killer who happens to be transgender but instead a serial killer whose violent actions are related to her murders. She kills overweight women in hopes of making a “woman suit” to complete her transition. Hannibal Lecter claims that Buffalo Bill is not actually transgender and all characters misgender Bill throughout the film, but this does not in any way lessen the characterization of anyting outside of cisnormativity as dangerous or insane. If anything, it plays with the misconception that many cisgender people have of trans people: that trans people are merely “confused” and have misidentified and mislabeled themselves. In the television series CSI, Paul Millander, a trans man, is a serial killer and arch-enemy of Gil Grissom. He appears several times throughout the series. Nip/Tuck featured a psychopathic trans woman depicted as a baby-kidnapping sexual predator who have sex with her own son. There are many other examples, such as Aunt Martha in Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Awful Things, Angela Baker in the Sleepaway Camp series, Bobbi in Dressed to Kill and so forth.
The portrayal of Buffalo Bill is particularly insidious because it plays into a talking point that is often used against transgender people: that their existence is a threat to cis women and that their rights must be limited to protect cis women. This erroneous statement is usually made by cis men who are using cis women as pawns in their transphobia. These are usually the same men who are suspicious of women's claims of sexual assault and skeptical about women's modern concerns like wage gaps and harassment in the workplace. Yet, some who demonize transgender people are cis women – radical feminists who exclude trans women from womanhood and sometimes label trans men as confused or lost. The truth is that transgender people are far more likely to be victims of violence than to cause violence. According to statistics tracking by the Human Rights Campaign, the murder of transgender people – often for reasons related to transphobia – has been on the rise for the past several years. In addition to this violence, discrimination at the intersection of gender identity and race lead to significant barriers to both employment and housing. The consequences of this discrimination pushes many transgender people into underground economies to survive, including sex work, and into circumstances where they may be more likely to face violence. The proliferation of the “transgender serial killer” character in film and television has given a completely false impression of the lives of trans people. These characterizations are actually the reverse of what life often is for trans people in real life. Director Lilly Wachowski once said of this: “Though we have come a long way since Silence of the Lambs, we continue to be demonized and vilified in the media where attack ads portray us as potential predators to keep us from even using the goddamn bathroom. We are not predators, we are prey.”
In the past decade, movies like The Hangover Part II with shock trans revelations became a little more rare. The changing of the times did not allow transphobia to be expressed so overtly as contemptible or depraved, but social inequality does not diminish greatly over time. It only finds new forms. People find new uses for it, new expressions of it. Racism against black people in America took the public face of slavery, and then it took the public face of Jim Crow, and then it took the public face of mass incarceration and forced labor; more “socially acceptable” forms of racism and slavery that still allowed businesses to exploit and profit from racism. Comparatively, when studios and screenwriters became aware of mildly changing attitudes about transgender people, transphobia had to take a new form. The shift away from trans characters as monsters and deceivers left a void to be filled. One method of keeping transphobia in films is by co-opting queerness. Zoolander 2 is the sequel to a movie in which the primary joke is that these men display characteristics that are traditionally associated – perhaps unfairly -- to women. Zoolander 2 features a character named All, a non-binary or androgynous character. No actual term is explicitly given. When Hansel and Derek meet All, Hansel asks if All has a hot dog or a bun. Defenders of this characterization would say that the movie mocks Hansel for being out of touch, but All is far more the subject of mockery than Hansel. The movie jokes that All is marrying “hermself,” treating non-binary people as an absurdity.
Deadpool gives its license to mock the LGBT community partly because it presents the titular character as part of the community. Director Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds describe the character as pansexual. Yet, there is no actual same-gender romance or sex in the film, and the movie version of Deadpool is pansexual because the creators of the movie say so and there are hints of this in the comics, not because he is depicted that way in the film. It's the “Dumbledoor was gay” cop-out that is revealed by the author but not in the text. Deadpool's soulmate is a cis woman, Vanessa. This sorta kinda characterization of Deadpool as queer allows for a mild, threadbare defense of the movie's overtly transphobic comments. One of the villains of the movie is Angel Dust played by Gina Carano. Upon meeting Angel Dust, Deadpool says “Aren't you a little strong for a lady? I'm calling wang.” By presenting these characters as part of the LGBT community, movies give themselves permission to make transphobic jokes and to play with the audience's transphobia.
Another modern reinvention of transphobia in popular media is that of being trans as body horror for cis people. In The Skin We Live In, a young man is forcibly transformed into a woman using the procedure that was commonly and sometimes pejoratively called a “sex change,” but is now more commonly called gender confirmation surgery. The newly reassigned person is then held captive and raped by the surgeon. The Assignment – formerly called (Re)Assignment – a professional killer is captured and forcibly given the surgery. The Skin We Live In and The Assignment are not about actual transgender women – they are about cisgender men who are physically violated. Worse still, the character in The Assignment who does the violating is portrayed as a champion for transgender rights, making a mockery of the long and still ongoing struggle. These characterizations would not stand out as much if there were greater positive representation of transgender people in popular media, but when the vast majority of trans characters are portrayed as either negatively or as problematic, these portrayals become dominant.
Defensiveness about this issue often comes in the form of hyperbole that exaggerates the concern: “What? So, EVERY depiction of [insert marginalized group] needs to be positive?!” No, because that might be impossible, but a little sensitivity toward the very real consequences of said depictions might be warranted. Furthermore, in this case, these depictions are not outliers. They are the norm. When transgender characters are more frequently portrayed as villainous, disgusting, victims, aggressors, clowns and body horrors than not, then there is an unmistakable trend in how this group is depicted. These examples are not cherry picked. They are the most common and most famous depictions of trans people. More sympathetic depictions generally come from so-called “art house” films like A Fantastic Woman and Tangerine but are not presented for mainstream audiences and therefore have limited impact. The Danish Girl is an outlier – a movie made for a mainstream audience that also depict transgender people as sympathetic protagonists and not monsters, but this movie and other movies like it also feature cisgender actors portraying trans characters. The trans community often cites this as furthering the misgendering of trans people and the misconception that trans people are only cis people in costumes. Transparent cast a cis actor for its lead. Rise was canceled after one season and that show's transgender character only had a small role. Then again, there's Sense8, which was on Netflix but canceled after two seasons, Orange Is the New Black, certainly, and definitely Pose, which is on FX. Those are the exceptions. Not the rule. It would be ignorant to say there has been no progress – shows like Pose did not exist in the 1980's – but the shifting media portrayals often given rise to new damaging and dehumanizing media portrayals.
Trans men are even more excluded from media than trans women. This mirrors the exclusion of trans men in the discourse about transgender people in general, even though trans men, one would assume, make up roughly half of trans people. This video suffers because of so few examples of trans men in media, which makes it challenging to discuss this representation. Boys Don't Cry was a long time ago. Popular media does not force people to behave a certain way, but it does inform and shape our worldview. If media consistently portrays trans people as monsters or objects of mockery, it infects that worldview. This is especially among viewers whose only exposure to transgender people are these negative, dehumanizing portrayals. The best we can do is call out these portrayals. When one form on transphobia in media is mostly erased due to public outcry and media watchdog groups, a new one attempts to replace it. It's...whack-a-mole. But the alternative is worse: letting the transphobes win and allowing their misrepresentations to go unchecked, leaving no chance for progress.