Welcome to #TransTuesday! This is the final part of TILLY’S 2023 TRANS REP IN MEDIA! This week we’re finishing the talk on television, and will then look at the bigger picture overall, including numbers from the movies discussed two weeks ago!
If you haven’t yet, be sure to read TRANS REP IN MEDIA 2023 part 1: Movies.
And TRANS REP IN MEDIA 2023 part 2: TV part 1
We’re diving right back in to finish our talk on TV, and of course talking about them means that there will be some spoilers!
Our Flag Means Death s2 – 1
Jim is still on the show and is still nonbinary, and is played by the nonbinary and delightful Vico Ortiz.
Our Flag Means Death poster, showing the crew around a saluting Captain Stede, with the text “getting their ship together”
Sadly this show is now canceled, which happens to openly queer shows all too often. I talked about that a lot back in the TRANS REP IN MEDIA 2022.
This is something the remarkable Mo Ryan also covered… back in 2017! And it’s still going on.
Perry Mason s2 – 0
Poker Face s1 – 0
One episode has a dj pretending to be a right wing bigot. As part of his shtick, he says “what I do in the bathroom definitely isn’t gender neutral.” Is this a joke at trans people’s expense? Is it a joke about people who joke about trans people? Unclear.
But it made me uncomfortable even in context, so I’m counting it as a joke about trans people.
Quantum Leap s1 – 3 + many
This show also got an honorable mention last year when we were partway through it (we are now presently partway through s2).
Quantum Leap poster showing Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song, surrounded by things from different periods in history
Ian is a main cast member, and is played by the nonbinary and superb Mason Alexander Park. Ian uses they/them pronouns, and in season 1 has a line about gender being an artificial construct and not what everyone assures you is the truth!
It BLEW MY MIND when I heard it. And then I discovered that line was in there because it was suggested by trans writer Shakina, who’s on the writing staff. DO YOU SEE WHAT HAVING TRANS PEOPLE ON STAFF CAN DO??
Further, episode 12 of s1, “Let Them Play,” was written by Shakina (who also directed and guest stars), and is all about trans kids in sports. It’s an AMAZING and direly needed episode. So much so, I did AN INTERVIEW WITH SHAKINA about it when it came out early last year.
The episode features a teen trans girl and a lot of other trans teens in background roles, and you absolutely need to see it, it’s on Peacock and works mostly on its own even if you’ve not seen any other episodes of the show.
As I mentioned, s2 is only partway through release, but Ian remains a main cast member and I know Shakina is writing another episode this season that will feature a trans character in a binder. Keep an eye out.
Reservation Dogs s3 – 1
Nonbinary actor Elva Guerrera plays Jackie (though Jackie is cis). I missed them last year because I didn’t know they were nonbinary! Another example of how if they don’t make it clear the character isn’t cis, you’re going to miss it if you don’t look up every member of the cast.
Cheese still introduces himself with pronouns and kind of gets made fun of for it. At one point someone trying to get his attention says “hey, he/him/his” as if it’s a nickname.
But then later another cis man replies by saying his pronouns are the same and that’s not treated like a joke at ALL. So I think this one is too unclear for me to count as a joke at trans people’s expense.
However the “man moon” joke about men with periods from last season got a callback, and that definitely counts as a joke at our expense (hey, some trans men have periods, and they’re still men. That’s not funny, it’s just life.)
Sandman s1 – 1
Mason Alexander Park appears again, playing Desire, and “they/them” pronouns are used.
Secret Invasion – 0
Aliens called Skrull can shapeshift, and sometimes they swap genders, but nothing is said about it or done with it in a story sense.
Shrinking s1 – 0
Silo s1 – 0
Technically none, but the entire season is a REMARKABLY strong trans allegory, so much so that I wrote a NINE part series of essays on it. Check it out in the trans tuesdays on THE UNINTENTIONAL (?) TRANS ALLEGORY OF SILO S1.
Somebody Somewhere s1 – 1
Fred Rococo! A trans man played by trans man Murray Hill, and he steals every scene he’s in. In one episode a waiter brings him a drink and says, “sir, uh, ma’am,” and then stumbles over his words. Fred says “Right the first time” and leaves him a big tip.
Somebody Somewhere poster showing Bridget Everett in a flannel, smiling in front of a cornfield, with the text “a coming of middle age story.”
THIS is how you do a joke about trans people that’s not at our expense. This joke is clearly about the waiter’s perception of trans people, and it’s not cruel (even if it is a little uncomfortable).
In a later episode, we see Fred has a bomb shelter converted to Fred’s Poker Palace and there’s a progress flag hanging inside.
Somebody Somewhere s2 – 1
Fred Rococo is back and as great as ever, and in episode 2 his fiancé talks about having to come out to her parents and tell them he was trans. He and his fiance get married in the season finale, and his wife thanks her dad for coming, implying he’s come around.
Star Trek Picard s3 – 1*
Jin Maley plays Kova Rin Esmar. Jin is nonbinary, but the character isn’t mentioned as such, and I don’t think Kova’s pronouns were mentioned or used. It’s a small role.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds s2 – 1*
Nonbinary actor Noah Lamanna plays the new transporter chief, Jay. Jay is not mentioned as nonbinary, and looking back I’m not sure if they even had any lines.
The episode Ad Astra per Aspera is a very blatant and wonderful trans allegory and meant the absolute world to me. It will also be getting a write up in a future trans tuesday. It’s my favorite episode in all 800+ hours of Star Trek now.
Succession s4 – 0
Ken makes a, “we’re going to give your guns hormone therapy” joke.
Ravenhead, a Tucker Carlson type on a pseudo Fox News, is on a right wing rant about liberals and says “…your son, she’s now your daughter…”
Superman and Lois s3 – 0
Ted Lasso s3 – 0
The character of Zava says, “Time is a construct, like gender and some alphabets.” Which I was actually really happy with, until it’s then revealed that he kind of spouts nonsense and nobody believes most of the things he says. Not counting that one as a joke though, too obtuse.
BUT there are multiple instances of cis women saying things like “suck my dick” or “I’ll just give her the tip” or “well there goes my lady boner.” I feel like there were more than just those three, but those were the ones I wrote down.
So I’m counting it as three jokes about ha ha wouldn’t it be funny if a woman had a penis. Also very very tired of these, how about we all stop making these jokes please and thank you.
Also there’s something dismal in the fact that everyone points to Ted Lasso as a show about kindness, and how warm and wholesome it is (and they’re right), and even THAT show implicitly finds the idea that trans women exist to be hilarious. Fucking ouch.
Undone s1 – 0
Upload s3 – 0
RIGHT IN THE SEASON PREMIERE they continue the joke from last season about how hilarious it would be for a man to be pregnant. and again, this show is a comedy and it’s all played for laughs, this isn’t a poignant moment.
Upload poster of Andy Allo as Nora looking into a VR headset, and the back of the headset is displaying other cast members in a virtual world
They’re not exploring the idea or even acknowledging there are trans men who can get pregnant. The long, protracted scene with jokes about this from s2 was one of the worst bits of laughing at the very idea of real things trans people can be.
I was utterly dismayed they immediately brought it back to do it again. In another episode the rich executives who own the digital world people can upload to when they die is addressing the group and says something to the effect of “ladies and gentlemen and other gendered people”.
I honestly didn’t go back to check and get the exact wording, because this show is skating on thin ice in terms of jokes about trans people already. but the crowd didn’t seem to have anyone remotely non gender-conforming in it, and certainly none of the speaking characters were.
So if it was an attempt to be inclusive it failed as there was no apparent inclusion, but it feels the much more likely scenario is this was yet another pronoun joke, which the show has absolutely done before.
In another episode a man wants to wear a fanny pack in which he carries things like ointment and lip balm, and that’s treated as hilarious, which feels half a step from “men with purses are hilarious.”
And then in the same episode a man appears in a version of the Princess Leia slave bikini and other men remark that it’s objectifying but he’s owning it and subverting it.
and on another show I might think this was legit, or even not really commenting on anything at all, but on this show it’s already set me up to think the worst with things related to gender so… I don’t know.
Because there’s also a running gag about how funny it is that one guy really platonically loves another, and every time he says “I love you” it makes the other one uncomfortable and he tells him to stop.
And it’s always 100% played for laughs, so it feels like that’s also making fun of the idea of men having emotions. I like a lot of what this show does, but in a lot of ways its views on gender feel really regressive and possibly harmful.
Like in one scene a lady is experiencing misogyny from men at work and her reply is… to threaten to seduce the men’s parents, make them fall in love with her, ruin their marriages, and then dump them. In what world… I mean, what the heck?
What We Do in the Shadows s5 – 0
The Witcher s3 – 0
The Witcher: Blood Origin – 0
Yellowjackets s2 – 2*
Trans woman Nicole Maines plays Lisa and recurs through the entire season.
Yellowjackets poster, showing a closeup of a woman’s face, she has a bloody nose and a tear is falling from her eye. Near the tear a yellowjacket wasp crawls on her face.
At first it seemed like she was gonna fall into the super harmful “trans women are violent and dangerous” trope (she was overseeing a character who was abducted and tied up), but they actually deftly avoided that.
Then I thought she was going to fall into the “trans women are killed/victims of violence trap,” but they deftly avoided that, too. I again thought she was going to be killed in the season finale, but that didn’t happen either.
It’s interesting that the show kind of set it up (intentionally or otherwise) to make you think the character would fall into these dangerous tropes but then swerved and surprised you… especially given that the character is never ever mentioned as trans.
Were they expecting the audience would know, as Nicole Maines is one of the few trans actors many people know by name? Was it all chance? I have no idea. For all we know the character of Lisa is cis, so it’s impossible to say.
Lisa was a smaller role, but one of the main cast, Liv Hewson, is nonbinary. They play Van, who is cis.
So what do we have? Across 31 movies and 44 seasons of television, I found:
31 trans people – but two of them were in two different shows, and two were in multiple seasons of the same show, which brings it down to 26 unique trans people
20 confirmed trans characters – but two of those were in multiple seasons of the same shows, which brings it down to 18 unique trans characters.
AND 16 JOKES ABOUT TRANS PEOPLE.
That’s a little bit more trans rep and slightly more jokes about trans people than last year. Maybe a very slight improvement, but overall just about the same.
And a lot of the good rep that came from Heartstopper, and Quantum Leap. If I didn’t see those two shows, which totaled 7 unique trans actors, think about how much worse those numbers would be.
A large majority of the good trans representation I saw in an entire year was from two specific shows. If I didn’t happen to see those, look where I’d be. Here’s a choice quote from the aforementioned Mo Ryan article:
“Hollywood is way too quick to pat itself on the back for the smallest and most overdue steps forward when it comes to diversity, inclusion and representation — and the industry is far, far too quick to let the backsliding begin.
“And when that backsliding does begin (as it has many times in the past), many who mouth easy platitudes — instead of doing the real work of increasing the diversity of the industry — very easily and even reflexively turn a blind eye to the return to the status quo.
“(If that status quo was ever even seriously challenged — and at too many networks and studios, it is not. Still.)”
The broader representation in the medium is depressing. I don’t know what else to say about the grim state of things here, so I’m going to close this one the exact same way I closed the 2022 Trans Rep essay:
Trans people are human beings, and our media needs to do MUCH better at trans representation. Art can change hearts and minds, and when all out war is being waged against our right to exist, we need it now more than ever.
And as a reminder, cis friends, we trans writers, directors, and actors are out here! Hire us! Help us get through the door and get our stories told. We need you to help make it happen!
Together we can turn this thing around, and lots more good trans rep can change hearts and minds, and make a real world impact in the lives of trans people and cis people alike. And also like, we’re amazing, and you definitely want to work with us. Just ask me (I’m available!) 😉
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com