Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re talking about how when queer people finally get SOME representation that’s long been denied (specifically in #ALeagueOfTheirOwn #ALOTO), some cishet people, even allies, Cannot Process That. Welcome to: IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA.
Cis het people, it’s important for you to read this and understand what’s going on here. Sharing is encouraged. Because this is largely about you and the way you react to things about people who are… not you.
I’m also using “queer” instead of “trans” because the specific example I’m going to be talking about affects all LGBTQIA2S+ people, though it absolutely applies specifically to us trans folks too, with implicit transphobia.
Queer representation in television is something that’s long been rarer than unicorns, especially GOOD representation that doesn’t fall into stereotypes or outright hateful tropes. If I have to see one more show where trans women are victims, or jokes, or predators, I’m gonna pop a gasket.
See the trans tuesday on TRANS REP IN MEDIA 2022 for exactly how awful it can be when you’re a trans person looking to see yourself in the media you experience.
Twitter, Facebook, Google doc, Podcast version
And of course TRANS REP IN MEDIA 2023 for further evidence of where things are presently at with trans representation and the kinds of things we’re facing.
All too often when we finally do get great, much needed representation, a whole lot of cisgender heterosexual people don’t “get it.” They think it’s “bad” or “confusing” or “makes ‘em feel icky” or (fart noises). But queer stories don’t look like cishet stories, nor should they.
And the reason some cishet people get the willies from our stories is a little something called IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA.
I’m talking about how all of us have it ingrained into us in spite of our wishes (or knowledge) simply by being raised and existing within a system that is set up to BE queerphobic.
Here’s a great example for you… picture an airline pilot in your mind. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? Was it… a non-disabled cisgender heterosexual white man? Likely it was.
Even if you detest bigotry and do your best to promote equality and be an ally, that probably still happened. Especially if you’re a cishet white person. Why?
Because our society has taught you that’s what pilots look like. Even though we consciously know they can be women or trans or Black or Mexican or disabled or gay or bi. Even if you believe to your core all those people can be pilots and should be if they want to be.
Those are implicit biases. We have a whole host of them that seep into our subconscious minds without our permission, and we have to work to stop them and change our way of thinking. Implicit racism, sexism, ableism and more are very real.
Implicit biases are something we all have. When those implicit biases are about our own identifies or the marginalizations we experience, they become INTERNALIZED. See the trans tuesday on INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA, because these topics are absolutely related.
“A League of Their Own” was a show on Amazon Prime, and told a fictionalized version of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League that existed from the 1940s-1950s.
There was of course the movie of the same name released in 1992, but the big difference is the show came out thirty years later and queer acceptance is somewhat better (though really rough on the trans end).
So the new series tackled things the movie barely touched on or outright avoided and wasn’t able to address. Very specifically it deals with queerness and racism. A lot of the characters are gay or bi.
Lea Robinson, in a suit and tie, as Uncle Bert in A League of Their Own
There’s an actual trans character! Who faces a scene where a loved one calls him a “freak” that wounded my heart, but as part of the story it made sense and worked in the big picture.
As the show was coming out, before I’d even seen half of the episodes, I saw multiple cisgender heterosexual people (some who I know to be or who want to be real allies) wondering why “it had to be so queer” and that it was “forced queerness” and that’s such utter nonsense.
How many intrinsically queer shows can you name? Can you get to ten? Can you even get to five? We almost never get represented in the media, and so often when we do it’s still harmful stereotypes or worse, perpetuates tropes that enable the violence we face.
And that complaint completely erases the fact that the show was CREATED BY two queer people and told the story of this largely queer sports league that couldn’t be told before. This is a QUEER STORY being told by US and it causes some kind of disconnect in certain folks.
Why is it bad that it’s “so queer?” Why does it feel forced to you, simply because it does not center you and is not about you? To be clear there are still cisgender heterosexual characters in the show! Many of them! Is it about managing expectations? If so, why do you expect things will be cishet and center you?
Think about why that might be, and what that says about our society and also what that’s saying about queer people. Do you only expect to see us centered in shows that shout THIS IS FOR THE QUEERS?
If so, why? Why do you think that is? Why can’t a show for everyone also be for queer people? Are we not also part of “everyone?”
How many shows that shout THIS IS FOR THE QUEERS did you watch? “A League of Their Own?” “Queer as Folk?” “The L Word?” “Pose?” “Heartstopper?” Do you not watch them? Why not? Some might not be for you, but how do you know if you don’t try? A lesbian baseball show is 100% for me.
Does it make you uncomfortable when something largely ignores you? Do you understand how queer people feel for 99% of all shows? Why is it okay for us to feel that way, but not you?
Do you see the danger in implying we should only exist siloed off in explicitly queer stories? We deserve to see ourselves in sci-fi and horror and fantasy and relationship drama and family drama and kids’ entertainment and everything else.
One complaint I kept hearing was there’s no “story reason” for them to be queer, or for the one trans man to be trans but… how many things have you seen where there’s a “story reason” to be cisgender or heterosexual? Is it zero? IS IT ZERO? Of course it is.
Cisgender heterosexual characters are allowed to just exist in stories, and be people whose entire existence doesn’t need to be justified by the story. But some queer people show up and some folks shout WHY MUST THEY BE THERE?
Do you understand what this does to queer people, to hear this and think we’re not allowed to exist in a story unless there’s a specific reason for it? Which means we should just disappear and not be in media?
Never mind the reason is the real players were largely queer! Have you seen any pro women athletes? This is not news. The story’s being told by QUEER PEOPLE about QUEER HISTORY and even still some cishet folks think it just shouldn’t be a thing because it doesn’t cater to them.
D’Arcy Carden, Kate Berlant, Abbi Jacobson, and Molly Ephraim in their skirted baseball uniforms in A League of Their Own
One episode was even about the heteronormativity that the women players were forced into by the league. They had to wear makeup, couldn’t wear pants, and had to play in skirts.
There’s a whole episode about police raids on what little queer culture there was! It’s very clearly queer all the way through.
Just how queer was it? Of the main cast or recurring characters, by my count there were nine queer characters. How many cishet main or recurring characters are there? ELEVEN!
Queer people, a mix of ALL cis/trans/nonbinary people and sexualities, are not even HALF OF THE CHARACTERS of ONE SPECIFIC IDENTITY: cisgender heterosexual.
I will likely never in my life see a single show or movie that’s even close to 50% trans people, let alone the ENTIRE CAST. But nearly everything is ENTIRELY cisgender. Why? There’s no such thing as a “default” human. Other people exist. But our media doesn’t often present that.
For more on how there is, in fact, no default human, see the trans tuesday on CIS IS NOT A SLUR.
Can you even imagine a world where 99% of shows were ENTIRELY queer except for an occasional cishet person who was the butt of a joke or the victim of violence? Can you imagine a world where ALL media is like that? How would it make you feel?
Now imagine you finally get a show or two about you and your story, and you’re still not even more than half the cast, and all the queer people wonder why you have to “force your cishet-ness into things.”
And I would like to point out how there’s not many queer people in shows mostly full of cishet characters. Certainly there are no shows I can think of with mainly cishet characters where queer people make up almost half the cast, let alone outnumber them!
The result is that these cishet people who I like, who want to be allies, are out here forcing queer people like me to justify a queer show’s existence because they can’t see the implicit biases that are so very ingrained within them.
When we can’t see ourselves in media, it crushes us. We feel like we don’t belong and aren’t wanted. See the trans tuesday on BAD REPRESENTATION for more on that.
But when we DO see ourselves? It’s life-changing! Dr. Mae Jemison was inspired to become an astronaut by seeing Nichelle Nichols as Uhura in “Star Trek!”
I wrote an entire book about the trans allegories of The Matrix, which means so much to the trans community because those movies speak to us and about us in a way nothing else does. It’s almost literally all we have! Those movies have changed so many lives, for the better.
A League of Their Own even made one of the original women’s pro baseball players finally feel she could come out. She kept her truth hidden for NINETY-FIVE YEARS because of the queerphobia in society!
Co-creator Abbi Jacobson said, “She came out at 95. It’s never too late to do that. It made me feel so proud of the show that we’re telling these stories — that maybe she wouldn’t have had to wait til she was 95 if more stories had been told.”
HOW MUCH CLEARER CAN THE IMPORTANCE OF REPRESENTATION BE? Look at this article about co-creators Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson and what the show meant to them, as queer people. How can you think the show was “too queer?” How can you find it “forced” when we tell our own stories?
Graham: “This show is really the story of a generation of women who wanted to play baseball and a lot of those women were queer.
Graham: “I think queer audiences are very used to people sort of teasing them and giving some crumbs and giving a little, and this is a show that is trying to authentically tell those stories very wholly.”
This show meant SO MUCH to the queer community. Look what it meant to Black queer folks!
Look at the amazing history it’s brought to light! Go learn about Black trans people in history!
@IWBC4Me on twitter writes: @LeagueOnPrime ‘s Uncle Bert has recommended Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity to better understand Black trans lives of the time. #ALeagueOfTheirOwn #APleaceOfTheirOwn #FindYourTeam #Resources #StepUpToTheSport
Search the #ALOTO, #ALeageOfTheirOwn, #LeagueOfTheirOwn hashtags, still going strong over a year later, and absorb just what this one show meant to so many queer people. How can you deny the importance of this kind of representation?
To Will Graham, Abbi Jacobsen, the writers, cast, & crew, thank you for giving us something so wonderful that means so much to so many, and for saying trans people exist in that world. I’m so sad we’ll never get any more of it. I’m so sad I’ll never get the chance to write for it.
I get it, implicit biases are hard to wake up from. But if you don’t try, if you don’t DO THE WORK to celebrate marginalized voices telling our own stories, if you wonder why our stories don’t center you (even when you’re still heavily featured!) you’re not being a true ally.
In fact, if you want to actively make things better for us, take the initiative and hire more trans people (in this case, specifically trans writers). Staff us on your shows. Include trans characters in your shows. Help us get our stories told. See the trans tuesday on PROACTIVE ALLYSHIP (be an accomplice).
We deserve to see ourselves in media. Queer people need to be the ones telling our stories. And you need to be okay with them not being about you. Please help us get there.
That’s the only way things get better.
For all of us.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com