I am hereby endlessly aggravated that Jeffrey Tambor has been awarded an Emmy for playing a trans role. As someone on Twitter just said,

mcc @mcclure111 1h1 hour ago
Being trans & hearing about Transparent doing well at the emmys is sort of a moment of "wow, transgenderism sure is doing great without us"

Trans people aren't allowed to play trans roles. Certainly not sympathetic or positive trans roles. Laverne Cox on OITNB is an exception; pretty much the ONLY exception. Trans people playing trans people are almost exclusively trans women of color who get cast as some combination of any of the following: prostitutes, drug addicts, HIV+/AIDS-infected people, criminals, or plot devices intended to be either 1) objects of spectacle 2) something to humiliate a cis male character with 3) cheap laughs fueled by bigotry.

When the role is sympathetic or positive, it is played by a cis person -- typically white -- who does not identify with the gender of the role. See: Jeffrey Tambor, Eddie Redmayne, Jared Leto, Hilary Swank, and Elle Fanning. The only exception I know of is Chloë Sevigny, who played a trans woman in an incredibly problematically-themed British-produced series about a hired killer who murders people to fund her gender confirmation surgery. However, I do think that she is the only cis person who has actually felt physically uncomfortable in a trans role (due to prosthetic props) and thereby is the only cis actor who has come close to comprehending dysphoria through empathy for the trans community.

That all said, the problem exemplified here is that trans people aren't allowed to tell trans stories. Only white cis people are. So not only are we trampled on in pretty much every conceivable way when it comes to civil rights, health care, and social justice, but we are not even allowed to represent ourselves in media and, indeed, are pretty much never tapped to play roles, trans or otherwise, that are positive. I am pretty certain I can say with accuracy that none of the above roles had directors or casting directors who contacted any trans actors; I know that the roles Redmayne and Fanning are playing did not have any trans actors sought for audition.

Fuck the system, burn it down, and stop giving cis people butt pats for how good and brave they are for taking on trans roles. Instead, do something radical -- actually give them to trans people.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a screed about the phenomenon that has been dubbed "transface." I hope you have enjoyed your education.