Stereotypes Of Trans Women

When it comes to representing other people, artists inevitably create biased work since we all have pre-existing notions about people, whether we’re aware of them or not. This can make it difficult to create responsible works of art; because these preconceived ideas often feel so natural to have, it’s hard to examine our own biases. We assume certain kinds of people are the default, such as cisgendered people, or we place values on our characters that aren’t universal. There are art works are made under the assumption that women should be a certain way. Subjectivity isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if left unquestioned, it can perpetuate harmful ideas about people in the real world, due to the mimetic and subjective nature of art.

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When it comes to the portrayal of trans people in movies and television shows, the role of trans character are often played by a non-trans, cisgender actor. The Danish Girl, where Eddie Redmayne plays Lili is just one example of many (Macnab). One of the critiques is how having a cisgender actor take on the role of a trans woman perpetuates this idea that a trans woman is really just a man (Maestas). This biased perception has real world consequences, which can be seen in the debate of whether trans women should be allowed to use female washrooms. Some people believe they don’t belong there and due to this, trans people are often met with harassment and violence when they use public washrooms (Herman). It is by creating this notion that trans-women are actually just men that helps exclude them from spaces which should be safe for all

What other false defaults do we assume on a regular basis? According to Aristotle, with art there is an act of comparison; we base our portrayals of people on the things we already know and even if we’re not directly basing a character on a pre-existing person or group of people, there is this act of comparison. This is part of why the way we represent people reveals a lot about our