Portside Date: October 9, 2016

Author: Nico Lang

Date of source: September 15, 2016

Esquire

At last Sunday's Creative Arts Emmys, Her Story became the first show produced, written by, and starring trans people to have its name called onstage.

Available to stream for free on YouTube, the web series was nominated in the Short Form Comedy or Drama Series alongside such programs as Adult Swim's Children's Hospital, Comedy Central's Hack Into Broad City, and AMC's Fear The Walking Dead: Flight 462. Whereas each of those nominees had network backing, Her Story is squarely indie. Funded by an Indiegogo campaign, where donors often gave as little as $1, the show was produced on a shoestring budget of $100,000. The stars thought Her Story would be something only a handful of their friends saw.

Although the award went to Children's Hospital, Her Story is breaking important ground in how trans narratives are portrayed onscreen. Even with the progress made by shows such as Orange is the New Black and Sense8, it's still rare to see trans characters depicted as fully formed human beings deserving of respect, love, and intimacy. It's even more rare to see them played by trans actors.

By allowing trans women the chance to see their lives and struggles represented on television, Her Story is showing Hollywood how to do better.

It's still rare to see trans characters depicted as fully formed human beings deserving of respect, love, and intimacy. It's even more rare to see them played by trans actors.

Jen Richards and Laura Zak, who co-wrote and co-star in Her Story, met for the first time on Hashtag, a webseries about two queer best friends looking for love in the time of Instagram. Richards, a trans activist and writer, had a brief cameo in the show as a coquettish waitress who catches the eye of Liv (Zak). The two actresses had such a natural, relaxed rapport that they knew instantly they wanted to explore that connection in another series.

"It's really important to have the chemistry between be really evident to the audience," Zak says. "It implicates the viewer in rooting for these two people."

That's crucial in the case of Her Story because the show deals with a subject that's rare in media depictions of transgender people—their love lives. It wasn't until Transparent's second season to give Maura Pfefferman (Jeffrey Tambor) a romantic interest, one played by Oscar winner Anjelica Huston. Although Sophia Burset (Laverne Cox) is technically married on Orange Is the New Black, she and her wife have been estranged since Sophia's imprisonment.

In Her Story, Zak plays Allie, a Los Angeles journalist who decides to do an article on how transgender people date in the LGBT community. Allie frequents the bar where Violet (Richards) works and asks her friend, Lisa (Caroline Whitney Smith), how to approach her about the story. "What's a polite way to ask what someone is?" Allie asks. Violet initially declines to be interviewed but accepts Allie's invitation to lunch, where the two women bond over a shared interest in the classics and Game of Thrones. Their connection is so palpable that over the show's six-episode run, it's agonizing waiting for the characters to finally kiss already.

Their plotline is contrasted with Paige (Angelica Ross), a civil rights lawyer who works for Lambda Legal and happens to be Violet's best friend. Paige meets James (Christian Ochoa) in a café after he makes eyes at her. Paige, who was kicked out of her home at a young age after she came out as trans, attempts to tell him about her gender identity during a romantic dinner. She can't, however, bring herself to ruin the moment and risk him walking away.

According to Ross, that scene was extremely difficult to film, so much so that the writers had to cut a line because it was too raw. In the original draft, Paige explains to Violet why she froze up: "I just wanted to be a girl on a date." Ross recalls, "I had to say that line so many times, and by the fifth or sixth time I said it, I broke down crying."

For many trans viewers, Her Story plays close to the bone. On their first date, Allie asks if Violet was gay before her transition. "I actually dated women," Violet says. When Allie asks what made her change her mind about her sexuality, Violet explains that it's not a matter of sexual preference; being around cisgender women makes her self-conscious, whether it's about her voice and the size of her hands. "When I'm with a man, I have no doubt about my womanhood," Violet adds. "My body next to theirs is so obviously feminine."

These moments, which are scattered throughout Her Story, are small but revelatory, illustrating just how different the show is from other programs on the subject of trans lives. It registers as powerfully authentic—with scenes and bits of dialogue that feel pulled from lived experience. When Allie worries that liking Violet makes her less queer, her friend, Kat (Fawzia Mirza), is a voice of reason. "Last time I checked, being a lesbian means loving women," Kat says. "So what's the problem?" While Zak obviously doesn't share her character's limited perspective of trans identities, it's likely many LGBT viewers know someone who does.

That authenticity is by design. Nearly every member of the show's cast and crew was female, trans, or a person of color, which was necessary to tell the stories of marginalized groups. "Authenticity means that it's created by the people it's about," argues Mirza. "If it's not created by the people it's about, it's cast with the people it's about."

Authenticity means that it's created by the people it's about.

As an example, Mirza brings up The Night Of, the recent HBO miniseries starring John Turturro and Riz Ahmed. In the acclaimed crime drama, Ahmed appears as Nasir, a Pakistani college student accused of murdering a young woman. His father is played by Peyman Moaadi, an actor with a noticeably different accent than the nationality he's supposed to be playing.

"To those in the know, it's completely Iranian," Mirza says, who is Muslim and Pakistani. "What that means is that they hired someone who is Iranian, who has an Iranian accent, and they decided that is good enough. It may feel like it's harder to cast because you have a smaller pool of people to pick from, and maybe you don't to have the person in your head when you were thinking about this, but the people are out there. You just have to work harder to see them. That's the pivot point that has been missing between Hollywood and reality—not wanting to work harder."

Mirza says that a Pakistani actor she knows went in for the role and was turned down. He was told that he didn't "authentically fit this Pakistani family." "That doesn't feel right to me," she laments.

Actors Laura Zak and Angelica Ross on set the set of 'Her Story' with Director of Cinematography Bérénice Eveno and Director Sydney Freeland

This sort of thing has been happening to trans actors for decades. When Sidney Lumet was making Dog Day Afternoon, Elizabeth Coffey went out for the role of Leon Shermer. Leon is a trans woman whose costly surgeries impel her boyfriend, Sonny (Al Pacino), to rob banks in order to raise money for her transition. Coffey, a pioneering trans actress who appeared in John Waters' Female Trouble and Pink Flamingos, was told she was "too female" for the part. Chris Sarandon was cast instead. He would be nominated for an Oscar for the performance.

"This was 40 years ago," Richards says. "For 40 years now, trans women have been told they don't look trans enough to play trans women. Those roles then go to cisgender men—who get awards for it."

For 40 years now, trans women have been told they don't look trans enough to play trans women. Those roles then go to cisgender men—who get awards for it.

This issue has become a particular flashpoint of discussion in recent years after Jared Leto won an Oscar in 2014 for Dallas Buyer's Club. Leto played Rayon, a transgender woman dying of HIV during the height of the 1980s AIDS crisis. The character's tragic death is used as a plot point to teach the film's transphobic male lead (Matthew McConaughey, also awarded an Oscar) about the value of tolerance. Eddie Redmayne would be nominated two years later for The Danish Girl, in which he starred as Lili Elbe, the first transgender woman to attempt gender confirmation surgery in 1931.

That pursuit of awards glory also led to the casting of Matt Bomer in Anything, a Mark Ruffalo-produced drama about a man who falls in love with a trans woman. Richards was vocal on Twitter in criticizing the production. "I auditioned for this," she tweeted. "I told them they shouldn't have a cis man play a trans woman. They didn't care."

Richards would get a response from Ruffalo, who was apologetic, but her disappointment in the production wasn't strictly personal. She believes that continuing to portray trans women as "men in dresses" is unfortunately linked to violence.

"They're exacerbating an issue that hurts us," Richards adds. "That's my point in all this. When a cisgender man plays a trans woman, it's telling the world that trans women are really men—and that has very serious consequences. Trans people, particularly sex workers and trans women of color, face unbearable systemic violence, and most of [this violence is] rooted in thinking trans women are really men. This is less about art to me, and it's more about saving lives."

When a cisgender man plays a trans woman, it's telling the world that trans women are really men—and that has very serious consequences.

Last year, more than 20 trans people were killed across the U.S., a majority of whom were women of color.

While it's not ideal, Ross says that having cisgender women play trans roles, like Felicity Huffman in Transamerica or Kerry Washington in Life Is Hot in Cracktown, would keep viewers from associating trans women with men—and help reduce dangerous stigma. "The core [of these characters] is still female," she argues.

Richards co-wrote Her Story to give trans actors the opportunities they have so often been denied, but she also explained that it was a form of therapy. "So much of our marginalization is rooted in feeling like we don't belong, being told by the world that we're monsters, and then internalizing that," she says. "I created what I needed to see in order to heal. I needed to see myself as redeemable, as someone who could be loved and someone who has hope. Writing is an act of salvation."

In her 2007 book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, author Julia Serano writes that trans women are commonly portrayed as "pathetic or deceptive." These are characters the audience is meant to pity or who serve to "trick" the male lead into sex. As Richards suggests, trans women are just as often portrayed as disgusting—hideous objects of revulsion. When Fergus (Stephen Rea) discovers that his girlfriend, Dil (Jaye Davidson), is transgender in The Crying Game, the scene is something out of a horror film. Fergus pulls away in shock, running to the bathroom to vomit in the sink. A similar reveal in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective elicits the same results, as does one in the '80s cult classic Soapdish.

I would see trans women as these disposable characters who exist to cause some kind of crisis in the male lead's life, and I would think: 'Oh, but what's her story?' It's always about the man and his reaction.

If Her Story upends those tropes, its mission is right in the title.

When watching these scenes unfold, Richards would wonder what films like The Crying Game would look like if the perspective were switched—and the story were told from the viewpoint of the marginalized character. "I would see trans women as these disposable characters who exist to cause some kind of crisis in the male lead's life, and I would think: 'Oh, but what's her story?'" Richards says. "It's always about the man and his reaction."

By flipping the script, Her Story is rewriting the rules of how television is produced and who is allowed to create it. But in doing so, the show illustrates how universal their stories of love and heartache truly are. After finishing her piece on trans dating, Allie details her findings via voiceover narration. "I now see that our great disservice is not just to those we have excluded but to ourselves," she says. "For our world is less rich without their stories, their laughter, and their voices. It's less that the world has changed for trans people than that we are seeing them as people."

That conclusion seems simple, but it's at least 40 years overdue.