Pinks and blues overwhelmed the Sunset Boulevard stretch outside Netflix on Thursday, as the “Trans Takeover” picket drew at least 200 writers and allies to raise concerns about trans labor and how the community is portrayed in pop culture.
“Trans people are also workers. We stand in solidarity with the labor movement around the world and we show ourselves in ways we often don’t get portrayed,” said writer Jacob Tobia, whose credits include the Showtime pilot “Sissy.” “Strikes are times when you redefine who is at the table, and we want to make sure we send a really strong message to the world that we are now at the table and want to stay at the table.”
Tobia and others noted that the hostile response to LGBT rights, particularly for trans and non-binary people, in states like Texas and Tennessee has resulted from a number of TV series and movies targeting this marginalized but emerging community .
“Hollywood put us on a pedestal and then kind of let us down, honestly. If you want to be with us, you have to be with us. You can’t just put us in a few TV shows and then when the going gets tough and people pay attention, stop green-lighting our projects,” Tobia said. “You have to commit to us as a community and show that you really care about our dignity, our lives and our economic vitality.”
Sydney Baloue, whose credits include the CW series “Tom Swift,” stressed that representation matters when trans stories are told in mainstream media.
“You would never have a white showrunner make a black show without black writers and then hire a token black person and say, ‘Hey, can you give us the go-ahead for this black story,'” Baloue said. “Why do cisgender showrunners do that to trans and non-binary writers? We have the right to tell our own stories.”
Baloue said it’s dazzling to study the arenas where trans characters have been welcomed and where not.
“We don’t have a trans or non-binary ‘Will and Grace’. We’re not into sitcoms. We’ve even yet to have a real trans movie star,’ Baloue said. “We want to write those roles for those people. This is a civil rights movement of our generation.”
Jen Richards, an actor who has appeared in AMC’s “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches” and FX’s “Better Things,” said she still feels that many jobs go to transgender people in Hollywood to fulfill a diversity and inclusion mandate. laps.
“Sometimes it feels like they give us just enough work so they can pat themselves on the back and feel good about diversity, but never actually air our shows,” Richards said. “There are a lot of trans and non-binary youth these days. They are future audiences and we want to give those audiences proof that gender can be a realm of expression, play, creativity and joy instead of fear and disgust.”
In addition, Richards and others said it’s important for trans creatives to spread their wings beyond LGBT-centered stories.
“We all got into this industry because we are storytellers and have broad human experience,” said Richards. “And we are often reduced to that one aspect of our identity, when there is so much more we can do.”
Netflix was targeted by the Trans Takeover picket in part because the streamer sparked controversy in 2021 with comments made by comedian Dave Chappelle on the stand-up special “The Closer” that were widely interpreted as anti-trans and transphobic.