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Oh dear. I doubt this will go well.
I wonder if they will get a woman to play his female counterpart???
Watch all the stereotypical media portrayal of a trans person.
I would rather they hire a trans person to play a character in the show, instead of making being trans THE STORY.
the soaps fall over each other to get colourful characters into their plotlines. its just for amusement value. it means nothing
I agree with Helen, it seems to me that producers have neither the balls or the brains to do this
Good grief I image it will be the Trans equivalent of that camp clichéd queen that works in the pub
Didn’t Jack Duckworth play a female bowls player?
Christ, some of you are just never happy. Give it a chance before you start writing its bloody epitaph. If it isn’t up-to-scratch, we can have a discussion about it. Until then, I am pleased this step has been taken and will be watching to see how it pans out.
Helen, yet again, stop playing the hysterical harbinger of doom. You’ve obviously got beef with it not being a trans actor, so why don’t you write to Corrie and propose that you play the role. Although, as you are transgender (from what I understand of your posts), you are therefore not a cross-dresser. Which would prohibit you from playing the role on the basis of your assumptions about who ‘should’ portray the character. Right?
It’s just acting, let’s not specify who can play what roles – it isn’t actually real. Unless you want to see gay people banned from playing straight roles Holywood style, that is.
I always thought that it was pretty dishonest that they cast an actress as Hayley.
@ Joe – do you mean a cis actress?
I think a lot of people would be happy with trans stuff on a soap to add a bit of colour or whatever, but that doesn’t equate to tolerance in real life. It does nothing to diminish their status as a something to laugh at.
I’m not sure why there is criticism just yet about how poorly this will be done. I’m no expert, for sure, but I do remember an interview with Eddie Izzard where he explained that cross dressers are not (necessarily) transgender. There may be overlap, but they are different identities.
“Cross-dressing… can be seen as a type of transgender behavior. It does not, however, necessarily indicate transgender identity; a person who cross-dresses does not always identify as being of the opposite gender.” (Wikipedia)
So, if that is the case, Corrie is adding a cross dressing character to a cast that already has a trans character and gay characters. Not seeing how any of this is a bad thing overall.
Roy and Hayley are great but this is a bloody transvestite (transperson in denial) Such a shame.
@Sally I mean the part should have gone to either a genuine transsexual (male to female) or a man.
Sounds hilarious
@ Joe – OK, just as long as you’re aware that a trans woman playing the part would also be an actress :)
Personally, if we’re having cis people playing trans women’s parts, I’d have thought that a cis woman would be a more appropriate (and less *appropriative*) choice than a cis man would be.
Obviously, that applies to the case of Hayley, but not here – a male-identified cross-dresser is likely best played by a man.
proudtrans,
You should get a job with Melanie Phillips, you are about as bigoted.
Yes – I prefer that older beginning sequence too. The new one hurts my eyes.
Good on them. Crossdressers get treated like jokes from even people within the LGBT community, so it would be nice to get some more positive portrayals out there.
Although I don’t currently crossdress, I intend to in future, just for fun. Androgyny and “gender-bending” (that is, bending cultural norms regarding gender) are very important to me.
Being bisexual, it just tends to appeal to me to see gender as a spectrum rather than a binary. I’m not saying all bisexuals feel that way – some like their genders clearly defined, and fair play to them – but that’s how I’ve always felt.
@ Sally Male and female players are both referred to as ‘Actors’ – actress is a term rejected by many women in the profession.
A male-born actor is the only performer who should be cast in a realistic depiction of a trans male-to-female. I have never known a transitioned male-to-female to be remotely mistakable for a born woman and a realistic drama would have to reflect this.
The Hayley character is a male-to-female transition played by a born woman, which inaccurately reflects the ways in which such a character would look or carry themselves in reality.
@ Joe
I’m aware that many people reject the term ‘actress’. I noticed, however, that *you* don’t – you used the term in your first comment, which implicitly excluded trans women from that category. Personally, I’m fine with people reclaiming the term ‘actress’, or just using ‘actor’ (or even the very rarely used ‘acter’) to refer to performers of any gender, but I just feel it’s worth being consistent in whatever approach you take.
I feel that your sentiments regarding trans women’s ability to be ‘mistaken’ for ‘born’ women (ugh, cissexist terminology!) only suggest that you haven’t known many trans women.
Also, I believe that a cis woman is more likely to provide an informed and sympathetic portayal of a trans woman’s experiences than a cis man is – to paraphrase a common feminist maxim, if you really want to understand gendered oppression, you probably need to be a woman.
On top of that, a cis woman would only be appropriating a trans woman’s transness; a cis man would be appropriating the character’s transness *and* her womanhood – and that’s more problematic.
Actually Joe, if you’re the commenter I think you are, I’m not interested in having this discussion with you. Whether you’re deliberately baiting trans-related threads or just tactless, you’d probably do best to have a browse here – http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/ – rather than taxing my free time and sense of mental wellbeing.
@ Sally – if your sense of mental wellbeing is so fragile, you’d be best advised to stay off of internet comments sections in general. As for your own involvement in answering me, you can always ignore my comments. It’s not a 2-way discussion between you and I, is it?
A male-born actor is most likely to encourage the public to understand that a so-called transwoman is a man with surgical alterations. It is the scriptwriter’s job to make sure the actor has the right words and actions to convey “an informed and sympathetic portayal”; what casting can offer is photorealism.
@joe,
Have you ever met Dana International, I have and I would defy anyone who did not know her to even have an inkling that she was not female born.
I would suggest that she is not alone in the world. (remember the lady who fooled us all in the Smirnoff ad many years ago).
So there is scope for either sex to act (for that’s what it is) in either transfer.
Of course the article says cross dresser, so may not be a transsexual at all, who knows?
“Have you ever met Dana International, I have and I would defy anyone who did not know her to even have an inkling that she was not female born.”
I have not met DI but have seen pictures and watched television performances; it’s clear from a casual glance that it’s a fella.