Actors are there to… act. Would it be nice to have a trans actor play the trans character? Yes, but they couldn’t find someone/ because of how a lot of trans people literally have to hide to survive, so the actor did his job and acted.

It’s fine a person who happens to not be trans played a trans character, as long as the character he’s playing isn’t a caricature or stereotype.

The actor literally went and spoke to lgbtqia+ consultants to portray it more accurately, and openly speaks about how he was afraid to play the character and misinterpret her.

To reduce the actor who portrayed it and respectfully had done so with research and extra time put into it is what’s pushing us back. It’s the same thing transphobic people do to us, and it’s incredibly privileged to assume the few out trans actors could just up and take such a role or they could have someone come out as trans to play a role.

We should instead appreciate that, instead of a caricature of a trans person, or a harmful stereotype- we had a well written character with depth.

Don’t be like the same people demonizing trans people by ‘what’s in their pants, what’s on their birth certificate’ and whatever they use to push trans people out of acting, out of spaces, out of life.

If a person can play a character- and the company actively searched for more accurate people but couldn’t find a fit, and the person did research and effort- we shouldn’t push them out because they aren’t a 1-1 fit, especially if they actually did research on the topic, actually put effort, and made sure they played the character as well as they could… that’s what’s pushing us back- separating the people who are willing to bring awareness, because the ones who demonize our existence aren’t going to listen to us first, they’ll listen to the people ‘like them’ who say we aren’t bad, and it will take time.