a&e features
Trans actors face casting challenges despite milestones
Directors ‘did not know what to do with me’
Actor Elliot Page came out as transgender in December and Netflix admirably affirmed his name and pronouns on past and current work, but local gender-diverse performers still struggle against cisgender and heteronormative casting expectations.
“There’s still a cis-het person sitting behind the [casting] table,” Samy Nour Younes Figaredo told the Washington Blade during a discussion about his experiences as a gay trans male actor who identifies as nonbinary. “Even in 2018, I had been on an audition, and I had that I was trans on my resume, and I could hear people behind the table whispering, ‘What am I supposed to do with that?’ even as I am walking in.”
Baltimore-area actor and firefighter Alicia Horton, also found herself stuck hiding her developing breasts and wearing “a really funky wig” early in her transition in order to find work auditioning for cis-male roles.
“I had to audition for ‘Dream Girls’ my junior year of college in 2011,” Horton said while soothing her dog Zuko, a pit bull mix she rescued from a shelter in August. “I was on hormones and my hair was super long and they put it in a really funky wig to try to make me look more masculine. The girls showed me how to pin-curl my hair so it would fit under the wig. I wish I had a picture of it — it just looked so bad.”
Despite the visibility and growing support for award-winning nonbinary and transgender performers, including Sam Smith and Eddie Izzard to name two, Figaredo and Horton are not alone in their challenges finding affirming work and building careers since coming out.
A landmark 2013 survey of more than 5,000 Screen Actors Guild members found that while 80 percent of respondents agreed transgender actors should be considered for cisgender roles, the industry’s “economic imperative” to reach a “broad market” could “create potential risks for casting LGBT actors in roles that the viewing public may not accept.”
However, SAG-AFTRA also notes public and industry support for gender diverse actors has been steadily increasing in the past eight years.
“The last few years have seen a growing acceptance of trans and non-binary actors accompanied by open discussions of the challenges they may still face,” a representative told the Blade in an email. “The encouraging response to ‘The Umbrella Academy’s’ transgender star, Elliot Page, including a supportive statement from Netflix, is a sign of the industry moving in the right direction.”
Still, Figaredo says he’s had little success with television casting auditions since transitioning in 2010.
Figaredo is a Lebanese-Puerto Rican actor and a queer person of color activist who now lives and works in New York City, though he got his start in the D.C. area. He is an experienced stage performer who had a brief role on Amazon’s “Transparent” and appeared with his partner in Citibank’s trans-inclusive ad campaign.
He said a major problem for him, as an out transgender actor who includes his gender identity and his proper pronouns on his resume, is not only does he have to convince casting personnel that he is an experienced professional, but “that I am a person” as well.
“People did not know what to do with me or how to cast me,” Figaredo said. “Casting directors adhere to types, based on a preconceived conception of the role when the gender doesn’t necessarily have to do with the story.”
Figaredo, who did community theater work early on, found himself cast in a lot of female roles “when people didn’t know how to address me or assumed I was a boyish woman,” including the role of “Juliet” in a University of Maryland production of Shakespeare’s play.
Though that director who cross-gender cast him later became his friend, he said the experience was less than affirming, unlike his experience on the set of “Transparent,” which he said had many transgender people on and off-camera.
Figaredo was cast as an Arab-American activist during an episode set in Israel. While the role was male, whether it was cis or trans didn’t matter to the storyline, so Figaredo played it as trans. He said the racial, cultural, sexual and gender diversity of those working both on and off-camera encouraged an open and authentic environment that elicited better on-screen performances.
“A major plot point changed because a member of the crew had an experience with being queer in Palestine and related to the cast,” Figaredo said. “Someone rewrote a character to be in that situation.”
Figaredo emphasized the importance of normalizing people’s differences and fostering an open culture in the entertainment industry “where people feel empowered and accept the diversity around them.”
He said he said he has experienced “major strides” in trans casting in the past two years particularly, and noted the Citibank ad campaign he was a part of.
“Citibank unrolled an ad campaign of trans people and couples due to their preferred name campaign,” he said. “I was cast with my partner who identifies as cis-male and uses he/him pronouns.”
Figaredo and Horton said it is important to have more transgender people working both on stage and behind the scenes and to have more trans stories told. This is so more trans actors can find authentic and affirming work.
Horton, who holds a bachelor’s of fine arts degree in dance from Towson University, said she auditioned as a “male” early in her career, despite experiencing physical changes that had to be awkwardly concealed for performances, because that was the only way she could find work.
But last year she was hand-picked for a role in a production about Andy Warhol because she identified as a trans woman. She said this should happen more often.
“I think we need to have more trans stories,” she said. “More diverse trans stories. We see the sex workers and how he or she feels so terrible and about being born in the wrong body, but what else is there? Can we get a love story or something where being trans is the least important part of the story?”
Horton said she and her friends who are trans women often laugh and joke with each other that they could make a good ensemble TV show cast with their diversity of experiences and backgrounds. She is hopeful to see such stories in the future.
“As we have more trans visibility, we’ll have more trans storytellers,” she said.
Figaredo also said that things change fast and “that bodes well for the future of trans people in Hollywood.”
In December, Gottmik, a high-femme drag artist, was announced as the first transmasculine contestant on season 13 of RuPaul’s ‘Drag Race,’ and follows season 9’s Peppermint, a trans woman and the first transgender performer cast.
Figaredo said he looks forward to more diversity in trans representation as the industry grows and becomes more inclusive.
Still, the SAG-AFTRA study concluded despite ongoing positive change, which includes a growing acceptance for LGBTQ performers, the survey results suggest “additional work needs to be done to address discrimination and harrassment,” which keeps many from using their talents to enrich the industry and the culture as a whole.
a&e features
Full-spectrum funny: an interview with Randy Rainbow
New book ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’ delivers the laughs
Can we all agree that there’s nothing worse than reading a book by a humorist and not laughing? Not even once. Fear not, as gay humorist and performer Randy Rainbow more than exceeded my expectations, as he will yours, with his hilarious new book “Low-Hanging Fruit” (St. Martin’s Press, 2024). If you loved his 2022 memoir “Playing With Myself,” you’ll find as much, if not more to love in the new book. His trademark sense of humor from his videos, transfers with ease to the page in the essays. There are multiple laugh-out-loud moments throughout the two-dozen essays. Always a delight to talk to, Randy made time for an interview shortly before the publication of the book.
BLADE: I want to begin by apologizing for putting you on speakerphone so I can get this interview recorded, because I know you are not fond of it as you pointed out in the “And While We’re On the Subject…” essay in your new book.
RANDY RAINBOW: [Laughs] Thank you for paying attention. But yours is a good speakerphone. I would not have known.
BLADE: Your first book, “Playing With Myself,” was a memoir and the new book, “Low-Hanging Fruit,” is a humorous essay collection. Did it feel like you were exercising different writing muscles than you did for the first book – essays versus memoir?
RAINBOW: It did a little bit. I think I had a little more fun writing this book. Save for the fact that I was shlepping around on tour as I also make well known in the book. That wasn’t fun. To not have the, I hate to say burden, but the responsibility of doing a chronological memoir, really getting everything right and then telling your story. I felt like I was just free to shoot the shit and have a little fun.
BLADE: Were these essays written in one creative burst or over the course of years?
RAINBOW: Over the course of a few months. The second half of my tour is when I started doing it. So, probably about five to six months.
BLADE: The first essay “Letter of Resignation” reminded me of Fran Lebowitz…
RAINBOW: I’m so glad.
BLADE: And then, lo and behold, you name-check Fran in the second essay “Gurl, You’re A Karen.” Do you consider her to be an influence on your work?
RAINBOW: Not directly. I’m a fan of hers. But I just feel sympatico with her for all the obvious reasons. I have a problem with everything [laughs] and being able to be funny and creative about it in this book was very cathartic, I felt.
BLADE: Something similar occurred when I was reading the essay “I Feel Bad About My Balls,” which recalled another humor essayist — Nora Ephron, whom you mention at the conclusion of the piece. Is she an influence?
RAINBOW: Again, a fan. I wouldn’t say she ever directly influenced me although I guess since becoming an author myself, I read all of her books, so I love her. But not a direct influence. I think I listened to her audiobook of “I Feel Bad About My Neck” and that’s what inspired that chapter.
BLADE: Do you know if Jacob Elordi is aware of his presence in the book?
RAINBOW:I would assume that word has gotten back to him. This is gonna make him!
BLADE: In “Rider? I Hardly Know Her,” you wrote about being on tour as you are about to, once again, embark on a tour throughout October. Do you consider this more of a book tour, as opposed to one of your stage tours?
RAINBOW: It absolutely is. The way it worked out was I’m doing two of my concert shows in Palm Desert. I start my book events here with Harvey Fierstein in New York and then fly to the West Coast and do two musical concerts and then I embark on the rest of my book tour as I make my way back to New York. In that regard, it’s a little less nauseating … taxing.
Yes, although I just finished an eight-month tour. I’ve only had the summer off, and I find myself having to remind myself, “You’re just going for a week, going for a week, and then you come home, and that’s it. I have PTSD from all that travel. I’m not built for it.
BLADE: I’m based in Fort Lauderdale. Are there additional dates in the works, including one in your former home of South Florida?
RAINBOW: That’s where I’m from! That’s where my mother is still located.
BLADE: Yes, we saw you here at the Broward Center, and your mom was there.
RAINBOW: That’s right! No South Florida dates for this tour, but there’s always next year. We’re already planning a few strategically placed tour dates for summer and fall of next year. I’ll definitely be in Florida then, but you’ll have to wait for it.
BLADE: “Notes From A Litter Box,” written in the voice of your cat Tippi, made me wonder if you’d agree that there has never been a better time than now to be a childless cat person.
RAINBOW: Isn’t it funny? That was the least political chapter in the book, the least controversial chapter, and now it’s all anyone’s talking about. It’s our time! What with Taylor Swift and everything, it’s terrific. I wrote that long before all of this J.D. Vance nonsense, but it certainly has put some wind in our sails. And Tippi’s! Who heard her name and she’s looking for treats. Here you go, dear. In the audiobook, the great actress Pamela Adlon voices Tippi.
BLADE: Could you foresee writing a children’s book about Tippi?
RAINBOW: Well, what can I say? I don’t know how much I’m at liberty to discuss. Fuck it, I’ll discuss it! I did write a children’s book, and I’m saying it to whoever asks me. It comes out next year, and that’s actually what we’re planning the tour around, when it comes out around Pride next year. I won’t get into exactly what it’s about, but I will be revealing that very soon. And Tippi is a major character in it.
BLADE: Fantastic! As a 10-year resident of Fort Lauderdale, I especially enjoyed your mother’s takedown of DeSantis in “Ladies and Gentlemen…My Mother (the Sequel).” I take it she didn’t need any prodding from you.
RAINBOW: No. No, she did not. I actually asked her ahead of time – we did a little pre-interview like it was “The Tonight Show” – and I asked her about her topics, so she had her DeSantis material all laid out.
BLADE: Would you please tell my husband Rick there’s a right way to load the dishwasher? He won’t listen to me, but he’ll definitely listen to you.
RAINBOW: I, sadly, do not have a husband, so that is one example that I don’t actually have specifics on. How does he do it?
BLADE: Just wrong!
RAINBOW: Wrong for you.
BLADE: For example, the silverware is just pell-mell in the rack, instead of being grouped, spoons with spoons, forks with forks, and so on.
RAINBOW: He’s not putting mugs or glassware on the bottom, is he?
BLADE: No, not at all. But the plates should go in the same direction, right?
RAINBOW: Absolutely, yes.
BLADE: Thank you!
RAINBOW: I would get rid of him [laughs].
BLADE: “Low-Hanging Fruit” arrives in advance of Election Day 2024 and includes the “Randy Rainbow For President” and “My Gay Agenda” essays, along with running political commentary, as well as a dig at “Donald Jessica Trump” which you say you couldn’t resist. All kidding aside, please share your thoughts on the 2024 election.
RAINBOW: Oh God, kidding aside? How dare you! I have no thoughts that are not kidding because I have to kid to keep my sanity. It’s literally insane. I’ve left my body over it. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to expect. I try to be positive, but I don’t know what that means anymore. I cannot wait for it to be fucking over!
BLADE: Finally, when it comes to “hot tea,” which you write about in the essay “Do I Hear A Schmaltz?”, may I also recommend Harney & Sons’ “Victorian London Fog?” I’m savoring it as we speak.
RAINBOW: Good one! Thank you! I’m very into Harney and Sons now. I have just a few from their catalog, but that’s the next one I’ll try.
a&e features
Author of new book empowers Black ‘fat’ femme voices
After suicidal thoughts, attacks from far right, a roadmap to happiness
In 2017, Jon Paul was suicidal. In nearly every place Paul encountered, there were signs that consistently reminded the transgender community that their presence in America by the far right is unwelcomed.
Former President Donald Trump’s anti-trans rhetoric is “partly” responsible for Paul’s suicidal contemplation.
“I’m driving out of work, and I’m seeing all of these Trump flags that are telling me that I could potentially lose my life over just being me and wanting to be who I am,” Paul said. “So, were they explicitly the issue? No, but did they add to it? I highly would say yes.”
During Trump’s time as president, he often disapproved of those who identified as transgender in America; the former president imposed a ban on transgender individuals who wanted to join the U.S. military.
“If the world keeps telling me that I don’t have a reason for me to be here and the world is going to keep shaming me for being here. Then why live?” Paul added.
The rhetoric hasn’t slowed and has been a messaging tool Trump uses to galvanize his base by saying that Democrats like Vice President Kamala Harris “want to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.” Trump made that claim at the presidential debate against Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Not only do Trump’s actions hurt Paul, but they also affect 17-year-old Jacie Michelleé, a transgender person at Friendly Senior High School.
“When former President Donald J. Trump speaks on transgender [individuals] in a negative light, it saddens my heart and makes me wonder what he thinks his personal gain is from making these comments will be,” Michelleé said.
“When these comments are made toward trans immigrants or the transgender community, it baffles me because it shows me that the times are changing and not for the better,” Michelleé added.
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation responded to Trump’s rhetoric that opposes the transgender community and how it affects democracy through programming at its Annual Legislative Conference in Washington.
“Our agendas are not set by what other groups are saying we should or shouldn’t do. It is set by our communities and what we know the needs and the most pressing needs are for the Black community, and we know that our global LGBTQAI+ communities have needs; they are a part of our community,” said Nicole Austin-Hillery, president and CEO of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
One pressing need is suicide prevention, which the National Institute of Health deems necessary, as 82% of transgender individuals have reported having suicidal thoughts, while 40% have attempted suicide. This research applies to individuals like Paul, who reported contemplating suicide.
But instead of choosing to self-harm, Paul met Latrice Royale, a fourth-season contestant on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” who was awarded the title of Miss Congeniality while on the show. Paul said that meeting brought meaning when there was barely any left.
“It was like I met them at a time where I really, truly, not only needed to see them, but I needed to be able to actively know ‘girl’ you can live and you can have a really a good life, right? And Latrice was that for me,” Paul said.
Though Trump is representative of a lot of movements that are clashing with society, the Democratic Party is actively pushing back against anti-transgender movements and says there is “still much work to be done.”
Not only did Royale model success for Paul, but they also share the same appearance. Paul proudly identifies as “fat” and uses this descriptor as a political vehicle to empower others in the book “Black Fat Femme, Revealing the Power of Visibly Queer Voices in the Media and Learning to Love Yourself.”
“My book, my work as a Black, fat femme, is inherently political. I say this at the very front of my book,” Paul said. “All three of those monikers are all three things in this world that the world hates and is working overtime to get rid of.”
“They’re trying to kill me as a Black person; they’re trying to get rid of me as a fat person. They are trying to get rid of me as a queer person,” Paul added.
Besides Paul’s political statements, the book’s mission is to give those without resources a blueprint to make it across the finish line.
“I want them to look at all the stories that I share in this and be able to say, ‘wow,’ not only do I see myself, but now I have a roadmap and how I can navigate all of these things that life throws at me that I never had, and I think that’s why I was so passionate about selling and writing the book,” Paul said.
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a&e features
Jussie Smollett asserts innocence while promoting new film
‘I know what happened and soon you all will too’
Jussie Smollett, the actor and musician who was convicted of lying to the police about being the victim of a homophobic and racist hate crime that he staged in 2019, attended a screening of his latest film “The Lost Holliday” in a packed auditorium of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library on Aug. 28.
In an interview with the Washington Blade that took place before the screening, he continued to assert his innocence and responded to concerns within the LGBTQ community that his case has discouraged real victims from reporting hate crimes.
The former “Empire” star wrote, produced, and directed “The Lost Holliday,” his second feature film to direct following 2021’s “B-Boy Blues.” Produced through Smollett’s company, SuperMassive Movies, he stars in the film alongside Vivica A. Fox, who also served as a producer and attended the library screening with other cast members.
In the film, Smollett plays Jason Holliday, a man grappling with the sudden death of his husband Damien (Jabari Redd). Things are complicated when Damien’s estranged mother, Cassandra Marshall (Fox), arrives in Los Angeles from Detroit for the funeral, unaware of Damien’s marriage to Jason or of their adopted daughter. Initially, Jason and Cassandra clash — Cassandra’s subtle homophobia and Jason’s lingering resentment over her treatment of Damien fuel their tension –– but they begin to bond as they navigate their grief together.
Smollett, Fox, Redd, and Brittany S. Hall, who plays Jason’s sister Cheyenne, discussed the film in an interview with the Washington Blade. Highlighting the wide representation of queer identities in the film and among the cast, they stressed that the story is fundamentally about family and love.
“What we really want people to get from this movie is love,” Smollett said. “It’s beneficial for people to see other people that are not like themselves, living the life that they can identify with. Because somehow, what it does is that it opens up the world a little bit.”
Smollett drew from personal experiences with familial estrangement and grief during the making of the film, which delves into themes of parenthood, reconciliation, and the complexities of family relationships.
“I grew up with a father who was not necessarily the most accepting of gay people, and I grew up with a mother who was rather the opposite. I had a safe space in my home to go to, but I also had a not-so-safe space in my home, which was my father,” he said.
“The moment that he actually heard the words that his son was gay, as disconnected and estranged as we were, he instantly changed. He called me, after not speaking to him for years, and apologized for how difficult it must have been all of those years of me growing up. And then a couple years later, he passed away.”
Smollett began working on “The Lost Holliday” eight years ago, with Fox in mind for the role of Cassandra from the outset. He said that he had started collaborating on the project with one of the biggest producers in Hollywood when “‘2019’ happened.”
In January 2019, Smollett told Chicago police that he had been physically attacked in a homophobic and racist hate crime. He initially received an outpouring of support, in particular from the LGBTQ and Black communities. However, police soon charged him with filing a false police report, alleging that he had staged the attack.
After prosecutors controversially dismissed the initial charges in exchange for community service and the forfeiture of his $10,000 bond, Smollett was recharged with the same offenses in 2020. Meanwhile, his character in “Empire” was written out of the show.
In 2021, a Cook County jury found him guilty on five of the six charges of disorderly conduct for lying to police, and he was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months of probation, along with a $120,000 restitution payment to the city of Chicago for the overtime costs incurred by police investigating his initial hate crime claim.
LGBTQ people are nine times more likely than non-LGBTQ people to be victims of violent hate crimes, according to a study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Upon Smollett’s conviction, some in the LGBTQ community felt that the case would discredit victims of hate crimes and make it more difficult to report future such crimes.
Smollett seemed to acknowledge these concerns, but denied that he staged the attack.
“I know what happened and soon you all will too,” he told the Blade. “If someone reported a crime and it wasn’t the truth, that would actually make it more difficult [to report future crimes], but I didn’t. Any belief that they have about the person that I’ve been played out to be, sure, but that person is not me, never has been,” he said. “So I stand with my community. I love my community and I protect and defend my community until I’m bloody in my fist.”
“And for all the people who, in fact, have been assaulted or attacked and then have been lied upon and made it to seem like they made it up, I’m sorry that you have to constantly prove your trauma, and I wish that it wasn’t that way, and I completely identify with you,” he added.
An Illinois Appellate Court upheld his guilty verdict last year, but Smollett has since appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, which in March agreed to hear the case. He has served six days in jail so far, as his sentence has been put on hold pending the results of his appeals.
The screening at the MLK Jr. Library concluded with a conversation between Smollett, Fox, and David J. Johns, CEO and executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition. Smollett discussed his current mindset and his plans for the future, revealing he is working on a third movie and will be releasing new music soon.
“I’m in a space where life is being kind,” he said.
“The Lost Holliday” recently secured a distribution deal for a limited release with AMC Theatres and will be out in theaters on Sept. 27.
Full-spectrum funny: an interview with Randy Rainbow
To West Africa with love
Sounds of war
Trump, GOP candidates spend $65 million on anti-trans ads
