March 2022, Netflix announced that Vanya Hargreeves, one of the main characters (and a cisgender woman) on its popular series The Umbrella Academy would come out as a trans man (Viktor) in the upcoming 3rd season of the show, a deviation from the character’s storyline from the comics (Maas, 2022). This decision was taken to reflect Elliot Page’s (who portrayed the character) public transition as a trans man (right). Page had been recognized as an acclaimed actor and out lesbian for several years prior to their recent public transition, particularly after his role in the film Juno, which earned him a nomination for an academy award (Hattenstone, 2023). Although they had been well known as an out lesbian prior to their public transition (Hattenstone, 2023), their coming out to the world as a trans man shifted Page’s position in the limelight. In Page’s 2023 book ‘Pageboy: A Memoir,’ he discusses how it felt experiencing this change in perception, and his journey coming to terms with his gender and sexuality. Previously reluctant to write a memoir, Page highlights how their decision to finally write one was a response to growing transphobic sentiments, especially in the US (Page, 2023) and felt that sharing their experience would be a way of helping to “to dispel the constant misinformation around queer and trans lives” (Page, 2023, pp. 5).

Page’s memoir can therefore be seen as an attempt to help educate a (mostly cis) public about trans lives and experiences through their own, to advocate for greater acceptance of trans people in society. I see this effort as a reflection of their status as a famous trans person, who may be among the few or only trans person some people know of, due as a popular figure. By actively talking about their experiences as a trans person and sharing them with the world, Page can be considered to be taking on a responsibility of representation, of being a trans person in the public eye to help cis people accept and understand trans experiences. As such, their memoir can be considered to reflect the idea of the ‘Mad-Lib’ trans narrative coined by Jacob Tobia (Heyam, 2022), where transgender people present their experiences in a way that aligns with cis peoples expectations and understandings, such as feeling they were in the wrong body as a child, or acting in ways that would stereotypically be ‘opposite’ their assigned gender. This does not represent the varied and unique experiences of all trans people, but instead represents a narrow and generalised understanding of trans people’s experiences, from a cis perspective (Vipond, 2019).

However, I argue that Elliot Page’s choice to present his memoir in ways that align with the ‘Mad-Lib’ narrative, is a form of activism, and that he and other trans people in the public eye, may do so to make trans experiences more culturally intelligible to cis audiences and therefore more accepted in society. While this is not a step taken by all trans people with a public following, I explore how some trans people may leverage their fame in this way, as a response to shifting historical landscapes of trans representation, from (largely stereotypical) representations in media, to a focus on individuals representing the trans community through their personal experiences, to the present day, where representations in media are informed by both the character and story, and the actor portraying them.

Historical Trans Representation

Representation is complex to understand, as it a broad concept with various meanings. According to Stuart Hall (1997), we understand the world through representations. We see an object or person, and we combine our previous understanding with what we see or hear about them, in order to form an understanding of the world. Hence, both what is presented, and how is presented, can greatly affect how we construct meaning from it (Hall, 1997). This provides a basis for understanding how trans representation in media has changed over time, and why trans people like Elliot Page had, and continue to, advocate for better representation. Historical representations of trans people in media were usually stereotypical, played as a joke, or used to add ‘shock’ value. This could include sensationalising the trans character (Skidmore, 2011) or villainizing them. Historically, trans characters were presented through a cis perspective, effectively being ‘othered’ through this lens (Miller, 2023). This created distance between the (presumed to be cis) audience, and dehumanized trans characters as seen, rather than affording them nuance and agency.

A notable example of this is The Christine Jorgensen Story (poster below), a movie released in 1970, based on the story of Christine Jorgenson, a former GI who underwent surgical transition in Denmark, and returned to America to be one of the prominent examples of public transgender representation at the time (Skidmore, 2011). Elements from the poster promoting the movie itself, highlight the sensationalization of trans people at the time, with the dichotomy of “a women or a freak?” This exemplifies how trans people were othered from the general public as well, less often seen as individuals, but objects of spectacle, or even ‘freaks.’ The popularity of Christine Jorgensen’s story also emphasises how the intersectionality of identities, particularly race, influenced and continue to influence how trans individuals are perceived (Skidmore, 2011). Jorgensen, as a white, heterosexual transwomen, had proximity to the white cis womanhood, and hence was more culturally intelligible to the cis public at the time, and more widely accepted than other trans people that did not share these privileges (Skidmore, 2011). Therefore, Trans representation in the past were largely created for and by cis people, as opposed to authentic representations of trans people, as ‘acceptable’ trans representation had to be depictions that highlighted trans people at the extremes of different and othered, or as close to white heterosexuality as possible.

Modern Trans Representation

Trans representation today, however, tends to not just be about how a character is portrayed, but also who is playing them. This marks an improvement even from a decade or so ago, where trans characters were often played by cis actors, who were then lauded for their portrayal, even though trans and other LGBTQ actors were often shunned. Elliot Page remarks on their observations of this change, and how “[they were] being told to lie and hide. It puzzled [him] to watch cis straight actors play queer and trans characters and be revered. Nominations, wins, people exclaiming “How brave!”” (Page, 2023, pp. 76). Page himself has worked to improve trans representation on-screen, from his own appearances on talk shows and other media as himself, to the characters he plays. In an interview with Seth Meyers in promotion for The Umbrella Academy, Page talks about how they worked with the show runners and writers to shape the storyline about their character, Viktor’s, transition in the show, and how it was received by the other characters [Late Night with Seth Meyers, 2022].

Talk shows and interviews as a medium also offer trans actors and personalities a vehicle beyond their representation as characters and highlight their own experiences and ideas directly. Laverne Cox, a well-known trans actress, and Janet Mock, best known for her memoirs about her experiences as a trans woman of colour, provide examples to explore how some trans people in the public eye use interviews to influence public perception of themselves and trans people as a whole, to advocate for greater societal acceptance. Cox and Mock have often appeared on television shows and interviews as a part of promotion of their own works, as well as a part of their advocacy (Glover, 2016). An illustration of their framing of trans people for a cis audience comes from a Huffington post panel with both Cox and Mock, where they refuse to debate their identity as women, unequivocally stating that they are women (Glover, 2016). In doing so, they propose a clear boundary in the discussion of trans people’s identities, conveying to cis people that trans individual’s understanding of their own gender is as concrete and innate as cis people may understand their own gender to be, appealing to an idea of transnormativity. At the same time, this can be seen as reinforcing the gender binary and may even be understood as suggesting that trans people simply ‘fit in’ to cis people’s conceptions of gender. Hence, it is important to note that such presentation of trans experiences, that are constructed to fit cis understandings, can be harmful, as it obscures the experiences of many trans and gender non-conforming people who don’t fit into the gender binary. At the same time, work by famous trans people like Lavrne Cox, Janet Mock and Elliot Page can be seen as an important first step, in establishing lines of similarity between trans experiences and cis people’s understanding.

Trans Representation and Trans Audiences

While there may be a general notion that trans representation has improved over time, becoming more common over time (GLAAD, 2024), the question of what is considered ‘good’ trans representation, or even what is considered trans representation in media, is variable, and can change over time. Rather than being determined by solely by the producer of the work, representation is created through negotiation between the producers and consumer of a work. Largely, the arbiters of ‘good’ representation fall on the community being represented (Miller, 2023), which in the case of trans representation, falls on the trans audiences. With the advent of social media, young trans people especially show critical engagement with media highlighting trans representation (Humphery, 2016). Ranging from condemning stereotypical representations, to praising more nuanced ones, trans youth have become a key voice in shaping trans representation in media (Humphery, 2016).

However, a key element of the dynamic interaction between consumers of the work and the work itself, allows for reception of the representation in a piece of media to change over time. Stuart Hall’s theory of reception frames this idea in terms of the encoding of meaning into a work by its producers, and the decoding of meaning from that work by its consumers (Hall, 1973). Notably, the encoded meaning, and that which is finally decoded by the consumer, is not necessarily the same, and can vary widely, based on the context in which the work was produced, and in which it was received. The film Boys Don’t Cry (1999) was largely positively received in terms of trans representation soon after its release, and recognized as a bold step forward, as the first example of a “credible masculinity in a transgender male form” (NYU Florence, 2017, 18:35-18:40). However, when the film was screened at a college in Oregon in 2016, attended by the director Kimberly Pierce (right), students protested the showing, arguing that it was transphobic in its portrayal, partly as the actor nor the director were trans (NYU Florence, 2017). This highlights how representations of trans people evolve over time even being seen negatively.

In contrast, the determination of representation by the viewer, also allows for media that was intended to be trans representations, to be decoded as such. Following Elliot Page’s public transition, many individuals looked to his work pre-transition, understanding it in a trans context. Some viewers for example, drew similarities the physical changes and stigma faced by Page’s titular character in Juno, with similar experiences some trans people have when on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) (Gow, 2020). This can be yet another avenue in making trans experiences more intelligible to cis audiences, by parallelling them with cis experiences. Therefore, trans representation is not only a top-down process, but trans viewers and audiences actively seek out or create representations through intentional interaction with media and are not just passive consumers.

Changing landscapes of transgender representation have reflected growing acceptance for trans people over time, from a shift from sensationalization, villanization (Skidmore, 2011) or caricature (Miller, 2023), to becoming more realistic portrayals informed by the experiences of trans individuals creating the works (Glover, 2016). In framing their own stories, trans people in the public eye have taken on a responsibility of activism, constructing narratives aimed toward cis people as a form of activism, to educate these audiences and familiarise them with trans experiences to further acceptance of trans people in society. While this may not be representative of all trans experiences, and arguably erases the experiences of trans people outside the gender binary, it can also be seen as bridging the initial gap between cis understandings and trans experiences by focusing on ways they can be understood by cis people, and is therefore not without merit. Additionally, their work is supplemented with a ‘bottom up’ approach of trans consumers of media identifying and sharing not only explicitly trans representation, but cis experiences that may parallel their own, and in doing so themselves taking on the responsibility to help cis audiences understand trans experience (Gow, 2020). While these efforts recognize the perseverance and agentic choices of the trans community to help cis people understand and accept them, their need to do so highlights the institutional failings and lack of effort on the part of cis people to offer that acceptance and encourage greater trans representation in media (Miller, 2023).

References

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