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Transgender Actors From ‘Transparent,’ ‘Sense8,’ & ‘Shameless’ Demand Equality In Rousing New Video — Watch

Your favorite trans actors have a message for anyone thinking about telling trans stories without trans people: Don't.
Trans actors transparent
L to R: Trace Lysette, Alexandra Grey, and Elliot Fletcher.
ScreenCrush/GLAAD

Just in time for Pride month, and following the swift outcry provoked by a clip of Matt Bomer’s cringeworthy performance in “Anything,” GLAAD and ScreenCrush have released an impassioned plea from many successful transgender actors to stop casting cisgender actors in their roles. The video is part of ScreenCrush’s month-long Pride series about transgender visibility in film and television.

READ MORE: ‘They’ Review: Imagine if a Young Abbas Kiarostami Made A Trans Childhood Film — Cannes 2017

The video stars an impressive array of Hollywood’s most recognizable trans actors: Alexandra Billings (“Transparent“), D’Lo (“Sense8”), Elliot Fletcher (“The Fosters”), Alexandra Grey (“Transparent”), Ian Harvie (“Transparent”), Jazzmun (“When We Rise”), Trace Lysette (“Transparent”), Jen Richards (“Her Story”), and Rain Valdez (“Lopez”). Richards, a co-creator of the Emmy-nominated short form series “Her Story,” penned the script.

Maybe now, people will know where to look the next time they need to cast a trans character.

READ MORE: Elle Fanning’s Awful Hair In ‘3 Generations’ Is Why Cisgender Actors Shouldn’t Play Trans Characters

“Dear Hollywood,” the video begins. “Tell our stories with the creativity, dignity, humor and depth that make us real people. Let us help you tell those stories or better yet, help us tell them ourselves and then put us in them… You’ll be making the world a little bit safer for an intensely maligned, under-represented, and vulnerable population.” The video goes on to explain why visibility is so important, but in the spirit of representation, it’s better to hear it directly from the source.

Watch the full video below:

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