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IPFS News Link • Entertainment: Movies

Trans Actors: We Would Be Proud To Play a Trans James Bond

• https://www.thedailybeast.com

A transgender Bond would shake, not stir things up.

With Daniel Craig's tenure as the famed superspy coming to a close, actor Dominic West floated the idea of "a transgender Bond" in a Sunday Times interview this week, saying that it "would be cool."

That suggestion inspired the usual round of outrage, with cries of political correctness gone too far, but transgender male actors tell The Daily Beast that such a casting would be a breakthrough moment for LGBT media representation.

"It would tell me that trans men were being seen as men, legitimate and worthy of casting in this role," Transparent star Ian Harvie told The Daily Beast.

"It would feel like a major triumph if I or one of my trans actor friends were to be cast in such a hypermasculine role as Bond"

Harvie has long daydreamed of playing 007, so getting the chance to don the tuxedo—or to watch one of his peers do it—would be personally meaningful.

"As someone who has been told over and over again through social messaging (and sometimes directly to my face) that I am someone who is not allowed to own my masculinity, that I am not a real man, that only cis white men are allowed to own masculinity, it would feel like a major triumph if I or one of my trans actor friends were to be cast in such a hypermasculine role as Bond," said Harvie.

Transgender parts in Hollywood are already few and far between—but high-profile parts for transgender men are especially rare. Four years after Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox appeared on the cover of Time magazine, there has yet to be an equivalent tipping point for transgender male talent. A transgender Bond would change that, said actor Scott Turner Schofield, who had a recurring role on The Bold and the Beautiful.


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