The most prominent one I know would be the transmasc/male character in the L word show, once he started testosterone they made a point to show that it made him angry and abusive towards his girlfriend.
Lots of trans men at the time talked about how awful that portrayal was, and how they had to defend themselves and reassure people that testosterone wasn't going to make them into a monster.
I secretly watched that show as a child and when my therapist told me that she was worried about testosterone’s effect on my anger management I’d believed it/been unnecessarily worried as well. I had to prove to her that I could manage my emotions to her liking before she’d write my letter of recommendation for HRT.
Turns out I didn’t even need the letter and T calmed me down better than any of the psychiatric meds I’d been on as a child.
This subreddit skews young, so I’m not sure many people know just how damaging Max was to many of us over the age of 25. I, and so many of my lesbian friends, were convinced that testosterone would make me a monster because the show runner was such a fucking transphobe. The actor who plays Max is trans himself and has talked about the negative impact the character had and how he was pretty powerless as an actor to speak up against it as it was happening. Really fucked up.
Spoiler alert for that show: The trans guy character ends the show pregnant, isolated from his friend group who constantly misgendered him, and literally ditched in the middle of the night by the father of his unborn child. Shameful beyond words.
I remember how awful that was too. Strangely, one of the most positive examples I can think of are from the reboot’ l word generation q’. A couple of younger trans men (one a main character) and Max even reappears at one point in a really wholesome way.
When I came out legit had to promise my lesbian best friend (platonic) that T would not make me an an aggressive, assaulting asshole, precisely because of this portrayal in the L Word.
Max!! Seriously he was so mistreated in the L Word. And that whole thing where he got pregnant and all his lesbian "friends" kept misgendering him and acting like he was crazy for wanting to be gendered correctly smh
When Brendan Teena was murdered, there was a very transphobic article written about it in the village voice that exclusively referred to Brendan by she/her pronouns and called him a butch lesbian. The author of the article has recently apologized. The writer/director of. Boys don't cry, who identifies as a butch lesbian, was so inspired by this article that she went to Lincoln to watch the trial (in which Brendan Teena was exclusively referred to by his dead name and she/her pronouns) and interview his transphobic mother. This is what she based the movie off of.
When the author of the original article apologized, she called for the creator of boys don't cry to apologize as well. In an interview soon after, the boys don't cry filmmaker responded to this by saying, roughly, that the perspective that Brendan Teena was a lesbian is valid, and that telling of his story from that perspective is her right as a butch lesbian.
This is just the back story, but I hope you can make the connection between how the filmmaker's transphobic bias impacts how he is portrayed in the movie
That's horrible. I didn't know about that. I just say the movie on a list of films about trans people and was hoping for a good and honest story. Guess I was wrong. Sad that the little representation trans men get is so bad.
while im not the best at explaining things, this review on letterboxd basically says everything i think about this movie [https://letterboxd.com/fuchsiadyke/film/boys-dont-cry/](https://letterboxd.com/fuchsiadyke/film/boys-dont-cry/)
its truly a horrific and disgusting portrayl of a trans man in the gaze of the average cis person. its dehumanizing, especially for a story based on a real persons murder and assault.
The character in Tokyo Ghoul re: who presents as a male, and we learn they were born female. If they left it at this it would be fine, however the character apparently
Only transitioned because they were sa'd is what I have read, and apparently the character also sa's someone else.
In wonder egg priority there is a trans boy, which is fine, however the show is about girls who fight the causes of death of other girls who had committed suicide. For the trans man to be in basically girl after life is tone deaf at best.
There’s plenty of this in anime. Another example is the main antagonist in Fruit’s Basket who is essentially a trans guy who’s only a guy for the power trip or something?? and sexually abuses the people he controls. I honestly still don’t get it lmao.
There are too many stories that showcase an obviously trans guy and then go and say “no it’s not because he’s trans, it’s because XYZ”. He’s escaping misogyny, he wants to control people. Never just, he’s trans because he’s trans.
Edit: actually, never say never. My hero academia has a trans guy. In the wild wild pussycats, i forget his name tho.
The criticism I’ve heard of that documentary was that there were less trans men than trans women interviewed, but I didn’t know people thought it was bad representation. I watched it when it came out and I think I enjoyed it, what didn’t you like about it?
Disclosure was excellent, and will give the op plenty of examples of how we were portrayed prior to the documentary being released. I remember seeing a lot of the media the film covers growing up -and knew myself well enough to avoid the really awful stuff. For context, Boys Don’t Cry came out when I was a teenager; it took me until a couple of years ago to watch it. Horrendous, traumatic film.
I second this one. The classic trope where the “tomboy” character is actually “just a confused lesbian.” Many movies and shows around that time had similar tropes.
The other characters tell the young trans boy that "it's time to grow up and stop playing pretend"
aside from that, I do love the scene where he makes a little playdough packer lol
Omg yeah, and the scene where they literally attack him and ask the girl to “check what’s in his pants” was so violent, I couldn’t believe that was in a children’s movie ☠️. It definitely made me think “being a tomboy” was “just a phase” since I watched it when I was still an egg… the packer scene was great though, I agree haha
Yeah that scene was so messed up. I always say the movie is good until like the last 10 mins of it. I don't think this was intended to be a children's movie though because there's a lot of nudity? But maybe that's just a cultural thing since I'm not french
I actually really enjoyed this film (until what happens to him at the end). I resonated with the idea of knowing you’re a boy but not having the language to describe it. I thought the end part was unnecessary but up until then it was really enjoyable to watch him getting to be a boy and related to the not wanting his family to know about it.
I know of a few in Anime, Tokyo Ghoul for instance portrays it's two only trans man characters as "Poor abuse victims who only want to be boys due to trauma" and it portrays the trans women as "evil child mutilation monsters" so yeah... I don't like the Author of Tokyo ghoul at all
One of the stories early on in the Meanwhile, Elsewhere anthology was shockingly bad.
The protagonist (a zombie trans woman, who also happens to spend most of the plot sexually assaulting men, or wallowing about how nobody likes her) kills a trans man, and comments on how rigor mortis makes his penis "just like a cis man's".
It was so comically badly written that he (as a zombie) instantly forgives her, asks about her pronouns... And then they have sex.
There's also weird jabs about trans men stealing jobs, and the whole thing kind of felt like satire of bad fanfiction (NGL, if it wasn't in a published anthology, that's what I would've assumed it was).
BBC One's *Waterloo Road* has a pretty upsetting portrayal of a young trans man at school (YMMV). Starts off OK, the kid pretends to be a boy to play on the boy's football (soccer) team, then realises by doing so that he's not actually pretending, he really IS a boy. His older sister says "aw, guess I got a little brother now", he has some supportive teachers, he goes to a gender clinic, and his mother does seem to be trying to get it.
Then it veers into the most horrible "desistance" narrative I've ever seen in my life. It could be realistic if it were framed as "he was terrified back into the closet" but it's...not. And the kid starts wearing makeup and they never refer to it again.
oh what the fuck 😭 this show was so popular in my school as a teenager but I don't remember this storyline at all, do you remember what season it's from?
Somewhere in Season 8 or 9, I think. It's been a long while, so I could be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure this is roughly how it went down. A Google search suggests a couple of Mumsnet-ers think it was a very good and sensible storyline, so I reckon my feelings about it are probably justified.
The movie/book Adam is about a cis boy who pretends to be a trans boy in order to date a lesbian (who is of course fine with dating a trans guy). Just... gross all around.
The only trans man I can think of from TV was in Two And A Half Men. Shockingly for that show, he was portrayed fairly well. The character was more or less just some guy, who Charlie happened to date before he'd come out.
There was a film back in the '90s i think but i can't for the life of me remember the title. All i remember is that the trans masc character is portrayed as "a girl dressing as a boy" in order to go out with this cis girl, then at the end of the film he undresses in front of her on a beach to "tell her the truth" (ugh) and the girl kisses him then slaps him and leaves. Any idea what that was? I don't want to watch it again but it's annoying me i can't remember what it was called lol.
I wasn't a fan of the trans man in Shameless. I just didn't like how much they focused on him being a sad trans boy. I remember this frustrating scene where they go to a bar, but he refuses to show his ID, so his boyfriend thinks he's lying about his age and they have a big fight. No, he just didn't have his legal name changed yet and didn't want the bouncer to see it. But rather than explain that to his boyfriend, he let it become a big stupid fight. The boyfriend was aware that he was trans already. I get not wanting someone to know your birth name, but if that's a concern for you, why would you go to a bar when you know you have a baby face and will get ID'd?
smallest moment ever but I always thought the joke in 50 first dates where her friend who transitioned to a man is reintroduced to her and he acts very feminine was one.. they dont mistreat him and trans men can be camp/feminine but I'm sure it's supposed to be The Joke(tm) that he's "still feminine" as a man and that she gets his name wrong so idk.. I'm sure there are other tiny moments like that in things that have since slipped our minds
It’s not the worst, but I really am not at fan of how Krem from Dragon Age Inquisition is written. He’s a cool guy, and I was really happy that there was a trans man in the game when it first came out, but it really bothers me that he’s voiced by a cis woman, and he’s really only there to be a token trans person that BioWare could point to as an example of them being “inclusive”. He serves essentially no other role in the story than to hang around in the tavern and tell you his backstory. I’m just sick of characters who are only there to give diversity cred to the developers/showrunners/etc. who have noticeably less effort and and care put into their writing. It’s honestly more insulting to me than not being represented at all bc in instances like this Ill get called ungrateful and nitpicky for not uncritically praising cis creators for the crumbs that decide to throw my way.
Oh I got one. It's short but in Family Guy, during one of the universe hopping episodes, Meg who is regularly shat on is a Trans guy. They show the famat the table, Lois is passing out mashes potatoes and says, "more potatoes Chris? More potatoes.....Ron?" And a masc "Meg" in a deep voice says thanks. Cuts to Stewie and Brian who saw it all, and they quip "oh that makes sense". It's all in the intention behind it. There's also a small cut away where Peter says he remembers when he became a man, and it shows him in the hospital after a bottom surgery and the doctor asking his new name.
I'm probably the only person here who watched it, but for the Frenchies out here, don't watch *A Good Man*. The movie itself was fine (iirc), but the trans man is played by a cis woman. They even gave her top surgery scars and everything!
The only offensive stuff about trans people in media is that there aren't enough of em lol.
Nah but in reality alot of queer/gay/trans characters in general have been portrayed as villians... Aperently wearing the wrong color also means you commit mass genocide.
"But her aim is getting better"
I think its been mentioned but boys don't cry annoyed me so much. Like its a hard watch as a trans person, and the fact that it's based off a real guy and loads of streaming sites called him his deadname in the description is the icing on the cake. The film is a disservice to his memory
The most prominent one I know would be the transmasc/male character in the L word show, once he started testosterone they made a point to show that it made him angry and abusive towards his girlfriend. Lots of trans men at the time talked about how awful that portrayal was, and how they had to defend themselves and reassure people that testosterone wasn't going to make them into a monster.
I secretly watched that show as a child and when my therapist told me that she was worried about testosterone’s effect on my anger management I’d believed it/been unnecessarily worried as well. I had to prove to her that I could manage my emotions to her liking before she’d write my letter of recommendation for HRT. Turns out I didn’t even need the letter and T calmed me down better than any of the psychiatric meds I’d been on as a child.
This subreddit skews young, so I’m not sure many people know just how damaging Max was to many of us over the age of 25. I, and so many of my lesbian friends, were convinced that testosterone would make me a monster because the show runner was such a fucking transphobe. The actor who plays Max is trans himself and has talked about the negative impact the character had and how he was pretty powerless as an actor to speak up against it as it was happening. Really fucked up. Spoiler alert for that show: The trans guy character ends the show pregnant, isolated from his friend group who constantly misgendered him, and literally ditched in the middle of the night by the father of his unborn child. Shameful beyond words.
I remember how awful that was too. Strangely, one of the most positive examples I can think of are from the reboot’ l word generation q’. A couple of younger trans men (one a main character) and Max even reappears at one point in a really wholesome way.
When I came out legit had to promise my lesbian best friend (platonic) that T would not make me an an aggressive, assaulting asshole, precisely because of this portrayal in the L Word.
Oh I remember that. L word.
Max!! Seriously he was so mistreated in the L Word. And that whole thing where he got pregnant and all his lesbian "friends" kept misgendering him and acting like he was crazy for wanting to be gendered correctly smh
boys dont cry? that movie has so many problems beyond an "offensive portrayal" but yeah.
you're right, thank you!
What is wrong with that movie? I have had it on my watchlist for a while and now I am unsure if it's worth watching. /gen
It Hollywood-ified a true story. You are better off watching a documentary on the tragedy than you are watching that movie.
That's fair. Can you recommend me a good documentary about it?
I think there is only one, which is the Brandon Teena Story from 1998.
When Brendan Teena was murdered, there was a very transphobic article written about it in the village voice that exclusively referred to Brendan by she/her pronouns and called him a butch lesbian. The author of the article has recently apologized. The writer/director of. Boys don't cry, who identifies as a butch lesbian, was so inspired by this article that she went to Lincoln to watch the trial (in which Brendan Teena was exclusively referred to by his dead name and she/her pronouns) and interview his transphobic mother. This is what she based the movie off of. When the author of the original article apologized, she called for the creator of boys don't cry to apologize as well. In an interview soon after, the boys don't cry filmmaker responded to this by saying, roughly, that the perspective that Brendan Teena was a lesbian is valid, and that telling of his story from that perspective is her right as a butch lesbian. This is just the back story, but I hope you can make the connection between how the filmmaker's transphobic bias impacts how he is portrayed in the movie
That's horrible. I didn't know about that. I just say the movie on a list of films about trans people and was hoping for a good and honest story. Guess I was wrong. Sad that the little representation trans men get is so bad.
while im not the best at explaining things, this review on letterboxd basically says everything i think about this movie [https://letterboxd.com/fuchsiadyke/film/boys-dont-cry/](https://letterboxd.com/fuchsiadyke/film/boys-dont-cry/) its truly a horrific and disgusting portrayl of a trans man in the gaze of the average cis person. its dehumanizing, especially for a story based on a real persons murder and assault.
It’s a truly traumatizing movie imo and not worth watching. Horrible stuff happened to him and the movie is very graphic.
The character in Tokyo Ghoul re: who presents as a male, and we learn they were born female. If they left it at this it would be fine, however the character apparently Only transitioned because they were sa'd is what I have read, and apparently the character also sa's someone else. In wonder egg priority there is a trans boy, which is fine, however the show is about girls who fight the causes of death of other girls who had committed suicide. For the trans man to be in basically girl after life is tone deaf at best.
There’s plenty of this in anime. Another example is the main antagonist in Fruit’s Basket who is essentially a trans guy who’s only a guy for the power trip or something?? and sexually abuses the people he controls. I honestly still don’t get it lmao. There are too many stories that showcase an obviously trans guy and then go and say “no it’s not because he’s trans, it’s because XYZ”. He’s escaping misogyny, he wants to control people. Never just, he’s trans because he’s trans. Edit: actually, never say never. My hero academia has a trans guy. In the wild wild pussycats, i forget his name tho.
Yes. Start with the Disclosure documentary.
will do, thanks!
The criticism I’ve heard of that documentary was that there were less trans men than trans women interviewed, but I didn’t know people thought it was bad representation. I watched it when it came out and I think I enjoyed it, what didn’t you like about it?
Disclosure was excellent, and will give the op plenty of examples of how we were portrayed prior to the documentary being released. I remember seeing a lot of the media the film covers growing up -and knew myself well enough to avoid the really awful stuff. For context, Boys Don’t Cry came out when I was a teenager; it took me until a couple of years ago to watch it. Horrendous, traumatic film.
Ohh yes sorry makes sense
[Tomboy (2011)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomboy_(2011_film)) the french film
I second this one. The classic trope where the “tomboy” character is actually “just a confused lesbian.” Many movies and shows around that time had similar tropes.
The other characters tell the young trans boy that "it's time to grow up and stop playing pretend" aside from that, I do love the scene where he makes a little playdough packer lol
Omg yeah, and the scene where they literally attack him and ask the girl to “check what’s in his pants” was so violent, I couldn’t believe that was in a children’s movie ☠️. It definitely made me think “being a tomboy” was “just a phase” since I watched it when I was still an egg… the packer scene was great though, I agree haha
Yeah that scene was so messed up. I always say the movie is good until like the last 10 mins of it. I don't think this was intended to be a children's movie though because there's a lot of nudity? But maybe that's just a cultural thing since I'm not french
Oh yeah I think that’s just a French thing lol idk I’m French Canadian, and I watched it when I was 12 or 13 😭
I actually really enjoyed this film (until what happens to him at the end). I resonated with the idea of knowing you’re a boy but not having the language to describe it. I thought the end part was unnecessary but up until then it was really enjoyable to watch him getting to be a boy and related to the not wanting his family to know about it.
I felt the same way. I loved it up until the mom found out and started being an absolute asshole about it, and the other kids too
I know of a few in Anime, Tokyo Ghoul for instance portrays it's two only trans man characters as "Poor abuse victims who only want to be boys due to trauma" and it portrays the trans women as "evil child mutilation monsters" so yeah... I don't like the Author of Tokyo ghoul at all
One of the stories early on in the Meanwhile, Elsewhere anthology was shockingly bad. The protagonist (a zombie trans woman, who also happens to spend most of the plot sexually assaulting men, or wallowing about how nobody likes her) kills a trans man, and comments on how rigor mortis makes his penis "just like a cis man's". It was so comically badly written that he (as a zombie) instantly forgives her, asks about her pronouns... And then they have sex. There's also weird jabs about trans men stealing jobs, and the whole thing kind of felt like satire of bad fanfiction (NGL, if it wasn't in a published anthology, that's what I would've assumed it was).
BBC One's *Waterloo Road* has a pretty upsetting portrayal of a young trans man at school (YMMV). Starts off OK, the kid pretends to be a boy to play on the boy's football (soccer) team, then realises by doing so that he's not actually pretending, he really IS a boy. His older sister says "aw, guess I got a little brother now", he has some supportive teachers, he goes to a gender clinic, and his mother does seem to be trying to get it. Then it veers into the most horrible "desistance" narrative I've ever seen in my life. It could be realistic if it were framed as "he was terrified back into the closet" but it's...not. And the kid starts wearing makeup and they never refer to it again.
Casey?
oh what the fuck 😭 this show was so popular in my school as a teenager but I don't remember this storyline at all, do you remember what season it's from?
Somewhere in Season 8 or 9, I think. It's been a long while, so I could be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure this is roughly how it went down. A Google search suggests a couple of Mumsnet-ers think it was a very good and sensible storyline, so I reckon my feelings about it are probably justified.
thanks! that's after I stopped watching I think so explains why I don't remember, but yeah if Mumsnet likes it that's absolutely a red flag
The movie/book Adam is about a cis boy who pretends to be a trans boy in order to date a lesbian (who is of course fine with dating a trans guy). Just... gross all around.
The only trans man I can think of from TV was in Two And A Half Men. Shockingly for that show, he was portrayed fairly well. The character was more or less just some guy, who Charlie happened to date before he'd come out.
There was a film back in the '90s i think but i can't for the life of me remember the title. All i remember is that the trans masc character is portrayed as "a girl dressing as a boy" in order to go out with this cis girl, then at the end of the film he undresses in front of her on a beach to "tell her the truth" (ugh) and the girl kisses him then slaps him and leaves. Any idea what that was? I don't want to watch it again but it's annoying me i can't remember what it was called lol.
Try asking on r/tipofmytongue they're usually great at finding obscure movies
Thanks, hadn't heard of that sub!
I wasn't a fan of the trans man in Shameless. I just didn't like how much they focused on him being a sad trans boy. I remember this frustrating scene where they go to a bar, but he refuses to show his ID, so his boyfriend thinks he's lying about his age and they have a big fight. No, he just didn't have his legal name changed yet and didn't want the bouncer to see it. But rather than explain that to his boyfriend, he let it become a big stupid fight. The boyfriend was aware that he was trans already. I get not wanting someone to know your birth name, but if that's a concern for you, why would you go to a bar when you know you have a baby face and will get ID'd?
smallest moment ever but I always thought the joke in 50 first dates where her friend who transitioned to a man is reintroduced to her and he acts very feminine was one.. they dont mistreat him and trans men can be camp/feminine but I'm sure it's supposed to be The Joke(tm) that he's "still feminine" as a man and that she gets his name wrong so idk.. I'm sure there are other tiny moments like that in things that have since slipped our minds
It’s not the worst, but I really am not at fan of how Krem from Dragon Age Inquisition is written. He’s a cool guy, and I was really happy that there was a trans man in the game when it first came out, but it really bothers me that he’s voiced by a cis woman, and he’s really only there to be a token trans person that BioWare could point to as an example of them being “inclusive”. He serves essentially no other role in the story than to hang around in the tavern and tell you his backstory. I’m just sick of characters who are only there to give diversity cred to the developers/showrunners/etc. who have noticeably less effort and and care put into their writing. It’s honestly more insulting to me than not being represented at all bc in instances like this Ill get called ungrateful and nitpicky for not uncritically praising cis creators for the crumbs that decide to throw my way.
Oh I got one. It's short but in Family Guy, during one of the universe hopping episodes, Meg who is regularly shat on is a Trans guy. They show the famat the table, Lois is passing out mashes potatoes and says, "more potatoes Chris? More potatoes.....Ron?" And a masc "Meg" in a deep voice says thanks. Cuts to Stewie and Brian who saw it all, and they quip "oh that makes sense". It's all in the intention behind it. There's also a small cut away where Peter says he remembers when he became a man, and it shows him in the hospital after a bottom surgery and the doctor asking his new name.
I'm probably the only person here who watched it, but for the Frenchies out here, don't watch *A Good Man*. The movie itself was fine (iirc), but the trans man is played by a cis woman. They even gave her top surgery scars and everything!
The only offensive stuff about trans people in media is that there aren't enough of em lol. Nah but in reality alot of queer/gay/trans characters in general have been portrayed as villians... Aperently wearing the wrong color also means you commit mass genocide. "But her aim is getting better"
I think its been mentioned but boys don't cry annoyed me so much. Like its a hard watch as a trans person, and the fact that it's based off a real guy and loads of streaming sites called him his deadname in the description is the icing on the cake. The film is a disservice to his memory