Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Out From The Shadows

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Out From The Shadows

Those of you who follow my blog know my stance on trans actors/actresses. I believe at the very least they should be given a chance to audition for trans characters.

After Years of Hiding in Hollywood, Trans Actress Trace Lysette Is Finally 'Living Out Loud'
The Transparent star tells her inspiring story of going from the closet to 'living out loud' in her two new roles as feisty trans women on upcoming TV shows.The Advocate
By Mitch Kellaway
April 15, 2015

And now, she reveals to The Advocate, Lysette has been cast in recurring roles in two upcoming TV comedies: "brash head waitress" Gloria Del Rey on NBC's new drama The Curse of the Fuentes Women and Gisele in quirky Starz comedy Blunt Talk, which has found her shooting alongside childhood idol Patrick Stewart.
[…]
"I never disclosed I was trans to anyone in the casting process for fear of being discriminated against. I wasn't living out loud yet," she reflects. "I hadn't seen another trans woman in a nontrans role on TV before. ... It was uncharted territory for me and I remember being a nervous wreck on-set, hoping that no one would 'clock' me [as trans]."
[…]
"It was a huge wake-up call for me," Lysette says of seeing Cox be so open about her trans identity. When Cox took Lysette to Brad Calcaterra's LGBT acting class shortly thereafter, Lysette says she learned to become "free." "I'd never been 'out' in an acting class before."

"Around that same time, [trans woman] Islan Nettles was catcalled and then beaten to death in Harlem, where I lived," Lysette continues. "She died a block from my apartment at Harlem Hospital, and I thought to myself, I'm not doing my trans sisters and brothers any justice by living a semicloseted existence. I need to live out loud and live visibly to help get the respect and the rights we deserve."

Lysette says she soon began auditioning for trans roles as an openly trans actress. Today, her joy is palpable as she remembers the days before the "long process" that coming out in Hollywood has been for her.

There are many talented trans actresses and actors out there who should be given a chance to audition for all roles and not just trans characters. Hopefully, the times they are a changing for the better.

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Out From The Shadows

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