You know what it’s time for? A new episode of the BGD podcast! Join our host, Raquel Willis, as she and actress, writer and filmmaker Rain Valdez talk about the show Transparent, the reality TV show Strut, and trans women’s stories!
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Transcript:
Raquel: Hi and welcome back to the BGD podcast! This is your host, Raquel Willis. I’m so excited to be with you again, back for my second episode. This is a show where we dissect major media moments that have rocked the world with an amazing intersectional feminist lens. Today, we have an amazing guest, Rain Valdez, and we’re going to be talking about trans Hollywood, something that Rain knows about on a personal level because Rain is a writer and actress and also does production work. So Rain, would you give us a breakdown of your background and what your history is and the acting scene?
Rain: Yes, absolutely! Thank you for asking and thank you for having me. I have been acting for over ten years now. I moved out to LA when I was fresh out of high school at 19 and I got myself in acting class immediately. I was already passing as a girl, as a woman and so when I got into the acting class everyone just kind of assumed and called me by my preferred pronouns. Which was she and her and so I lived, because of that and because i was in new city, I lived pretty much stealth for most of my life here in LA, particularly in Hollywood and in acting and I studied for six years. I was auditioning a lot and then I got a little disenchanted by the business itself so then I stopped acting for a little while and got into post-production and post-production kind of gave me that opportunity to learn more about filmmaking in the finishing sense and it kind of inspired learning that. Learning how to finish a film kind of inspired me to start creating on the front end because i knew what I wanted my film product to look like or be. I knew, I knew how to finish it. It made it easier for me to make decisions, make better decisions in the front end, so that’s kind of where I started writing and directing and producing my own content. And my latest short film Ryans is, well it premiered at Outfest this past July. It’s a little rom-com with a trans lead, a trans character in the lead and it’s currently doing a festival tour the small which I’m really excited about. It’s going to be screening in Chicago, New York, Barcelona, Denmark, Chicago and Scotland and two more LA venues, October 6th. That screening at LA LIVE for Awareness Film Festival and October 20th for a screening at TransNation Cinefamily. So a lot of exciting things and I also work behind the scenes for Transparent seasons, this past season, 3, I was the Director’s Assistant and I got to work very closely with the directors, particularly our creator Jill Soloway and the Writer’s Room for Season 4 actually opens next week, October 4th. Tuesday, October 4th and iIm going to be the Executive Assistant to the writers, so I’ll be working very closely with the writers this upcoming season.
Raquel: You have an amazing story because you are really, really grandfathered into this whole trans Hollywood experience because when you started, like you just said you weren’t out and I’m curious as to whether you were able to see a time when you would be out and you would be interested in doing roles that spoke to your experience as a trans woman.
Rain: Yes, great question! One of the reasons why I wrote my romantic comedy short film Ryans is because there was such a lack of positive representations of trans women in today’s media. Historically, we’ve portrayed trans women as, you know, as bad people. They were always fetishized or vilified or stigmatized and always the butt of the joke and so I wanted to tell the story that wasn’t about a coming out story or about transitioning or anything like that. It was just about a woman who is past a certain point in her life and its really funny and she’s doing the otherizing because she has this this deal breaker of not dating anybody by the name Ryan because of her ex-boyfriend who’s name is Ryan. [laughs] So it’s sort of like a reverse otherization. She’s no longer being otherized. It’s her point of view, it’s her world. We get to see her, you know, be funny and be silly and and be very emotional and so yeah I want to move towards a point, I want to drive Hollywood to a point where we start telling stories that isn’t about our transness, that it’s just about us being women and what dating is like in Hollywood or in any city and you know, what we go through. What we have to go through past transition and you know, trans women are some of the funniest people I know and some of the sexiest people I know and some of the smartest people I know and so there’s there’s such there’s so many layers. There’s so many, you know, avenues of where we can go in terms of storytelling and I’m at a point in my life where I’m ready for that and I think Hollywood needs to be ready for that but you know we have-
Raquel: Oh, go ahead! [laughs]
Rain: I was just going to segue into. you know. we have Hollywood still sort of telling these clichés. These clichéd stories with Matt Bomer being casted in this movie Anything, which to me doesn’t make any sense because Matt Bomer’s character is a sex worker but you know most sex workers, if you’re, if you’re a sex worker and you’re trans you’re- The most successful sex workers are the ones who pass and Matt Bomer doesn’t have an ounce of estrogen in his body.
Raquel: Right, so I think it is very interesting that we continue to see these kind of same damaging roles and it really speaks to the importance of having not only just trans actors and actresses in front of the screen but writers such as yourself, such as Jen Richards. I see a lot of parallels between Ryans and her story, in terms of showing a more well-rounded, healthy kind of romantic life but also the reality of the struggle of just dating, even with people who completely understand that you’re trans or completely our on board with being trans. Like there are a lot of deeper issues that we are only just now seeing tapped into because of trans content creators such as yourself. So I thank you for what you’re doing and for showing a different side and speaking from an authentic source and definitely with the Matt Bomer situation, so just some background for our listeners, Matt Bomer is an actor known predominantly for Magic Mike and American Horror Story. So within the last, I guess, month and a half, news broke of his role in an upcoming film called Anything, which is based on a play by a playwright named Timothy McNeil, who I think is also based in LA. Not quite sure. But the play is, is, it revolves around this man who has lost his wife over time and he builds this relationship with his neighbor who, weirdly, in the first incarnation of this storyline- So in the play, the character was described as a transvestite and so this character was written back in 2006-7, around that time. So I think it’s important that we take into consideration that the consciousness around trans identity on a mainstream level has definitely expanded and so at that time people were conflating all these kind of different gender variant experiences and identities that weren’t necessarily the same thing. So on the on the books the character was said to be a transvestite but this character actually lived as a woman, loved as a woman, all of these different things so it was, it’s really kind of telling this more of a trans woman’s story and so also I just want to clarify transvestite is a term that has mostly falling into disuse. It typically means folks who are who crossdress and most of those folks use crossdresser nowadays and that just means that you know people may dress a different way it doesn’t necessarily have to do anything with identity. So I just want to make that clear. I think a lot of mainstream media did not understand those kind of distinctions but it is kind of damaging to see not only just this tried and and this trite ridiculous role of the tragic trans sex worker which isn’t based on any authenticity from actual trans sex workers on the ground and also I think the character also has drug addiction. So there are a lot of different moving parts here that are cliche and also problematic because they aren’t actually coming from an authentic source and these are cis men in general perpetuating these ideas but the biggest thing in the media has been the issue of Matt Bomer a cisgender actor playing a trans woman and I guess, what is your take on that? Because transparent actually has been a great show. It’s been lauded and cherished for its portrayal of trans folks but Jeffrey Tambor who plays Mara the protagonist is a cis man so I guess you know can you kind of break down your thoughts on the kind of tricky situation of having cis men in particular playing transgender women?
Rain: I think when Jeffrey Tambor was casted for that role a couple years ago, about three years ago now, it was such a different time and I think that that show and his casting and Jill Soloway being sort of this, this, the leader of getting our stories told through the show was revolutionary in a way that she included and seeked out trans talent and, you know, seeked their advice and their expertise and their opinions and their stories in a way that Jeffrey was able to tell Mara’s story authentically. We surrounded Jeffery with a lot of trans people on set behind camera, on camera, and even on the producer level so that he had access to our- our stories, our behaviors, our insights, and our experience and that propelled, having that also propelled opportunities for trans talent to be a part of the show and I think opened more doors in Hollywood in general and so three years later, having done that and having seen- having seen more trans talent visible and clearly talented and clearly a strong asset in Hollywood, it’s kind of, it’s kind of a step back to see Matt Bomer being cast as a trans woman in anything [laughs] and you know there there’s, you know I love- I’m a huge fan of Mark Ruffalo and I’m a huge fan of Matt Bomer and you know Matt Bomer, Mark Ruffalo has publicly stated that Matt Bomer has been attached to the role from the beginning since they were working on The Normal Heart together. So you know that’s kind of an industry standard, like filmmaking 101 is to have a named actor attached to a lead role so it you know i don’t think that makes Mark Ruffalo a bad filmmaker, but I do think it makes him an ignorant one or a selfish one or someone who’s not quite in touch of what’s happening in the world right now because having casted Jeffrey Tambor three years ago changed the world. It brought trans talent to the surface and made us more visible and made us more accessible and so the idea that they didn’t even take the time to audition trans actresses for the role is kind of you it’s kind of it’s not right and I, you know, in my experience as a trans actress I’m constantly being told that I’m not trans enough. And and you know that, that’s the term that keep- casting directors or producers are telling my team and my managers that, “Oh, Rain’s not trans enough”, and what that tells me is that what they’re really looking for is someone who presents a certain way so that they’re consistently reminding the audience that it’s played by a man. Which is something that our friend Jen Richards touched on, that the casting of Matt Bomer is because they don’t want the audience to ever forget that this is being played by a man therefore perpetuating the idea that trans women are men which is we all know that’s not true at this point. And so it’s a step backwards in terms of the progress that we’ve made and it’s- it’s up to us to call them out and I think that’s why it’s happening, is because we have a voice now we’ve proven ourselves, we’ve proven our talents, we’ve proven that we’ve existed for many many years but have been hiding and we’re no longer- were no longer there. It’s a new world and we need to keep driving the world to a place where we have inclusivity and equal opportunity for trans talent.
Raquel: Right and I think what has been even more hurtful about that project for a lot of people in the trans community is that Matt Bomer is a gay man and you know, I think it is unfortunate that we continue to see the larger LGBTQ community and to be frank cisgender gay folks and lesbian folks the road trans people under the bus when we know historically that that doesn’t serve in the best interest of any of us. So I really connect the issue with Matt Bomer and folks trying to throw out that, “Oh well he’s a gay man so it’s not as bad a cis heterosexual man playing this role” and of course Michelle Rodriguez has have come out within the last week and a half saying, “Well I’m bisexual, so you can’t really tell me I can’t play this role because we’re all LGBTs” and so it’s really interesting to see this homonormative dynamic thrown out and used as an excuse for why cis-
Rain: Why it’s okay.
Raquel: Right, why it’s okay for cis gay folks and cis lesbians to perpetuate these damaging ideas.
Rain: Yeah, I agree 100% and hearing Michelle Rodriguez talk about her bisexuality and being a part of our community was very harmful and she came across very insensitive and I think, you know, our community is up at arms because we’re not being heard and I think that if she really was an ally, if she really was part of our community, she would be having a conversation with us and not telling us that we should just accept it and chill out which is pretty much what she said. So you know, I’d love for her to reach out to our community and really have a sit-down conversation so that she’s educated and well informed but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think she’s just completely, you know, she has her- she’s got to do what she’s got to do in terms of promoting her film and she has to stand by it and I guess this is her way of standing by it.
Raquel: Right and it’s so unfortunate. [laughs] Because I think it is important that we see all types of LGBTQ representation in the media and movies. None of us are really getting that shine that we should and to see these missteps happening when they don’t really need to happen, there are so many other roles that people like Matt Bomer and Michelle Rodriguez, who have these expansive careers could step into.
Rain: Yeah, exactly and one of the things that really hit home for me that Michelle Rodriguez said was that hiring a trans or there aren’t any bankable trans actresses that would be able to carry a large movie like that and you know I just kind of want to remind everyone that Michelle Rodriguez wasn’t born a bankable actress. She was given an opportunity and that’s kind of where, you know, that’s kind of where we don’t quite see eye to eye. If you’re arguing that there aren’t any bankable trans talents, it’s because we haven’t been given that opportunity, we haven’t been given that chance, to get to that point. She wasn’t born a bankable actress, she was given an opportunity and she was able to take her career and take it to where it is now which a lot of us trans talent is on the path and we will get there eventually but so it’s about recognizing privilege, it’s about recognizing opportunity, and it’s about recognizing you know inclusivity and I think that’s kind of where she misspoke in terms of using that as an argument.
Raquel: Definitely, thank you. And so I’m curious, what was your first instance of seeing a trans or gender non-conforming person in media?
Rain: Oh gosh, that’s a really good question! [laughs]
Raquel: It’s hard!
Rain: If we’re gonna talk about when I was a kid, it would be, I think, when I saw Soapdish and the Cathy Moriarty character was was outed and vilified and she became the bad guy of the movie and I think one of the things that that was traumatizing for me was, you know, was the fact that I was enjoying the movie with my family and just like, you know, we were laughing, it was a really funny movie and then we got to the end and Cathy Moriarty is outed as a trans person and then she’s also made to be the bad guy. It was very uncomfortable because I was always very feminine and so there was sort of this idea that I was- that I was different and so you know my family didn’t know what to do. After seeing that movie it was just kind of an awkward situation and then they did it again with Ace Ventura with Sean Young, again, being outed at the end and being vilified again and sort of reinforcing that trans people are deceptive and bad and so I was very afraid to grow up, I was very afraid to be trans, to identify as trans because they didn’t have any positive role models to really look for and, you know, internet didn’t exist back then so I couldn’t- I didn’t have that access and it wasn’t really- it wasn’t it was until my late twenties where, you know, Candis Cayne was in a show, an ABC show playing a trans woman and then Laverne Cox being casted in Orange is the New Black is when I really started seeing positive representations of trans women and then, of course, when I first saw Transparent I wasn’t involved in the first season but when i saw it, I just had to be a part of that show no matter what. I didn’t care what I did, I just had to be a part of it because it was the first time it was actually telling my experience authentically and I got very excited about it. So, I found a way to get involved and that’s, you know, that’s very recent that’s just two years ago. [laughs]
Raquel: That’s great! You know, the first character and I guess- I don’t- I guess this is a character I’m not quite sure but my earliest connection to a gender non-conforming media figure really was RuPaul. So I came-
Rain: Oh yeah.
Raquel: Right, so I kind of came I guess into existence a little bit after the Soapdish moment and that was, I really remember RuPaul, I remember the show on VH1 and of course at that time I didn’t really understand the nuances of gender identity. I don’t think a lot of people did and so that, it’s just been interesting to kind of see that I guess that change that’s and that’s little problematic now because there’s some tension between RuPaul and and the trans community particularly on using the T slur about but yeah.
Rain: Yeah.
Raquel: So yeah that was probably my first connection to gender nonconformity and then of course the little skit on In Living Color of the Men on Film where they kind of talk about, they talk about different films and I’m trying to remember who these- I think it was David Alan Grier and some other some other black actor and they played these like feminine flamboyant gay men and and they would always be like, “Hated it!” [laughs] So I remember that and those were kind of my first introductions to gender nonconformity in a media space and like you said it really wasn’t until folks like Candis Cayne and Laverne Cox came to prominence that I really saw well rounded trans characters in the media.
Rain: Yes and I’m glad you mentioned those because another show that and and that in the early nineties or late nineties that I thought was very progressive was was actually Ally McBeal because in Ally Mcbeal they had a gender-neutral bathroom and nobody had a problem with it [laughs] and they also had Wilson Cruz come on the show guest star as a trans character and then they had another woman, who I can’t remember her name also play a trans character, but it was a cis woman. I can’t remember the cis woman’s or the cis actress’s name but and so yeah watching Ally McBeal, which is one of my favorite shows, was just like “Oh my god! Like gender neutral bathroom! Like, who would have thought?” and it wasn’t a big deal and yes, RuPaul. Oh God, RuPaul. Goddess of all is- definitely, definitely paved the way for a lot of- a lot of us women to start really getting more into a headspace of being able to accept what we have sort of believed to be, you know, bad or not- not true. So yeah.
Raquel: Definitely.
Rain: Yeah.
Raquel: And so I did want to, I guess briefly, talk about- So Strut debuted last week and Strut is this reality TV show that centers around the trans modeling agency, or one of them. There are two. So there’s Slay Models and Trans Models, which I think Trans Models is based in New York but Slay Models, I think, it’s based in LA. I’m blank.
Rain: It is. Slay is based in LA.
Raquel: Okay, great and so there are a couple of different models featured on the show and it kind of follows their experiences and I was very, I guess, blown away by the the debut because I didn’t quite know what to expect I think I was thinking more of America’s Next Top Model but it really wasn’t. It’s more of, if you think of the the confessional moments of America’s Next Top Model but there’s more emphasis placed on their actual experiences and lives and photoshoots or something like that, it’s a pretty deep show.
Rain: Right, right.
Raquel: I think-
Rain: Did you like it?
Raquel: I loved it! I think it was great. I teared up particularly at Laith Ashley’s part. He was talking with his mom about her not completely on board with accepting his identity as a man and one thing that really stuck out to me was that this show is, is groundbreaking in another way because it also features, for the most part, trans models of color.
Rain: Yes!
Raquel: And that is huge and so to see Isis King back on the screen after her season on America’s Next Top Model or seasons, I think she may have come back for All-Stars I can’t remember. And also another model Dominique, she’s this amazing goddess and Arisce. Arisce’s part was very interesting to me because she she went to talk to, I guess, her agent or whoever the Slay Models representative is and-
Rain: Cece and Cassandra.
Raquel: Yes, Cece and Cassandra yeah. So went to talk to Cece about a go see that she went on and Cece was telling her that the folks who were doing the casting said that she kind of had a hard look and that there was a suggestion that she get a nose job and so, it was just so powerful to see her kind of stand up to that and say, “Well no, you know like I’m a black woman, I’m a woman of color, like this is my nose, like there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not gonna change for the industry, the industry should change for me and so it was great to see that but I think it brought up this deeper conversation of trans aesthetics and you kind of talked about this earlier but this exceptionalism that is put on trans people who can pass quote-unquote or who can- who looks a certain way or looks conventionally attractive. All these different things and it’s so- it’s such a thin line when we talk about media portrayals in Hollywood, in modeling, in the fashion world because there tends to be a narrow box for trans people to have diverse aesthetics but yet I think a lot of times there’s more room given to cis people to come in a bunch of different other packages. So I don’t know if that- if maybe you could speak to maybe your experiences because I see a lot of overlap between modeling and acting in terms of aesthetics.
Rain: Yeah, absolutely. There’s- it’s a hard conversation to have because the question of, you know, who’s passing and who isn’t passing is a fine line like you mentioned because who gets to say who passes and who doesn’t? Everyone, like everyone, has their opinion on who’s passing and who isn’t so it’s such a nuanced, you know, thing or conversation that really shouldn’t be the case but unfortunately we live in a patriarchal society and under the male gaze G-A-Z-E we have to be presented and aesthetically pleasing in a way that’s soft and attractive and you know in the sort of eyes of the the male ideal and I think that’s kind of where we get tripped up especially in the modeling and the acting industry and I think it’s not just a problem for trans people. I think it’s a problem universally, you know? I think a cis woman with a large nose will will be told the same thing that Arisce was told and so that- that puts, it sort of- Arisce being very vocal and pushing back on that issue and saying, “No, I’m not going to get a nice job.” I think, I think is very revolutionary and it’s and it’s also part of of the change that we need to go to where that were not being categorized and labeled as this or that and we’re just being seen as models or as actors and we have a specific type and if that works great if, it doesn’t, then it doesn’t but it shouldn’t be something that deters people from booking a job if they’re talented and if they have a great walk and if they fit the clothes then what does her nose have anything to do with it?
Raquel: Right. Definitely. Yeah. I think it’s important that we always have these conversations because I really hate, particularly for the black trans woman, this idea that trans people have to have this surgery or that surgery and this assumption that what works for one person is going to make this other person happy and that’s just not true. We really have to push for individuality and giving people the space to see what works for them and what doesn’t. I remember at the beginning of my transition, the only trans woman that I knew for a long time, and I was in small-town Georgia, so there really was not a big trans woman community. And I remember her telling me, “Oh well, I mean you probably won’t need that much work done to your face” and being devastated by her saying that and what that would mean and I think it’s just important particularly for trans folks who have passing privilege or can fit these molds to be very aware of the privilege that comes with that and that there’s more to you than your look, right. There’s more to you than what you may or may not have done to your body and also to just set an example for all trans folks to be able to just exist the way they want to show up in the world.
Rain: Absolutely and, you know, for a long time prior to where we are today, passing was a goal for a lot of trans woman. Just in order to survive we had to pass, you know, so that we’re not getting, you know, bullied or harassed or even beaten up in some cases on the streets. So you know that the surgeries and the hormone replacement therapy was- in a way the goal was to pass a cisgender women and I think now there are a lot of young trans people who say, “Well you know being trans is cool! Why would you want to, why would anybody want to try and pass?” Well, because we needed to survive. [laughs] You know, the world back then isn’t what it is today and so I think it’s so- it’s such- like you said we need to be having these conversations because it’s so nuanced that I think it just- we just need to be able to get to a point where we accept however anyone wants to present themselves, whether, you know, they pass or not shouldn’t even be, shouldn’t even be a thing to talk about anymore. In my case I’ve been very lucky and been very fortunate to have passing privilege, to have pretty privilege, and I’ve always been grateful for that because it allowed me certain access in terms of being able to get a job being able to work and being able to just you know live my life and not be harassed on a consistent basis so it’s very important for me to be outspoken today because I consider myself a success story and I want you know, I want young trans talent or the trans youth to see that, yeah you can you can get to a certain point in your life where you know having not very many surgeries and that’s something that I would like to bring up is that, you know, people look at me and compare me with other trans people and they look at me she’s like, “Oh she’s had- she looks that way because she’s had a lot of surgeries.” Which actually isn’t true, I’ve had zero. I’ve had one surgery and it wasn’t on my face, let’s just put it that way [laughs] and so you never know. You just never you just never know and I think that we just need to just stop putting so much pressure and so much, you know, questions and responsibility on a trans person because that’s what, in the end, the pressure and the need and the hunger to conform into today’s society is eventually, is what’s very harmful to our soul, what ends up killing some of us and we that’s what we need to end. We just need to get to a point where we’re just, you know, seen as, you know, Rain or Raquel or, you know, Arisce or, you know, and not necessarily, you know, a trans woman or in my case an Asian-American trans women. It’s like come on with the labels already.
Raquel: Great. So my last question is very open-ended. I guess these all have been open-ended. [laughs] But you know what stories would you like to see in trans cinema that you haven’t seen?
Rain: What’s? Oh, that’s a really good question! Well, I’m currently, as you know, I’m a writer so I’m writing a feature version of my short film Ryans and I’m writing a comedy pilot which is sort of like Sex in the City/Girls but with trans women and basically explores the dating life here in LA and yeah so I’d like to I’d like to see that. I’d like to see more stories like Her Story in the media and I think there’s so much about our culture that we don’t get to see, you know. There’s the the the voguing culture, the drag culture which we see a little bit of it but there’s so much of that, of our lives, that we hardly ever get to see in a positive way and I think what we need to do is start being or at least what Hollywood needs to do is start being a little bit more creative because the stories that I’m, that I keep seeing and that I’m so tired of is the transitional stories. You know like I get it transitioning is hard, it’s a drag, it’s you know it’s painful. Yeah, duh. I’ve lived it. Can we show a story of a trans woman or trans man? Oh that’s another thing that we need to start telling stories of, is the trans men and you know in a place in their lives where there past the transitional phase and they’re just living day to day and what what is that like for a trans man? What is it like to live, you know, 10-15 years later having already transitioned? What do they do? How do they date? You know like, who do they hang out with? You know, those are the stories that I want to see and also what’s post-transition like for trans women and how do they navigate through the world being being the goal that they always wanted to be? And how do they live with having accomplished such an amazing goal, you know? Because that’s what I want to see. We’re always telling the stories of let’s get to the goal, let’s get to the goal but you know some of us have reached the goal and we’re just living our lives. So you know and that’s just as interesting or even more interesting than the transitional narratives
Raquel: Right.
Rain: Yeah. I love everything you said I would definitely add that we don’t have enough representation of non-binary folks and folks that, you know, maybe I guess being more nuanced on what what we even mean when we say “transition”, right? Because we we use the word so often but it means something completely different for each individual person, so I’m all for all of these stories being told all of the hard stories. I think about actual stories from the perspective of trans sex workers, right? We don’t need to erase people’s existence, we need to add authenticity to them. Trans folks in other countries. All types of things. Trans immigrants, that- I mean there’s so much left to be told and we’re honestly just scratching the surface.
Rain: Yeah, that’s really good- that’s a really good point you make because one of the principles we have here at Topple is, which one of my favorite principles is, “keep the mama with the baby” and so if there is a trans writer, trans actor out there with a story that they want to tell, I think it’s very important that that story stays within that person and is surrounded by you know people who want to take that story into an authentic path so that it’s not told by cis men which historically that’s how are our stories have been told is through through the gaze of the cis men and so I love what you’re saying because it’s basically claiming the idea that we need to start telling stories in our own point of view our own, as Jill calls it, our own gaze. Whether that’s the female gaze or the queer gaze or the trans gaze, it’s being able to tell our story through our own unique perspective and not through someone who’s just interpreting it and not really reflecting the story and it’s, you know, and it’s truth.
Raquel: Definitely, definitely. Well, I want to thank you so much, Rain, for joining me. This has been such an in depth conversation and I think we’ve shed light on a lot of great aspects of the trans experience particularly when portrayed in the media. Are there any projects that you’d like to share that you haven’t? You’ve been so good about letting folks know what’s going on.
Rain: Yeah, thank you! Well thanks for having me, I feel like we can talk forever about this topic. There’s so much that that could be said and it’s basically an ongoing conversation, so I applaud you for even you know inviting me on your show and having me speak of it on behalf of my experience as far as anything else, in terms of well, you know- I’m just, I’m just happy to be where I am today. I’m happy to be in Hollywood for a long time it’s been such a struggle and now I’m getting to a point where I have a network and you know, a supportive- a supportive family and I’m excited to get started on the new season of Transparent and I’m excited for my writing which I think will just- will only get better as I join the writers team as their Executive Assistant and yeah, I love that my short film is touring the country and touring internationally. There’s a lack of trans media or trans representation in romantic comedies and I think that that my short film sort of brings a different, you know, unique perspective in terms of telling a love story and so I’m excited about that and what doors it may open.
Raquel: Right. Well, thank you again! So that’s the episode, everyone! It has been amazing! Make sure to check out all things Black and dangerous at blackgirldangerous.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter at @BGDblog and if you liked this episode or just want to rant to us the hashtag #BGDpodcast. This has been the Black Girl Dangerous podcast and it’s a production of Black Girl Dangerous Media.
