Transgender Awareness Week: Spotlighting some of our fave creative trans women
Right now, it’s Transgender Awareness Week and we’re in the mood to shine a light on some of our fave trans public figures. These women are all doing great things right now, not only in their creative fields but in their contributions to the trans community. We all know that representation matters a lot and unless we continue to see our champion trans folks being celebrated for all the great things they’re up to, societal change becomes a harder task.
The following trans women are actors, directors, writers, and producers and they all have things going on right now that are worth talking about. Furthermore, they’re from all around the globe (trans folks are everywhere peeps). With governments around the world trying so hard to legislate the rights of the transgender community away, the things that these individuals are doing right now matter more than ever.
This Transgender Awareness Week, help us shine a spotlight on some of the public figures doing great things for the film and television industry, and making the LGBTQ community proud!
Jamie Clayton
Jamie Clayton has so many great things happening right now! Her latest film Hellraiser is now available to stream on Hulu. Clayton reprises the role of Pinhead in this classic horror film. Despite the fact that she is a self-confessed “scaredy cat” and not a huge consumer of the horror genre, Clayton slays in this film. Clayton’s depiction of Pinhead is described as both sexy and scary as hell. We’re not sure about you, but we definitely needed a snuggle buddy for this one
Conversely, Clayton’s new season of The L Word: Generation Q drops on Showtime on Friday. This is the fourth season of the rebooted queer drama and it’s taking a much more holistic approach to female sexuality than its predecessor. In Generation Q, Clayton plays Tess, a recovering alcoholic that works in Shane’s (Katherine Moennig) bar and gets herself into all kinds of situations.
While Clayton was clearly cast as a side secondary character in the show, Tess has become a Generation Q fan favorite.
Yasmin Finney
This is Yasmin Finney’s world y’all and we’re all just lucky to be living in it! This queen has a lot happening right now. Finney rose to instant stardom when she burst onto the scene earlier this year as Elle Argent in Netflix’s Heartstopper. Finney’s character in the show is a young trans girl who moves schools from the all-boys school to the neighboring girls’ school on account of her transition.
Heartstopper was such a smashing success that Netflix renewed it for two more seasons just weeks after its initial release. The cast is currently filming the second season in the United Kingdom.
Not too long after the release of Heartstopper, Finney joined the cast of the iconic Dro Who. She is set to play the role of Rose. The character of Rose is trans as well, making her one of the only trans characters to grace the Dr. Who universe. The episodes are scheduled for release in 2023.
Finally, Finney recently starred in a short film production called Mars. The film premiered at the London Film Festival and focuses on the journey of a 17-year-old transgender girl who is struggling for acceptance from her parents.
During this Transgender Awareness Week, we just like to say that Yasmin Finney is an absolute rockstar and we can’t wait to see more from her in the future.
Kim Petras
Kim Petras is on fire right now. The German-born singer is making all kinds of waves in the industry right now. Most recently she collaborated with Sam Smith on their song “Unholy”. The song made history as the first tune by two trans artists to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. The smash hit also made it to the number-one position on the UK Singles Chart.
Since then success has only continued to rain down on Petras and the pair has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
Fun fact: the artist, who has two studio albums to date, also appeared in the 2021 holiday film The Bitch Who Stole Christmas alongside RuPaul and some of the other drag queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race. A Transgender Awareness Week trivia fact for the win!
Tommy Dorfman
Prior to Dorfman’s transition, she was cast as Ryan Shaver on the Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why. In 2021, Dorfman came out as transgender and began living life as her authentic self. Since then, she has done an incredible job of finding her feet in the industry and paving the way forward for herself.
Most recently, Dorfman has taken on the epic task of adapting the popular young adult novel I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver for the screen. Dorfman is writing, directing, and producing the ever-loved story. I Wish You All The Best is currently filming now. No release date has been announced as yet, but full cast information is now available.
Aitch Alberto
If you don’t know who Aitch Alberto is yet, you definitely will soon. Although she has written several short films already, Aitch Alberto is about to make her directorial debut with Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, based on the incredibly popular young adult novel by Benjamin Alire Saenz (she also adapted the screenplay as well).
The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF) earlier this year and fans are eagerly awaiting news about a possible release date for their story. The hype on social media surrounding this movie is already huge and it hasn’t even been released yet. We’re expecting grand and great things from Alberto and the Ari and Dante movie.
There are still a few days left in this year’s Transgender Visibility Week, so do yourself a favor and go and watch something a trans person has created, acted in, or read something a trans person has written. You won’t regret it. Trans stories are human stories and deserve a larger seat at the table.
