Actor-director Jay Duplass says in an
op-ed that his onscreen romance with transgender actress Trace
Lysette on the Amazon Video dramedy Transparent change his
life.
In the show's third season, Duplass'
Josh Pfefferman has an affair with Shea (played by Lysette), a
transgender woman.
“I've been told that Josh's love
interest in Shea is quite possibly the first of its kind on
television. A cisgender man takes interest in a trans woman simply
because he is attracted to her … not a fetish, not a secret, not an
experiment,” Duplass,
44, wrote.
“Like Josh, I now experience the wide
spectrum of gender on a daily basis, when only a few years ago it
seemed like one of two boxes to check at the doctor's office. On
Transparent, I work closely with LGBTQ and gender
nonconforming people who are now my close friends – truth be told,
we're all more like family. So when I'm asked what it's like to have
an onscreen romance with a trans woman, my reaction is often
something akin to, 'Oh, you mean Trace? I guess I forgot she's
trans.' But it wasn't always this way. I grew up in a small,
old-school Catholic world, imprinted with an above-average number of
categories and judgments. I wasn't exposed to trans people in media
or real life, didn't even know any openly gay people until college,
and I've had fewer sexual partners in my life than Josh has in season
one. So yeah, Transparent opened my heart and my mind, but it
also changed my world.”
Duplass added that his experience on
Transparent had affected his filmmaking with his younger
brother Mark Duplass.
“It's been a while since
Togetherness, the last project Mark and I wrote and directed
ourselves. We're in the process of opening our personal storytelling
to a bigger, more inclusive world. But it's not about being PC or
cool. We just believe it's our responsibility, especially being
straight white cisgender males who are now experiencing some success,
to stand up and advocate for all voices,” he said.