Jill Soloway, the creator of “Transparent,” on the truth about gender confirmation surgery and what’s not okay on TV anymore
Without a doubt, Transparent is one of the best and most progressive shows on television. And creator Jill Soloway recently did an interview with Vulture to talk about the new season, which will see Maura wanting to undergo gender-confirmation surgery to continue her transition into womanhood.
But Soloway makes it very clear that being transgender is not all about the surgery.
"Surgery is one of those things that everybody wants to talk about. For people who aren’t trans, that’s often a focus of people who aren’t really educated about trans stuff. Sometimes people will ask me about my own Moppa or about other trans people, and they go straight to the: Did they have the surgery?" she said.
And the show has done a brilliant job of exploring the complexities and intricacies of Maura’s day-to-day changes thus far.
"We were happy with seasons one and two and could educate people about how it isn’t all about the surgery — trans life isn’t all about the before and after, it’s not about the “ta da moment, it’s about a journey."
She goes onto to say,
"Transness is something that is lived every single day by trans people. We felt like we had earned that and it was time to be able for Maura start to talk about surgery."
In the interview, Soloway also admits that men who identify as cisgender should not be playing transgender roles on television, and says she would taken this into account had she been as informed as she is today several years ago.
"The time has come where it’s unacceptable for cis men to play trans women. It’s pretty ironic coming from me, where I have a television show where a cis man plays a trans woman."
She explains,
"I’m getting tired of white cis men naming the narrative, telling their own stories, playing the parts of women, playing the parts of trans women, casting each other as women. For me as a feminist, I feel like it’s time to return the gaze and ask white cis men to curtail their projections and to curtail their portrayals of people that they aren’t."
We love how open, honest, and tbh— informative — Soloway is about these incredibly important issues, because the more we know, the better we can be and do. Also, we can’t wait for the new season of this complex show that pushes ALL the boundaries.