Casting call

Scarlett Johansson has withdrawn from the role of a butch lesbian / trans man because of the outrage that the part wasn’t being played by a trans man.

Scarlett Johansson has opted to withdraw from a film in which she was set to play a transgender man after her casting drew criticism from the LGBTQ community.

No, not the “LGBTQ community”; from some people in that “community.”

Johansson had been set to play transgender man Dante “Tex” Gill, who owned a string of massage parlors in Pittsburgh that were fronts for prostitution in the 1970s and 1980s, in a film about his life.

Johansson’s casting, however, came at a moment when the LGBTQ community and allies are encouraging the casting transgender actors in transgender roles.

But it’s also not certain that Gill was a trans man; some say he/she was a butch lesbian who sometimes passed as male for pragmatic reasons.

Anyway. Another big stride in the direction of a more just, peaceful, and verdant world.

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