the new visibility of transidentity on the screen

Gradually, the visibility of trans people seems to be improving on the screen: A Good Man, in theaters Wednesday, takes a further step in this direction with Noémie Merlant in the body of a man who becomes pregnant.

Her character, Benjamin, was born into a female body. In a relationship with Aude (interpreted by the actress and singer Soko), he has already largely started his transition: he has changed his first name and his body is that of a man, with beard and deep voice. But when Aude learns that she will not be able to get pregnant, Benjamin decides to delay a crucial step in her transition, the hysterectomy (removal of the uterus), to carry their child.

Noémie Merlant (Portrait of the girl on fire) is stunning and unrecognizable in the role“This story, which may seem singular, sheds light on the simple notion of the desire for a child, of starting a family and how complicated, painful, and impeded for some it is.”, explains the director, Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar.

Even actress Soko explains that she was never “never asked this question” of parenthood before this film, as she explains living “right in the queer community“in the United States. There, a whole generation of trans actors or “non-binary” assert themselves, as the Canadian film star Juno, Elliot Page, known as Ellen Page until 2020.

In France, beyond this film, trans people are starting to be represented on the screens. The general public had already been able to discover this question of parenthood through the story of Thomas Beatie, the first American transgender to have given birth to a child, who had been a candidate for the reality TV show Secret Story.

TF1 broadcast on November 1 He is She: the story of the transition of a young girl, who grows up with the first name Julien while feeling like a girl since birth. A TV movie broadcast in the first part of the evening and whose main role is played by a trans actress.

Last year the documentary Little girl by Sébastien Lifshitz, recounting the journey of little Sasha, born in a boy’s body and expressing her trans-identity, had been hailed by critics and achieved great audience success on the Arte platform. It was the first documentary ever devoted to trans childhood, explained the filmmaker at the time: “When there are misunderstood subjects, one of the essential things to do is to make the people attacked visible, to show their full humanity”.

But in fiction, which Sébastien Lifshitz practiced as a pioneer (Wild side with trans actress Stéphanie Michelini in 2004), trans actors, few in number, complain that they have trouble breaking through.

And the subject of the incarnation of the characters remains hot as evidenced in 2018 the case of the casting of the American film project Rub and Tug: Actress Scarlett Johansson was slated to play the role of a transgender man, but she gave it up amid criticism from the community.

A Good Man has not escaped controversy on social networks: the director has chosen a “cisgender” actress (person whose gender identity, male or female, corresponds to the sex with which she was born), Noémie Merlant, to play Benjamin, and also bring his notoriety to the film. “There are few transgender actors” and despite some auditions, “few corresponded to the character I had written, his age, his physical profile …”, explains Marie-Castille Mention-Shaar. She would have been ready to “to fight” to impose a transgender actor “which would have brought me the same conviction, in terms of playing, experience, technique”.

“Trans or cis, they are above all actors”, adds the director, who insisted on giving a small role to one of the rare French trans actors, Jonas Ben Ahmed, 30 years old. This one is known to have played the first transgender of the soap opera More beautiful life, in 2018. Jonas Ben Ahmed plays in the film a cisgender man, Benjamin’s best friend. “Trans roles shouldn’t be just for trans, and trans actors don’t want to be limited to trans roles!”, he explains.