History Main / TransCharacterCisActor

* ''Film/MixedNuts'' has Creator/LievSchreiber as a trans girl. The original French version, Le Père Noël est une ordure (1982) has cis male actor Christian Clavier in the same role.
* ''Film/MonkeyMan'' - Cis actor Vipin Sharma plays Alpha, the elder of the hijras. Trans actresses Reva Marchellin (Yummy), Pehan Abdul (Lakshmi) and Dayangku Zyana (Priya) play the three most prominent hijras other than Alpha, though cis man Fahad Scale plays the fourth, Pooja. Originally, the plan was to shoot in India, but due to Covid, production was moved to Indonesia, where it was impossible to bring over hijra actors, and there was a difficulty casting trans actresses who weren't medicalised (due to the hijras being penniless and isolated, many in real life have no gender affirming care other than castration). The army of trans women at the end were all male dancers and stuntmen. Despite this, trans reaction to the film has almost universally been positive.

* ''Normal'' (2003): Cis actor Creator/TomWilkinson plays a man who realizes he's a transwoman after an LGBTAwakening.

* In ''Film/TheNakedGun 33 1/3 The Final Insult'', cis actress Anna Nicole Smith plays the trans character Tanya Peters (her revelation scene is a parody of ''The Crying Game'').

* ''Film/FatalGames'': The main reveal of the story is that Diane Paine isn't just the killer, she also underwent a sex change operation, purely for the sake of winning. She's played by cisgender actress Creator/SallyKirkland.

* ''VisualNovel/DreamDaddy'': Jason Larock, a cis actor and writer in game development, voices gay trans dad Damien Bloodmarch.

In the ''Series/ColdCase'' episode "Daniela", the eponymous victim is played by cis actress Onahoua Rodriguez.

* ''Film/MonkeyMan'' - Cis actor Vipin Sharma plays Alpha, the elder of the hijras. Trans actresses Reva Marchellin (Yummy), Pehan Abdul (Lakshmi) and Dayangku Zyana (Priya) play the three most prominent hijras other than Alpha, though cis man Fahad Scale plays the fourth, Pooja. Originally, the plan was to shoot in India, but due to Covid, production was moved to Indonesia, where it was impossible to bring over hijra actors, and there was a difficulty casting trans actresses who weren't medicalised (due to the hijras being penniless and isolated, many in real life have no gender affirming care other than castration). The army of trans women at the end were all male dancers and stuntmen. Despite this, trans reaction to the film has almost universally been positive.

* ''Film/TheCryingGame'': The love interest of the main character Dil is revealed to be a transgender woman, played by cisgender gay actor Jaye Davidson.

In the ''Series/ColdCase'' "Daniela", the eponymous victim is played by cis actress Onahoua Rodriguez.

* ''Film/TheAdventuresOfPriscillaQueenOfTheDesert'': Cisgender actor Terence Stamp plays transgender woman Bernadette who is one of the main characters.

** Transwoman Paula from season eleven is played by Creator/PaulaMarshall.

** Likewise with Paula from season eleven, who was played by Creator/PaulaMarshall.

** Similarly, the bigender [[spoiler:Papa Titan]] was portrayed by Creator/{{Egoraptor}}.

* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': Marshmallow and the prostitutes in "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" are all trans women, but they're voiced by cisgender men. However, Marshmallow was later recast by the transgender actress Jari Jones.

* ''WesternAnimation'': BMO, a genderfluid robot is voiced by Nik Yang, a cisgender woman.

# Star Power: Sadly, for a combination of reasons, there aren't a lot of openly trans or non-binary working actors who are also household names. The pressure to turn a profit might lead to the higher-ups of the project deciding to cast a cisgender, larger-name actor to help the project get greenlit.