Trans Character, Cis Actor

Left: Brandon Teena, trans male protagonist of Boys Don't Cry.
Right: Hilary Swank, the actress playing him, in a glamour shot.

In recent times, Hollywood has tried to get more Transgender or nonbinary roles in their stories. For whatever reasons, many of these roles are offered to cis actors instead of trans actors. This can be for several reasons:

1. Good old-fashioned transphobia. While the directors and casting directors are open-minded enough to be involved in transgender stories and portraying trans and non-binary people on screen, they are still ignorant/transphobic enough to not cast transgender and non-binary actors.
2. 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.
3. The role is so offensive and stereotypical that no self-respecting trans or non-binary actor would take it.
4. The character was not written to be transgender or non-binary when they were first cast, or the character transitioning or coming out during the story would result in recasting, which would break continuity and immersion, or would make the show to go over budget.
5. It just so happens that the best people auditioning for the role happened to be cis actors, or there was a lack of availability of trans and non-binary actors that suited the role, especially more so if the character belongs to more minority groups other than being trans or non-binary.
6. In the case of dubbing to another language, their culture and country has a very different views and tolerance of gender and the queer community compared to the country the work originated from; resulting in most queer performers from that region and cultures staying in the closet or even actively being persecuted (Eastern Europeans, Middle Easterners, Koreans and Chinese are the most prominent examples who consume Western media).
7. For older works, casting cis actors as trans characters was the only option, since there weren't as many openly trans actors back in, say, the '90s and 2000s.
8. The work is about the character coming out as trans and out of necessity starts with them still presenting as the gender they were assigned at birth. Having a trans actor, even one who has yet to start medically transitioning, take on such a role could cause psychological issues. Also, casting someone in the process of transitioning could lead to problems with continuity, particularly if their surgeries meant they were often absent from the set and scenes were not being shot in chronological order. For these reasons, the casting director decides it would be more practical to cast a cisgender actor in the role.

Among many more reasons.

This is especially unfortunate if the cis person in question plays the gender the character does NOT identify as (i.e. a cis man playing a transgender woman or, more rarely, a cis woman playing a trans man) because it is implying that trans people are just crossdressing. Cis women playing trans women and cis men playing trans men tend to be better received but may still be criticized for taking the role from the pool of trans actors.

This practice was tolerated and widespread in the early days of Hollywood. Though the Aussie soap Number 96 cast trans actress Carlotta as a trans woman in 1973, in America, a transgender actor had not appeared on a small screen until 2001, with Jessica Crockett in "Out", an episode of Dark Angel, playing bit character Louise, who is also trans. This was because the transgender community wasn't as prominent and they figured that bad representation was still better than none. But due to transgender activism and progressing societal attitudes, there have been movements to reduce or stop this practice altogether due to the reasoning that transgender actors are struggling enough to get roles normally but now they have to compete against cis actors (who are usually more well known) playing roles that were written for and about their community. And that's not even mentioning the profit, accolades, and awards cis actors receive for playing trans roles, further perpetuating the imbalance in power between cis and trans performers. However, it should be acknowledged that this practice was what opened the doors for the trans community, offered visibility, and garnered sympathy and momentum for their cause by getting any transgender representation on-screen at all.

One variation of this trope is when a cisgender actor is cast to play a transgender character for scenes set before the character's transition while casting a transgender actor to play them post-transition.

Note: This is NOT a place for Complaining About Shows You Don't Like, complaining about the character or complaining about the performance of the cis actors in question. The show, the character, and the performance can be of any quality (some even won prestigious awards and became Star-Making Role for the cis actor) and still fit this description.

This is the opposite of Actor-Shared Background, Disabled Character, Disabled Actor as well as Queer Character, Queer Actor. Compare with Cross-Cast Role, where the actor plays a character with the opposite gender of themselves. Can lead to Crossdressing Voices if a man voices a transgender woman or a woman voices a transgender man.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Black Butler: Grell Sutcliff, who is transfeminine, is voiced by Jun Fukuyama in Japanese and Daniel Fredrick in English, both of whom are cis male actors.
• In Chivalry of a Failed Knight, the transfeminine Nagi "Alice" Arisuin is voiced by the cis male voice actors Shintarō Asanuma and Chris Patton in Japanese and English, respectively. Also doubles as Queer Character, Queer Actor in the latter's case due to Chris also being openly gay.
• Heaven's Design Team: Kanamori or Venus, one of the main designers at Designer Department, a flamboyant and beauty-obsessed designer woman whose masterpiece is the bird. She is voiced by Daisuke Kishio.
• Ixion Saga DT: Mariandale,a transsexual maid who wields pistols akimbo and protects the princess. Occasionally, she reverts to her male voice, also made by Jun Fukuyama.
• In Moriarty the Patriot, Irene Adler comes out as "James Bonde", but they're still played by cisgender women, Yōko Hikasa in Japanese and Natalie Van Sistine in English.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Magne, a transfeminine member of the League of Villains, has cisgender male voice actors: Satoru Inoue in Japanese, and Jeremy Inman in English.
  • Tiger, a transmasculine hero, is played by cisgender male actors: Shinnosuke Ogami in Japanese, and Marcus D. Stimac in English.
• One Piece:
  • Morley is a trans woman, but she's voiced by cisgender men (Kenta Miyake and Brad Kurtz) in both Japanese and English.
  • Kikunojo is a trans woman voiced by cisgender actress Mariya Ise in Japanese.
  • Yamato, who is transmasculine, is voiced by the cisgender actress Saori Hayami in the Japanese dub.
• Tokyo Godfathers: Hana, a trans woman, is voiced in both the original Japanese^note  Yoshiaki Umegaki and Latin American Spanish dubs by cisgender men.
• YuYu Hakusho: One member of The Demon Triad, Miyuki, while initially presented as cis, is quickly revealed to be a trans woman (demoness?), and is voiced by cis actresses Ako Mayama ^note  who was credited as "Rin Mizuhara" as that was her stage name at the time in Japanese and Peggy Paterson in English.
• You're Under Arrest!: Aoi Futaba is a transgender woman, and in the English, Japanese, and Latin American Spanish dubs, she's voiced by cisgender women; Rica Matsumoto, Amy Tipton, and Sara Pantoja, respectively.
• Zombie Land Saga: In episode 8, Lily is revealed to be a trans woman, but in both Japanese and English dubs, she's voiced by cisgender actresses; Minami Tanaka and Sarah Wiedenheft, respectively.

Film — Animated

• Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling: Joe Murray, a cisgender man, reprises his role as Rachel Bighead, who used to be known as Ralph prior to her transition.

Film — Live Action

• 3 Generations: Cisgender actress Elle Fanning plays the transgender teenage boy Ray.
• The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Cisgender actor Terence Stamp plays transgender woman Bernadette who is one of the main characters.
• All About My Mother: Two transgender women are played by cisgender actors: Lola played by Toni Canto and Agrado played by Antonia San Juan.
• Anything: Cisgender actor Matt Bomer plays transgender woman Freda Von Rhenburg - the love interest of the main character.
• Are You Being Served?: Mr. Humphries' three transgender friends are all played by cisgender actresses - Marianne Broome, Nicki Howorth, and Rikki Howard.
• Better Than Chocolate: Trans woman Judy was played by actor Peter Outerbridge, a cis man.
• Boys Don't Cry is based on the life and death of trans man Brandon Teena, who is played by cis actress Hilary Swank.
• Breakfast on Pluto: Cisgender actor Cillian Murphy plays transgender woman Kitten.
• The Crying Game: The love interest of the main character Dil is revealed to be a transgender woman, played by cisgender femme gay actor Jaye Davidson.
• Dallas Buyers Club: Cisgender actor Jared Leto plays the transgender woman Rayon.
• The Danish Girl: Cisgender actor Eddie Redmayne plays Lili Elbe, one of the first transgender women to undergo sex reassignment surgery in history. A review by a trans woman explains why the movie and Redmayne's portrayal is insulting to trans women.
• In Dasepo Sonyo, trans girl Double Eyes is played by cis actress Eun-Seong Lee.
• Dog Day Afternoon: Cisgender actor Chris Sarandon plays the pre-op transgender girlfriend of the main character who cannot afford gender reassignment surgery, leading him to rob a bank to pay for this. The character is based on the real-life trans woman Elizabeth Eden - girlfriend of the man who orchestrated the robbery.
• Dressed to Kill: The killer is revealed as having been a trans woman who was seeking to get sex reassignment surgery. She's played by cis actor Michael Caine.
• In the Danish drama movie, En Helt Almindelig Familie, the young protagonist's father, who comes out as a trans woman, is played by cisgender male actor Mikkel Boe Følsgaard. This is a bit of an unusual case as the movie is based on director and screenwriter Malou Reymann's own experiences of growing up with a father who came out as a trans woman, and how she eventually came to accept it and support her. Reymann decided that having a cisgender male actor play the role would more accurately reflect the confusion an 11-year-old girl feels when a person that she has always conceived as a "regular" man is suddenly revealed to be a woman.
• Escape from L.A.: Trans gang leader Hershe is played by cis female actor Pam Grier. The filmmakers made a nod towards realism by deepening her voice in post-production, and Grier grew her body hair out to portray a trans woman with little access to beauty supplies.
• Cis actress Lauren Mollica plays trans man Aggie in Itty Bitty Titty Committee. Most critics found him to be the most sympathetic character in the Dysfunction Junction.
• A Mighty Wind ends with Mark Shubb (played by cis actor Harry Shearer) transitioning into living as a woman.
• Mixed Nuts has Liev Schreiber 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.
• Monkey Man - 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.
• In Monty Python's Life of Brian, trans woman Loretta is played by cis actor Eric Idle.
• Myra Breckinridge: Cis actress Raquel Welch plays the title character, who is a trans woman.
• In The Naked Gun 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).
• A Reflection of Fear: The killer is revealed to have been assigned male at birth but raised as and identifies as a girl. She's played by cis actress Sandra Locke.
• Cisgender actress Scarlett Johansson was set to star in a movie called Rub and Tug based on the life of a transgender man massage parlor owner Dante "Text" Gill. However, the backlash against Johansson's casting and her subsequence Dear Negative Reader public response has made her quit the project and the film was shelved.
• Vanessa Redgrave plays real-life transgender woman athlete Renee Richards in Second Serve who is heavily discriminated against when she tries to qualify as a female pro player.
• Sleepaway Camp: The killer is revealed as assigned male at birth but raised as a girl. In sequels, she identifies as a woman and has undergone sex reassignment surgery. She's played by cis actress Felissa Rose in the original and the fourth sequel. Cis actress Pamela Springsteen played her in the second and third sequels.
• Queer male actor Lee Pace portrayed Calpernia Addams, a real trans woman, in the film Soldier's Girl, about her relationship with Barry Winchell, a US Army private who became the victim of a fatal Homophobic Hate Crime as a result by a fellow soldier.
• Transamerica: Cisgender actress Felicity Huffman plays pre-op transgender woman Bree who fathered a child named Toby before her transition. Their relationship is the main conflict of the film.
• The World According to Garp: Cisgender actor John Lithgow portrays transgender woman Roberta Muldoon who was one of the women at the women's shelter run by the main character's mother.
• Zoolander 2: Cis actor Benedict Cumberbatch plays the trans character All.
• Fatal Games: 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 Sally Kirkland.

Live-Action TV

• Alice in Borderland: Trans girl Hikari Kuina is played by actress Aya Asahina and by actor Rihito Itagaki in a flashback. Neither are trans in real life.
• All My Children's Zoe Luper, a transgender woman (albeit a pre-op one still in the "living/dressing as a woman" stage of her transition) was played by cisgender male Jeffrey Carlson.
• American Horror Story: Hotel: Trans bartender Liz Taylor is played by cis actor Denis O'Hare. Granted, there were pre-transition flashbacks. O'Hare defended himself by saying that he initially assumed Liz was a crossdresser when he was offered the role.
• The Bold and the Beautiful: Cisgender actress Karla Mosley plays transgender actress Maya Avant, who became the first trans female character to feature on a US daytime soap opera as a series regular and the first transgender bride to be married on a US daytime soap opera.
• In Britain's Got The Pop Factor, the role of trans woman Geraldine McQueen was played by cis male actor and comedian Peter Kay (who also cowrote, directed and produced the show).
• Chicago Hope: Trans femme characters appeared played by cis woman Mia Sara and cis boy Shawn Pyfrom.
• On the Soap Opera The City (1995), transgender woman Azure C. was played by cisgender actress Carlotta Chang.
• In the 2009 episode "Make Over" of the police detective drama The Closer, cis actor Beau Bridges played a trans woman, who had previously been known to one of the regulars as a male detective friend. This character found it very difficult to accept his good buddy in the persona of a woman. The spinoff Major Crimes featured cis boy actor Tanner Buchanan as a trans girl, Michelle Brand.
• In the Cold Case episode "Daniela", the eponymous victim is played by cis actress Onahoua Rodriguez.
• In Coronation Street, the character Hayley Cropper (a trans woman and the first transgender character to feature in the series) was played by cisgender actress Julie Hesmondhalgh.
• In Crown Court "The Change" features cis actress Judy Loe as a trans woman.
• Dead of Summer: Trans boy Drew was played by the cisgender actress Zelda Williams.
• In Degrassi: The Next Generation: Adam is a trans boy played by cis actress Jordan Todosey.
• In Doctor Who, trans villainess Cassandra is played by actress Zoë Wanamaker.
• ER: Cis male actor Vondie Curtis-Hall as a trans woman, and cis female actress Megan Vint as a trans girl.
• First Day: In the Danish dub, trans girl Hannah is voiced by the cisgender voice actress Nora Balck Sørensen.
• Friends: Chandler's estranged, drag queen father, who was confirmed as a transgender woman years later, is played by cisgender actress Kathleen Turner.
• Glee: Coach Bieste, who came out as a transgender man and medically transitioned in Season 6 after being written as a straight, if butch, cisgender woman for the previous four seasons, is played by cisgender lesbian actress Dot-Marie Jones.
• Hit & Miss: Cis actress Chloë Sevigny as Mia, the trans woman protagonist. While Sevigny is classically feminine, the story averts an Easy Sex Change by showing her taking hormones and mentioning she's had plastic surgery, even using a prosthetic penis for a nude scene (she's saving up for sex reassignment).
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Cis actor Brittany Daniel as "Carmen the Tranny". The show creator Rob McElhenney has gone on record saying he regrets the insensitive writing around the character and would cast a trans actor if the show were made now, also expressing regret about using trans slurs.
• Judging Amy - Cis actor Ryan James plays trans girl Sasha Wilmer.
• Just Shoot Me!: Trans woman Brandi, Dennis' old friend from high school, was played by the cisgender actress Jenny McCarthy.
• L.A. Doctors featured (the very androgynous) cis man Keram Malicki-Sanchez as trans man Alex.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
  • In "Fallacy", cis actress Katherine Moennig plays trans woman Cheryl Avery.
  • In "Transitions", trans girl Hayley is played by cisgender actor Bridger Zadina. Her counselor, Jackie Blaine, is played by actress Aisha Hinds, who has been mistaken for a trans woman in the past due to her size but is cisgender. The episode does feature an actual trans non-binary actor, Daniel Sea, in the minor role of Blake.
  • In "Transgender Bridge", cis actor Christopher Dylan White plays trans girl Avery Parker.
• In Mr. Robot, cis actor B.D. Wong plays transgender woman hacker Whiterose. Justified in that Whiterose is a Chinese government official who is still in the closet and thus must appear as a man in public.
• Orphan Black: Tatiana Maslany, a cis woman, plays trans man Tony Sawicki. Justified as Tony is one of the many clone characters in the show who are all played by Maslany.
• Orange Is the New Black: Zigzagged in the case of trans woman Sophia, who is played by trans actress Laverne Cox and became her Star-Making Role. In flashbacks to periods before she transitioned, she is played by Cox's cisgender twin brother Marcus Lamar.
• Play for Today: The episode 'Even Solomon' casts cis actor Paul Henley as a young man who eventually realises he is Susan Piper, a trans woman.
• Pretty Little Liars: CeCe Drake, played by cis actress Vanessa Ray, was revealed to be a trans woman and the main antagonist A. Her reveal as the main villain of the show coupled with the fact that she is played by a cis woman has attracted a lot of criticisms for playing to harmful stereotypes of trans women.
• Rab C. Nesbitt: David Tennant appears as trans bartender Davina in one of his earliest roles.
• Ray Donovan: Cis male actor Alex Saxon as trans woman Chloe.
• Strange Empire: Joanna Boland, who plays trans man Morgan Finn, is cisgender.
• In Tales of the City, trans woman Anna Madrigal is played by cis actress Olympia Dukakis. When a sequel series was produced for Netflix in 2019, Dukakis was allowed to reprise the role, despite increased awareness of how this practice affected trans actors; the producers also elected to cast a number of trans actors in roles as a way of compensating.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: In the episode "Earthlings Welcome Here", Eileen, a trans woman on the run from an evil arms company that she worked for before she transitioned, is played by Dinah Lenney, a cis actress.
• Transparent: Trans woman Maura Pfefferman - the titular transparent, is played by cis actor Jeffrey Tambor. After the show became a hit, other trans characters were played by trans actresses. Tambor stated he'd be glad to end up being the last cisgender man to play a trans woman character.
• Two and a Half Men:
  • Transgender man Bill from "An Old Flame With a New Wick" is played by Chris O'Donnell.
  • Trans woman Paula from season eleven is played by Paula Marshall.
• In Twin Peaks, cis actor David Duchovny plays trans woman Denise Bryson.
• Ugly Betty: Daniel's transgender sister Alexis, is played by cisgender actress Rebecca Romijn.

Video Games

• Despite being non-binary and using they/them pronouns, Bloodhound from Apex Legends is voiced by cis queer woman Allegra Clark (albeit pitched down to sound more androgynous).
• Aristotle from Billie Bust Up!, who is demimale and uses both he and they pronouns, is voiced by cisgender actor Edward Bosco.
• In Dragon Age: Inquisition, trans man Krem is voiced by cisgender actress Jennifer Hale.
• Dream Daddy: Jason Larock, a cis actor and writer in game development, voices gay trans dad Damien Bloodmarch.
• Inverted in the English dub of Final Fantasy XIV. The English voice actress for Wuk Lamat is a transgender woman named Sena Bryer, but the character is a cisgender woman.
• Guilty Gear: Bridget is a character introduced all the way back in Guilty Gear XX who years later, in Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, comes out as a trans girl. Despite that, she's voiced by cis-actresses in every appearance.
• IDOLiSH7: Kaoru Anesagi, the manager of TRIGGER, is a trans woman voiced by cis male actor Yoshihisa Kawahara in the game and the anime adaptation.
• The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories: Cisgender actress Kellie Holway voices trans woman J.J. in the dream world, while cisgender actor Steve Wiley voices her in the real world (where she's still boymoding).
• Space Goofs: Candy comes out as a transgender woman in Stupid Invaders, and she is still voiced by the cisgender Charlie Adler.
• Super Mario Bros.: Birdo, one of the earliest examples of a trans female in video games, has been voiced by cisgender actors, both male and female, since the 2000s. In the Updated Re-release of Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Advance, she was voiced by Jen Taylor, whereas starting with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, she has consistently been voiced by Nintendo composer Kazumi Totaka.

Web Animation

• Inanimate Insanity: Before being Darrin'd by nonbinary voice actors Jazzy Oliver and Shooshies respectively in 2022, Paintbrush and Bot, who were revealed to be nonbinary, were voiced by the cisgender voice actor Taylor Grodin.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: BMO, a genderfluid robot is voiced by Nik Yang, a cisgender woman.
• Bob's Burgers: Marshmallow and the prostitutes in "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" are all trans women, but they're voiced by cisgender men. However, Marshmallow (who's black) was later recast by black transgender actress Jari Jones following the George Floyd protests.
• Family Guy: Cisgender male creator Seth MacFarlane voices Quagmire's transgender mother Ida.
• The Fungies!: Non-binary mushroom kid Lil' Lemon is voiced by a cisgender woman, Nik Yang.
• Futurama: Hermaphrobot the transgender woman is voiced by the cisgender John DiMaggio.
• While The Owl House's most prominent trans character (Raine) is voiced by two non-binary voice actors, there are a few portrayed by cis actors.
  • Masha is voiced by Grey DeLisle. It's likely that they either weren't intended to be non-binary at the time of their introduction (given that the writers had to make massive changes to the show's plot when Disney cut season 3 short) or it was an attempt to hide their true gender as it's implied that they transitioned in between their first and second appearances.
  • Similarly, the bigender Papa Titan was voiced by Arin Hanson.
• The Nutshack: Cherry Pie the transgender woman is voiced by Rex Navarette, a cisgender man.
• The Oblongs: Anita is a pre-op transgender woman, and she is voiced by the cisgender Billy West.
• South Park:
  • In "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina", Mr. Garrison gets surgery and becomes Mrs. Garrison (though turns back into a man in "Eek, a Penis!"), but is still voiced by show co-creator Trey Parker, a cisgender man.
  • Trey Parker also voices the show's parody of real-life trans woman Caitlyn Jenner.
• Superjail!: Alice the trans woman is voiced by the cisgender man Christy C. Karacas, who is also the show's creator.
• Tiny Toons Looniversity: Non-binary character Dizzy Devil is voiced by Betsy Sodaro, who is cisgender.

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