Sex therapist Dr. Marty Klein, actress Scarlett Johansson, and actress Trace Lysette.
Where to begin? First, I do like Dr. Marty Klein. In fact, I frequently quote his views on polarizing issues such as pornography, sex work, and government intervention into the private sex lives of the country’s citizenry. However, I’ve seen Klein stumble on certain issues: with off the cuff remarks during public speaking engagements, and in published writings where he applies and imposes his privileged, cisgender, white, male perspective to the intersection of sex and social justice, particularly with regard to minorities. [I’ll pause here to let any self-described Alpha Males who might be reading this roll their eyes and start typing their comments without reading the rest of the post.]
During a question and answer session at Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Klein said that he saw no difference between treating sexual trauma in members of marginalized groups than treating them in members of more privileged groups [to be fair, I am paraphrasing from memory]. Basically, he applies an “All Lives Matter” “One Size Fits All” approach to sex therapy. In his defense, intersectional sex therapy is far from his specialty and I think it would have been better for him to say, “That’s probably a question for a therapist who is a minority or specializes in working with minority clients.” Moving on:
In a post called “Trans Activists Reject Scarlett, Destroy Trans Movie.”, Dr. Klein weighs in on the controversial casting (and subsequent departure) of Scarlett Johansson in the role of a trans person in the movie Rub and Tug, [The title is clickbait. Klein reveals in paragraph 12 of the 18 paragraph post that he has no idea of the films current status.]
According to Dr. Klein, Johansson was cast instead of a transgender actor because there are no bankable transgender actors who can carry a 20 million dollar movie. This is not a new argument. The same logic has been used to deny African American actors leading roles. The movie industry said that not casting black actors was purely a business decision, not a racist one. They said black actors couldn’t open movies in foreign markets. They said it was the worldwide audience that was racist, not the industry. Then a guy named Will Smith [heard of him?] went on a worldwide charm offensive to prove that black actors could, in fact, open films internationally.
The problem with not casting trans actors [in roles large and small, whether they were written for trans actors or not] because there are no bankable trans stars, is that it creates a Catch 22. Hollywood won’t cast trans actors because they’re not famous enough, so trans actors don’t become famous because Hollywood won’t cast them.
Klein says that the trans activists who called for a trans actor to play the lead in Rub and Tug don’t understand how Hollywood works. Well, I don’t live in California like Dr. Klein, but as a former film critic and entertainment journalist, I know a little bit about how Hollywood works, and Klein’s assertion that the industry would only take a chance on a well known [and therefore, cisgender] actor is bullshit. How many of you had ever heard of Chris Hemsworth before Marvel cast him in the lead of the mega-budget Thor franchise? How many of you had ever heard of Tom Holland before he was cast as Spiderman in Captain America: Civil War?
Klein singles out transgender actress Trace Lysette for saying, “I wouldn’t be as upset if I was getting in the same rooms as Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett for cis [non-trans] roles, but we know that’s not the case.”
To this Klein says, “As a professional, Lysette should know better—Lysette doesn’t get in the same casting rooms as Lawrence and Johansson because Lysette can’t bring in the box office money they can. Lysette, whether you’re talented or not I honestly don’t know. But I’m certain that the reason you don’t get in the same casting room with superstars has nothing to do with the fact that you’re trans.”
So, according to Klein, A-list celebrities don’t have to compete with unknowns [be they cis or trans], because of their power at the box office. That would be news to Jennifer Lawrence and to Scarlett Johansson, both were considered for the highly coveted role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo before it went to a then relatively unknown Rooney Mara.
Gabourey Sidibe’s Oscar-nominated performance in Precious was her first film credit. Imagine if Lee Daniels had said that since there are no “bankable” dark-skinned, plus-sized actresses, that he was going to cast Beyoncé in the lead.
Activist and Executive Director of Trans Education Service, Jaimie Hileman, had this to say, “Dr. Marty Klein mocks the fact that there are plenty of ‘non-Trans people’ who also can’t get into the same ‘rooms’ as A-list actors. It’s glaringly obvious that he’s ignoring the fact that no Trans actor, ever, has gotten the chance to compete for roles at that level, hence lower profile, less bankability. The next time a Trans actor gets a lead role in a big budget film will be the first time.
It’s sad to see the standard demonization of Trans activists by cisgender white men who are just sure we’re ‘doing it all wrong.’ I’d like to point out in all fairness’ sake, I actually am a Trans activist. I wish we had the power and influence Dr. Klein ascribes to us!
I have to say, some of [Dr. Klein’s] complaints could pass for victim-blaming. Our agenda is simple: hire more Trans actors for bigger roles. Stop giving every big Trans role to cisgender actors. Let’s see if Trans actors can actually play a Trans person in a big role. I’m willing to bet that we can.”
Putting the movie aside for a moment; I don’t have confirmation on Marty Klein’s ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity. But, were I a betting man, I’d say he moves through the world as a cisgender, white, heterosexual male. Here, he uses his platform and the authority of the letters behind his name to opine about transgender issues, having done [from what I can tell] little research, and having generated no original transgender sources. He only quotes a single trans person, Trace Lysette, to condescend [incorrectly] to her about an industry that she is a part of and he is not. This is, as the Social Justice Warriors would say, problematic as fuck.
A while back, I had a very critical article about Caitlyn Jenner all cued up and ready to go. However, before I published it, it occurred to me that there I was, a cisgender male, calling out a transgender woman on trans issues. So, I killed the article, convened a panel of transgender activists to discuss their views on Caitlyn Jenner, and published a transcript of their discussion instead. Not to break my arm patting myself on the back, but I used my platform to allow marginalized people to speak for themselves on their own issues. The shit ain’t that hard. I only wish I had thought of it before writing an entire article that never saw the light of day.
Look, I’m sure Dr. Klein worked very hard to get where he is and build his audience [he probably would have had to work harder if he were a woman or a minority, but still], and he can use his platform however he sees fit. Might I gently suggest that conducting an interview with a transgender actor or inviting a trans activist to write a guest blog, rather than spreading his ill-informed opinions, would have been a better use of his time?
I know that reading one of those articles would have been a better use of mine.