In We See Each Other (Andscape, May), journalist Tre’vell Anderson shines a critical spotlight on representations of trans people in movies and on TV. As the writer who fashioned a new beat on Black and queer film at the Los Angeles Times, Anderson is used to centering people who have historically been relegated to Hollywood’s margins. They spoke with PW about why trans history matters, depictions that spark joy, and the unexpected affirmation of reality TV.
How did this book evolve from the one you originally envisioned?
We See Each Other is an effort to share the story of how I came to be who I am in part through the images that I saw on screen. The book that we sold was a more comprehensive look at the history of trans images on screen, with a little razzle dazzle, but fewer personal elements. Ultimately, it changed in the writing. I was watching Boys Don’t Cry, a trans film that many would see as canonical, and basically re-traumatizing myself while watching. It seemed more interesting to lean into that specificity.
Did you find yourself turning away from traumatic images?
It’s not necessarily running away from or not grappling with those tough images in our history, but it’s a recognition that there are so many other forms of transness and gender nonconforming aesthetics on screen. And those also deserve critique and criticism. The book addresses what could be considered canonical images of trans folks and gender expansiveness on screen, including films that contribute to anti-trans or anti–gender nonconforming or anti–gender expansiveness depictions. But one of my favorite chapters is on reality television as a space of possibility for so many trans folks when scripted portrayals failed us. I love being able to talk about Isis King on America’s Next Top Model alongside Leiomy Maldonado on America’s Best Dance Crew, alongside Laverne Cox on I Want to Work for Diddy—long before Cox’s role in Orange Is the New Black—and charting our collective visual history in that particular way.
What have been the consequences of the historical erasure of trans people from film and TV?
I often think, if there had been a variety of representations of trans people since the beginning of moving images, would we still be seeing and experiencing what we’re seeing and experiencing? The impact is what we’re living through right now: the battles we’re seeing over our identities and our bodies that are happening in state legislatures across the country. That’s the impact of us not knowing this history and having what is ultimately an incomplete record of what trans life looks like, what gender nonconformity looks like, in broader popular culture.
What was the first trans representation on TV or in film that made you feel joy?
I’m gonna go with this rather recent image, though I have complex feelings about it: the nonbinary character of Uncle Clifford on P-Valley. I love what Nicco Annan, the actor, has brought to that character, but I also note that he’s a Black cis-identified gay man playing this nonbinary character, and I wish that a nonbinary person would have had that opportunity. Yet what he does with it is beautiful to me. I love the writing on that show and the ways in which Black, nonbinary, gender nonconforming-ness is being reflected in a deeply Black Southern rural community. Because we are there too—we’re not just in New York, we’re not just in L.A., we’re also in the South. It’s an obvious attempt to reflect the legitimate complexities at which Black nonbinary people and trans folks live. And it does it very well.
