The Latest Lunacy

Complaints have been made recently about a ‘straight’ actor being cast as a ‘gay’ character. There are ‘so many gay actors, why couldn’t one of them have been offered the role?’  This is political correctness, or sensitivity, or equality, or whatever else one could call it, gone stark raving bonkers.  Using this argument, one could insist that only straight men should be cast as straight men, or train drivers as train drivers, soldiers as soldiers, paedophiles as paedophiles.

Aren’t they all actors? And isn’t the whole point of being an actor that he or she should inhabit and symbolise the character being presented?

I don’t know what letter of the alphabet represents you – there are so many nowadays – L,G,B,Q,T for example. How about adding a few more? F for Fed up, D for Disinterested, HTWIWB for Happy The Way I Was Born, GINGUITCW for Glad I’m Not Growing Up In This Confused World.

While on the subject, or one associated with it, there are people being given gender assignment or reassignment surgery on the NHS, the much loved and now elderly and creaking public service available ‘free at the point of delivery’ in the UK. I have some issues with that surgery being offered although I appreciate there is a very small minority of people truly troubled by the belief that they have been assigned the wrong sex at birth. See this fascinating TED talk by Paula Stone Williams.

However, what I really cannot stomach is the complaints that have been made by a few that they are unhappy with the results and want them reversed (!) or improved (bigger breasts, for example, because the recipient is suffering mental stress.)

I will write a post about the NHS another day.

For now, I will finish this by stating that I will never call myself ‘cis’. I am a female (and yes, I am becoming a Grumpy Old Woman, but better to be a GOW than a COW!)

From Wikipedia: Cisgender (often abbreviated to simply cis) is a term for people whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth. Cisgender may also be defined as those who have "a gender identity or perform a gender role society considers appropriate for one's sex". It is the opposite of the term transgender.