Transparent star Jeffrey Tambor wants to raise awareness of the trans military ban
Actor Jeffrey Tambor of the hit Amazon series ‘Transparent’ has said he wants to raise awareness of President Trump’s trans military ban.
Tambor plays trans parent Maura in the hit series.
He says since President Trump announced the trans military ban on Twitter, he has felt mobilised to ensure that the show makes a difference.
Speaking to Us Weekly, he said: “Something I’ve been harping on and I’m serious about is the military ban. It makes me get in my car faster and get to Paramount Studios.
“I think there is hatred, but I think there is fear. The real big thing is ignorance. I love that we get through to the human. We don’t lecture and we don’t wag our finger didactically. I think this show has a chance to change the playing field.”
The military ban has caused confusion since Trump announced it on Twitter.
He instructed the Pentagon to indefinitely ban trans people from serving openly in the military.
This is despite being advised against it by his lawyers, and the fact that it will cost 114 times the amount of money to ban trans troops than it would to keep them.
The Pentagon spends more than ten times more on medication to help troops with erectile dysfunction than it would have done providing medically necessary costs to trans troops.
In June of last year, President Obama asked the Pentagon to lift its long-held ban on transgender soldiers serving openly in the military.
The Department of Defense was given until July 1 of this year to implement the policy, with LGBT advocates hopeful that transgender soldiers would finally be able to serve openly.
A poll found that a majority of military families oppose the ban.
The Admiral of the US Coast Guard last month said he would defy the ban, and said he had personally spoken to all out trans members of the Coast Guard.
The Trump administration has vowed to fight back against several lawsuits filed since the ban was announced.
Trans actor Alexandra Billings went full-frontal nude for the new season of Transparent.
The actor is best known for her role as Davina in the Amazon series Transparent, the best friend of the show’s main character Maura.
While Jeffrey Tambor, who plays Maura, is not transgender in real life, Billings is one of several real-life transgender actors who have appeared on the show.
In a TV first, Billings stripped fully naked for a scene in the premiere of the fourth season, which debuted on Amazon Video this month.
In the scene, Billings’ character is shown in bed being massaged by her ex-con boyfriend, Sal, when she experiences pain from HIV-related illness.
Netflix stars Laverne Cox and Jamie Clayton have had partial nude scenes on Orange is the New Black and Sense8 respectively, but Billings’ scene is believed to be the first time a transgender actor with a penis has had a full-frontal nude scene in a TV show.
Speaking to the Daily Beast, Billings said: “I don’t think it’s ever been done before, where you see someone who’s a trans body that was pre-op, especially of a certain age, who looks a certain way.
“I’m not built like a model. I’m built in a very specific way, and I’m at a point now where I’m OK with my body. I like it. I don’t love it, but I like it.
“I’m OK with it. I’ve made peace with what I look like. I’ve travelled through years of not only my HIV and also my silicone injections and all the things we go through in order to survive.
“I wanted to show everything, but I said I don’t want to be objectified. I don’t want to be sexualised. And I don’t want to be fetishised. It’s handled beautifully.”
She added: “I thought Jill [Soloway, Transparent creator]’s way of showing it was brilliant. Because that wasn’t my idea. I had no idea how they were going to do it or if they were going to do it. So the fact of it was extraordinary.
“I think the result, because I think that’s the great part of your question—what was the hope—the hope is that when we talk or don’t talk about surgery that it is not the foundation of our question for trans people.
“Have you had this done or haven’t you had this done? I don’t know that it matters anymore. The point is this is how I see you, this is how I receive you.
“So it doesn’t matter what’s going on with your genitalia. The important thing is how do we treat each other? That’s hopefully the conversation.”
The cast of Transparent just released a powerful PSA about trans bathrooms
