White Lotus star played a trans role as a cis man – but the character was ahead of its time

Actor Walton Goggins might be making waves online for his role as a moody older man with a big secret on The White Lotus, but he’s been taking on some of TV’s best character roles for decades before now.

Newers fans will know him from his Emmy-nominated role as Ghoul in Prime Video’s Fallout, or Cecil Stedman in Invincible, and established Goggins lovers will probably best remember his also Emmy-nominated turn in Western series Justified.

Yet one of his most well-regarded but equally contentious roles was in FX’s long-running crime drama Sons of Anarchy, where Goggins starred as Venus Van Dam, a transgender sex worker who ultimately became a key part of the SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original) gang.

Sons of Anarchy, which ran for seven seasons between 2008 and 2014, followed Queer As Folk star Charlie Hunnam as Jax Teller, the heir of SAMCRO. He discovers a manifesto from his late father and original club leader, and begins to question his relationship to the oftentimes violent nature of the notorious motorcycle gang.

Walton Goggins’ trans character Venus Van Dam was introduced in season five, in 2012, and while it’s highly unlikely he’d ever be given the role of a trans character as a cisgender man today, Venus’s plot wasn’t as problematic as it could’ve been.

Sure, there were some pretty rough moments – Venus’s gender identity was used as a punchline on numerous occasions, and her occupation as sex worker was hardly a move away from tropes about trans people on screen – but she eventually became a key part of the SAMCRO crowd.

Considering the intensely masculine premise behind Sons of Anarchy, and its largely male fanbase, the introduction of a trans character at all was a fairly sizable feat. Yet as season five crossed into season six, fans got to learn more about Venus’s background – her experience of sexual abuse as a child, the introduction of her own child, and her incredibly troubled relationship with her mother particularly. 

The final season also offered what trans characters at the time had little experience with – a happy ending. After Venus cares for Tig (Kim Coates) following him being shot, the couple develop a romantic, sexual relationship, introducing a concept hardly ever seen on TV at the time: trans people are in relationships, oftentimes with cis people.

Their relationship wasn’t without it’s low points; as the club’s most violent member, Tig isn’t far removed from the world of anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups, and he has to reckon with who he’s involved with, and how they would treat the woman he loves. While they split up for a time, the season finale showed them together, and happy (sort of). 

Speaking last year about his role in Sons of Anarchy and how it came about, Goggins revealed that he only wanted to star in the show if he could play a transgender character.

The writer of the series, Kurt Sutter, once said in an article that he wouldn’t want Goggins on the show as he was too known for his role in noughties crime drama, The Shield.

“Someone sent this article to me, I read it, I forwarded it to Kurt Sutter and I said ‘F*** you, man. I wouldn’t do your show anyway.’ True story,” Goggins explained.

“I said, ‘The only way I would do your show is if I played a transgender.’ Two years later, he sent me a text and he said, ‘were you serious?’

“And I said, ‘about what?’ He said, ‘about playing a transgender.’ And I said, ‘do you have pages?’ He said, ‘yes.’ He sent them, I read them and it was one of the greatest things that I had ever read. And it made me laugh and it broke my heart.”

Sutter has since admitted he wouldn’t cast a cisgender man in the role of a trans woman today.

While Goggins’ role in Sons of Anarchy was undeniably problematic, and likely wouldn’t happen now, it also helped pave the way for a stream of other trans characters to follow.

Sons of Anarchy is streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK.

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