During an interview with stylist Christin Brown on Instagram Live, Halle Berry talked about many things, including her journey through hair throughout her career and her upcoming directorial debut with Bruised Then he spoke about a role that was proposed to him: a transgender man. Then he said, “I want to experience that world, I want to understand that world.”
This was not exactly a good idea.
Berry is an LGBTQ advocate, but her decision to consider taking on the role of a transgender man during an era where authenticity and on-screen representation are paramount was cause for concern and some backlash on Twitter.
Sam Feder, director of the recently released Netflix documentary Divulge, narrating the representation of trans people in the media, he tweeted to the actress: “Often people do not know what they do not know. And that’s fine! @halleberry, please consider looking @Disclosure_Doc before doing transness. “
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Actress Jamie Clayton echoed Feder’s sentiment, asking him to look at the docu and share it. Please fight for us, not against us. #TransIsBeautiful “
Former Survivor Cast member Zeke Smith referred to a similar situation when Scarlett Johansson decided she was going to play a trans man in a movie that said on Twitter: “As soon as possible, can ScarJo advertisers call advertisers for Find Berry and explain how this is going to happen? Because of this little snippet, Ms. Berry should have nothing to do with representing our community. “
Berry wasted no time in fixing things. On Monday night she went to Twitter to apologize to the trans community and said she was no longer considering the role.
“Over the weekend I had an opportunity to discuss my consideration of an upcoming role as a transgender man, and I would like to apologize for those comments,” he said. “As a cisgender woman, I now understand that I should not have considered this role, and that the transgender community should have the opportunity to tell their own stories.”
She continued: “I am grateful for the guidance and critical conversation in the past few days and will continue to listen, educate, and learn from this mistake. I promise to be an ally in using my voice to promote better representation on the screen, both in front of and behind the camera. “
GLAAD applauded their efforts: “We are pleased that @halleberry heard and learned from the concerns of transgender people. Other powerful people should do the same. “
