For some reason, unlike Arbor Day or Earth Day or even April Fool's Day, iPhone (and likely Android) calendars don't recognize March 31 as any sort of holiday or commemoration—but since 2009, that date has become very important to the transgender community and its supporters. It's the International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV), and it's dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of transgender-based discrimination worldwide—and considering some of the recent pronouncements coming out of Washington, TDOV may be more important than ever.
"Sunday, I will take time out of my day to appreciate being Trans, even though we have an administration that doesn’t respect us," said actress/director/activist Wendy McCown-Williams. "I hope that people who don’t know anything or understand Trans men and women will take the time to reach out and begin a dialogue. I don’t expect everyone to agree with my life but they can at least respect me as a human being.
"I have been living as a Trans woman since 1999, and yes, Trans visibility is better than it was then, but with visibility comes more scrutiny. I can only hope that we in the Trans community can come together more and continue showing society we are more than what’s between our legs."
Of course, that's not a truism that's getting much traction in the Trump administration these days.
"With all legal hurdles cleared, the Pentagon has instituted a new transgender policy that largely limits the military service of transgender persons currently in uniform to their birth gender," ABC News reported on March 13. "If they are unwilling to do so, they could be discharged... Transgender service members currently serving in the military will only be allowed to continue to serve if they adhere to the dress and grooming standards of their biological gender. Waivers will be allowed on a case-by-case basis but only from the secretaries in charge of the military services... [T]ransgender recruits will no longer be allowed to join the military, even if they have transitioned to a new gender, as had been the case under the earlier memo. Only individuals who have never had hormone treatment or surgery will be allowed to enter the military as recruits."
"Biological gender"—better known as "what's between our legs."
The excuse for this sort of discrimination is something called "gender dysphoria," which the medical profession defines as "the distress a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth." But few if any of the transgender performers AVN has come in contact with feel "distressed" by their gender identities; for them, being transgender is as natural as waking up in the morning and having a cup of coffee.
And the hell of it is, when current military personnel were polled, the vast majority said they had no problem serving alongside a transgender person, describing them as fully combat-ready and a value to the service. But according to the alt-right Family Research Council, "The president isn't banning people who identify as transgender because he hates them. He's banning people who identify as transgender for the same reason the military doesn't allow 71 percent of Americans to serve. Because either they're too old and unhealthy, or our country can't afford the distraction that medical, mental, or behavioral issues cause."
Sure he is! (For an even more virulent trans hate-fest, try FRC's post just today.)
But transgender folks are everywhere in society these days. Jess Herbst of New Hope, TX and Stu Rasmussen of Silverton, OR each served as mayor of their respective cities; New Hampshire currently has two TG state representatives; four other TG women also serve similar roles in other states; and by now, everyone's heard of trans celebrities like Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox and Chaz Bono, plus within the past year, TG actress Nicole Maines has won a major role on the teen-oriented Fox superhero show Supergirl.
But arguably, the one area of life where transgender individuals may be most visible is—you guessed it!—adult entertainment!
Bree Mills, who made her first big splash with the lesbian site Girlsway.com, is one of the newest creators to work in trans erotica with her new series Transfixed, which features cis women and trans women together. For her, an important part of working on Transfixed was "treating this model community how they deserve to be treated—as fellow performers and not as novelty items... We're conscious of the language that we use, even if it's to the detriment of search results. I'm not going to label this a tranny product, not going to use 'shemale' or outdated terminology. And it's not really a trans product in my mind. It's really a lesbian series that showcases these kinds of women together. I'm also doing some trans-woman-on-trans-woman pairings as well because it's [also] women together."
But other companies revel in the "transgender" label.
"I'm happy that the trans community is being acknowledged," actress/director Dana Vespoli told AVN. "I feel very fortunate to have been able to not just write and direct trans movies, but to write and direct movies that present trans performers in a beautiful and positive way. I’m so happy to have worked with such wonderful and talented performers, and hear their stories. I am continually moved by the courage they possess in order to live their truth, especially in a climate that is still incredibly dangerous."
"I'm a big fan" of trans women, added Vespoli's frequent collaborator Sal Genoa, who shoots for Mile High's TransSensual and new company Trans Angels. "The thing that draws me in the most is the way they just want to be who they are, and they've done it. And some girls like Chanel Santini, at such a young age, made such a life-changing decision but their confidence to make that decision is far more than we see in the general population. She made this commitment to get on hormones and, 'I'm going to be a woman and that's it,' at, I believe, 17 or 18. It's a lifetime commitment; there's no turning back. You're not trying something out; you're just so committed to it, and I know people that will never commit to something that they're passionate about or they feel is part of them ever in their life. I commend these girls with the highest regard because they're going for it, and that's what they're comfortable with and there's no turning back, and if they feel more beautiful or more secure with themselves, that's just an amazing thing.
"If you're stimulated by it [trans material] or if it does something for you, where can you get it?" he added. "Well, you go to porn because that's it. Porn lets you connect on a whole other level psychologically or gets out whatever feelings you have. It allows you to go there and check it out, and I really love what Chanel Santini said when she won Trans Performer of the Year. She said, 'Look, we're people working hard in this industry. We're not a kink and we're not a fetish; we're real sex workers doing our thing too,' and I thought that was an amazing speech she gave after she won, and it's true: whether you're admiring it or you have a thing for it, where do you go?"
Besides Mile High, several adult companies have established trans lines, including Grooby Productions, Devil's Film, Goodfellas Productions, Gender X, Jules Jordan Video, Evil Angel, Mancini Productions, Third World Media, CX Wow, Powersville, Kennston Productions, Michelle Austin Films, Hot Wendy Productions—the list goes on and on, and that doesn't even include the many trans-oriented websites.
"Being in touch with your true self and its sexuality is what we do at my company," said Evil Angel owner John Stagliano, who puts our several trans lines. "I love that Transgender is now openly part of our culture—but it is Joey Silvera who deserves the credit for bringing Trans to Evil." (Sadly, the trans-prolific Silvera was not available for comment at press time, nor was Evil's other major trans shooter Aiden Starr.)
One of the few trans companies to exhibit at the 2019 AEE was TransErotica, and its general manager Dan Hogue shared some of his thoughts regarding trans women in porn.
"When I see trans girls, I don't see anything but the girl," Hogue told AVN, "and I know people like to use the term 'marginalized'; I don't see that at all. They're beautiful human beings. Ninety-nine percent of all the girls I've run into in this business, and I've had a lot of contact with them, they're sweet, they're good people, and fun to work with. Running both TransErotica and PornStarPlatinum, in a lot ways, they're even more fun than cisgender performers out there. They're just doing what they love to do, they're having fun, and they spend so much time on themselves and working on their exteriors. That's generally what people look for when they say, 'Oh, she's a t-girl, she's transgender, transsexual,' and they don't stop and realize the inner person as often as they may, and I find that to be the most interesting is their back-stories, and for us, that's one of the things that we as a company wanted to start focusing on, was letting them tell their stories and letting them be more visible on the human side, not just the porn side of what they do but the person that they are.
"One of the projects that we started recently is Trans Confessions," he added. "Lena Kelly's going to be directing that, and what it does is, it gives an in-depth, 25-minute-or-so interview of them talking about their lives, the impact of coming out or their transition, what obstacles they faced, and some of that gets pretty deep, and sometimes you're almost in tears about some of the things they've gone through in their lives, whether it's discrimination or parents or family members or friends. It's just eye-opening to the good nature they have inside of them, and we wanted to put that out there for them. It kind of coincides what this Day of Visibility represents: Hey, they need to be recognized for the people that they are, not the fact that they're transgender or whatever, but recognize them for who they are inside, the good people that they are."
So far, however, just one company has issued a press release celebrating the International Transgender Day of Visibility: xHamster.
"This Sunday, March 31, is the International Transgender Day of Visibility, which celebrates trans lives across the globe—and raises awareness about trans discrimination," xHamster wrote. "This weekend, we will honor the contributions that trans performers have made to the trans movement and the adult industry.
"From the beginning, trans performers have been a critical part of our industry’s success... Largely absent from mainstream media, trans performers in adult have helped bring trans lives out of the shadows, showcasing the community’s beauty, strength, power and pride. They reach those in small towns and repressive countries who may be struggling to realize their own identity.
"Trans performers have been at the vanguard of trans politics for decades. They have continually challenged normative notions of what gender can be, often reaching conservative or unenlightened audiences who may never have considered the politics of struggle—but can understand love, admiration and desire.
"While mainstream media may sometimes scoff at adult performers, trans performers in our industry have used their work to communicate both sexuality and humanity, and to reach millions of people around the world who might be otherwise stuck in a black-and-white binary world."
xHamster's full statement can be found here.
Pictured: A scene from the first chapter of Transfixed's Venus At The Party.
