Women Aren't Smart. And Other Things Casting Agents Taught Me
These days I get typecast a lot as “Trans Girl At Gay Bar.” When not doing that, I’m usually a nondescript pedestrian with no specific job. I rarely get typecast as things I am in real life. I’m never cast as a geek or scholarly type, even though my day job is designing video games. I go to Comic Con, and the Renaissance Faire, but I’ve never been cast as a comic book nerd, and haven’t been cast as a Ren Faire nerd since 2015.
I used to get cast as brainy nerds quite often. Back when I took jobs as a man.
I spend a lot of time on this website discussing the specific problems of being a transgender actress, but my experience also gives me a special insight into how casting agencies treat men and women differently.
The very first thing I learned is: Women don’t look the way casting agents think a smart person would look.
And please enjoy a gallery of my “Sexy Librarian” look. None of these are from acting jobs, it was just my everyday look before I learned to wear contact lenses.
I became eligible to join Screen Actors Guild back in 2015, when a casting agent contacted me out of the blue to play a Dungeons & Dragons fan. I didn’t apply for the role, they found me. This agent was looking for “Real People” and she didn’t even know that I was an actor! I brought my own wizard cape and pirate sword to the shoot, so the agent chose wisely.
You can see this Emmy Award snubbed performance in the Hulu series Deadbeat, Season 3 Episode 11. I’m the bespectacled nerd with the sword at 4 minutes and 23 seconds. My one line was drowned out by the clattering of swords but, I assure you, I said something nerdy.
Several other casting agencies had begun to typecast me as Nerds back then too. One show has cast me as two different nerdy men over its ten seasons, but they’ve never cast me in a female role.
It is, ironically, titled The Blacklist.
I say “ironic” because the casting agency that handles this show has blacklisted me (One day of work in 2023, and one in 2024 ). Which is all the more unfortunate because the show has a recurring character played by trans celebrity Laverne Cox. Unfortunately that display of diversity doesn’t trickle down to include transgender background actresses on this show.
“Waldorf Casting” handles the Background Actors for The Blacklist and about a dozen other projects each year. Back in 2019 I had stopped sending out male headshots, but Waldorf Casting reached out to me directly to play a male role. They had found my old account at CastingNetworks.com, and contacted me through that website. This was after I had been submitting myself for female roles on that show for years.
Waldorf Casting was well aware that I was transgender by summer of 2019. In fact check out this email chain from when I applied for the role of “Diner Waitress” in February of 2019 on one of their other shows, Blindspot.
Their response was a mixture of incredulousness, and contempt.
I didn’t get that Waitress role. Or any other role on Blindspot in all five seasons!
I got so little work in 2019 that I was utterly desperate for any role. I broke down and accepted the role as a nerdy Tech worker on The Blacklist. They even sent the following enthusiastic note. As I mentioned above, I learned to wear contact lenses because of comments like that.
Two years later they had directly reached out to me again. This time as a nerdy chess player. You can catch me in Season 8 Episode 19 at about 14 minutes and thirty seconds into the episode as a male chess player.
The show has been on for ten seasons, and I’ve only worked on it twice. Both times I was required to play male roles. Even though they were well aware that I was transgender, clearly had me in their files under the category of “Nerdy Men.”
And both of the male roles were as intellectuals types. Female Tech, or Female Chess Player wasn’t something they considered. I’m just as smart no matter how I’m dressed but, apparently, I look less intelligent when presenting female.
The Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission explicitly states that forcing a trans person to dress according to their physical sex is, in fact, discrimination. Here’s a section of EEOC Title VII which says that right on the EEOC website.
And it also specifies that this applies to actors and actresses when casting a role on the basis of sex. The show, the casting agency, and the production company (Sony Pictures) have all committed a double whammy of EEOC violations. And done so twice within a two year period.
You’ll notice the term “BFOQ” in there. That stands for “bona fide occupational qualification” which is the legal term for claiming that a particular job requires some degree of discrimination. An example of a legitimate BFOQ is airlines having mandatory retirement ages for pilots. But if an airline refused to hire male flight attendants, that was ruled as discrimination.
In acting terms, this might apply if I ever wanted to play the role of “Nun #15” or “Pregnant Woman #4.”
But I’d like to hear the EEOC’s opinion on how this applies to “Waitress” or “Tech” or “Chess Player.”
I filed a complaint with Screen Actors Guild in early 2023, but the case still hasn’t been resolved. In fact, the producers of the show, even continued working with “Waldorf Casting” for the final season of the snow. And invited them to the wrap party. Obviously no one involved felt any shame for this.
UPDATE: May 9th 2024: The NY State Division of Human Rights was given all of the above information in 2023, and ruled “No probable cause” for discrimination.
I have since filed a blacklisting complaint with the NY City Commission on Human Rights. “Waldorf Casting”booked me for a job a week after the blacklisting charges were filed.