Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst Talk to David Haglund About Portraying the Transgender Experience
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2016
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In their role as co-producers on the Amazon series “Transparent,” Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst advise Jill Soloway on how to portray the transgender experience with accuracy and sensitivity. They provide feedback on scripts, participate in “trans 101” workshops for new staff, and help bring trans crewmembers onto the set. The pair, who were a couple for many years, also have a book coming out in May that chronicles their relationship. They talk to The New Yorker’s David Haglund about their work on “Transparent” and their mission to promote acceptance of trans people.
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| 1:12.2 | I'm Dorothy Wickenden. On today's Politics and More podcast, the New Yorkers David Haglin |
| 1:17.5 | talks with Zachary Drucker and Reese Ernst, co-producers of the Amazon TV series Transparent. |
| 1:24.2 | Their work focuses on shaping the show's portrayal of trans culture and the trans experience. |
| 1:32.3 | I'm David Hagland. About a month ago, Lily Wachowski, the co-director of The Matrix and several other movies, |
| 1:38.3 | joined her sister, Lana, in coming out as transgender. She didn't want to come out just yet, not to the whole world, |
| 1:45.8 | but a journalist from the Daily Mail had forced her hand. According to an open letter, she wrote, |
| 1:50.3 | to the Windy City Times. In the letter, she explained what being transgender meant to her. |
| 1:57.8 | To be transgender is something largely understood as existing within the dogmatic terminus of male or female, she wrote. |
| 2:04.6 | And to transition imparts a sense of immediacy, a before and after from one terminus to another. |
| 2:10.6 | But the reality, my reality, is that I've been transitioning and will continue to transition all of my life through the infinite that exists between male and female, |
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