The Trans Theatre Tipping Point

Abstract

Most LGBTQ+ theatre audience members are familiar with the disappointment of plays with LGBTQ+ topics. Will the queer and/or trans characters survive the play? Will the narrative revolve entirely around being outed, attacked, and/or ostracized? Although these are certainly tropes we have seen in gay and lesbian drama, there have also been standout plays that normalize queerness written by queer writers. And yet like so much else in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, trans and non-binary representation has struggled with visibility for much longer with far fewer well-known texts that normalize trans presence within a range of stories. Despite Time magazine declaring that there was a “transgender tipping point” in American culture in 2014, almost a decade later theatre still has not caught up to the amount of trans representation seen on television.1