Thread by @CharlotteOU812

Being a white sex worker I suspect is a little like playing in the sandbox of oppressed minority. I can always dust myself off and leave unlike my POC brothers and sisters and my trans brothers and sisters.

And I’d like if I can to use that privilege for good rather than evil. Because I’ve had the benefit of being white, and receiving an excellent education and living on 3 continents growing up. I’ve had more privilege than most white people to be perfectly honest.

I remember when I turned 10 (these were the good old days when kids could visit a pilot in the cock pit) and we flew somewhere and I received an award from United Airlines for circumnavigating the globe twice before my 10th birthday.

I developed some serious skills in being a globe trotting child. And anyone who has travelled widely as a child would probably agree.

I can talk to ANYONE. Homeless...to Governor General. I can find common ground in 30 seconds.

I was always the new kid. I was always the one that spoke “funny”. School curriculums match ups were a nightmare. (Australia you finish LAST on my list of good education systems. Sorry)

And bizarrely along the way I learnt a lot of really useful things that were almost like a training ground for sex work. And I’m very grateful for that. Because the real gift of being a world traveller so young, is the perspective it gives you. To see both sides of a story.

My trans friends tell me this is the gift found in the struggle of a harsh journey. Seeing both sides of the story. And it is a gift. Realising that perspective is always affected by experience.

Recently in the news much has been made of Scarlet Johansson being cast in the film Rub N Tug.
Knowing the story of Tex Gill quite well, I think it will make a wonderful movie. ( I’d love to see a film about Billy Tipton too! Shout out to Spokane peeps)

And of course I’d love to see a trans actor in the part.
I’m currently writing a play about sex work, I have a trans character and I’ve stipulated in the writers notes that I only ever want the character played by a trans actor.
BUT

Writing a play about sex work, which if I’m extremely lucky MIGHT get workshopped, and possibly performed to a tiny audience. It won’t go far.
Films about trans people however are few and far between and need to be seen by a wider audience. A much wider audience.

Trans stories need to be told, and told far and wide.

Film makers sign up name actors and actresses to draw funding to a film. On a small film like Rub N Tug having a name actress like Johansson would have helped with funding, distribution and advertising.

And because of her involvement more people would have seen it.
Now they won’t.
Yes, yes the role should be played by a trans actor. You’re right.
Now let’s name a trans actor with Johansson’s clout? With her visibility. With her name recognition?

Yeah...sucks doesn’t it.
We always say
“Not about us, without us.”
And of course that’s right.
But at what price?
Do we sometimes need to compromise for the bigger picture?

I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.
If Johansson had done that film. More attention would have been put onto a film that tells not only a vital story about a trans person but also a positive story about sex work.
And that possibility may now be gone.

An eternal question. Do we compromise, for the greater good.
In telling stories of minorities, sex workers and trans people. Do we compromise some things, to achieve the bigger picture?
What if Johansson had done that film? And instead of fighting the casting...

More pressure would have been placed on making sure there were trans story consultants on set. And sex worker story consultants on set Approving all representation of trans people and sex workers? Would that have made a greater contribution to the message?

I don’t know.
But I do think in all struggles that we face in being accepted by this world, we may need to start seeing a bigger picture. And start seeing different perspectives.
If a chance to tell a powerful story and reach a large audience has been lost, I’m sad.

Look at it this way. Julia Roberts totally sucked playing a sex worker in Pretty Woman.
Would the film have been better with a sex worker in the role? Of course not.
But....

Could the film Pretty Woman have benefited from a sex worker consulting on the script and educating Julia and Laura about fair representation of sex workers?
I think so.
Then a HUGE audience could have been better educated.

A lot more people could have been entertained and educated as well.
Rather than fighting the Hollywood machine from the outside, perhaps we could work at defeating it from the inside.
Perhaps we could make it work FOR us.

Film is a powerful medium. It is a powerful tool that can reach far and wide. It can help the oppressed be better understood.
In fact the gays have been using it for 30 years. Larry Kramer never though he’d live to see The Normal Heart made. But he did.

So it stands to reason that film can help other minorities be accepted. If the bigger picture is sought by us, and that is. We get our stories made.
We get them made, and we fight the fights that need to be made. Not the fights that stop them being made.