Mya Taylor on being a trans actor, race, gender and intersectionality

Mya Taylor could be the first trans actor to get an Oscar nod – but the star of US film ‘Tangerine’ has other concerns.

Still from Tangerine on imbd (Imbd)

Mya Taylor is on her smartphone when she walks in. This is her 22nd interview of the day. I ask if she’s excited about the Oscar whispers that have been doing the rounds since Tangerine, the film she’s in the UK to promote, shone at Sundance earlier this year – but the actress is deep in Facebook. “Do you know what’s more exciting is that I just sent my husband a selfie and he loves it.” She barely looks up at me. Mya, are you big on selfies? “Yeah”. Mya, are you married? “I’m engaged.” A blonde-haired photographer puts her head through the door and introduces herself: “Hi Mya, I’m going to shoot you later.” Taylor smirks. I cringe. As a white person you just do not say that to a transgender woman of colour from the United States. I decide to change tack.

“Mya, I’m a trans woman and a few years ago I never thought anyone would love me. Did you used to feel like that?” Bingo. “You look amazing!” she beams, springing into life. “That body girl! A trans woman can look very much like cisgender women, but there’s usually something that gives that element to our look to say ‘OK well this is my sister’. But I couldn’t even tell.” And so, in the space of five – delightfully politically-incorrect – seconds, we’ve become sisters.

Like many trans women, Taylor was extremely insecure when she first started her transition. “If I didn’t have a man to love me then I just wasn’t pretty enough or passable, you know? I felt like I was going to be on my own for the rest of my life.” She bemoans the steady stream of “dick pics” she receives on social media from men who admire trans women sexually but don’t see us as worthy of respect: “I’m like bitch don’t send me a picture of your dick ’cause if you’re gonna do that make sure it’s bigger than my man’s.”

If you like Taylor’s saucy language you’ll love Tangerine. Shot entirely on iPhones by director Sean Baker, it tells the story of Sin-Dee and Alexandra, two transgender sex workers trekking around Los Angeles in pursuit of Sin-Dee’s cheating boyfriend, and serves up gritty glamour with a side order of revenge. Baker was keen to tell a story from the trans community and literally plucked Taylor and her friend Kitana Kiki Rodriguez from the LGBT Center in West Hollywood. How’s that for being “discovered”? Rodriguez – who, like Taylor, puts in a champion performance – is absent from the European publicity tour because she wasn’t able to get a passport. Her lack of documentation is symbolic of the marginalized social status of trans women of colour in the US. Baker is keen to help his leading ladies, though, and the producers have officially launched an Oscars campaign for the pair, the first time that trans actors have been put forward for the honour. I wish them luck.

The world of shame, distrust and abandon Mya describes – and Tangerine so vividly portrays – is one that many trans women and their lovers will recognise. There is a scene of black-girl-on-white-girl violence which echoes Rihanna’s controversial video for "Bitch Better Have My Money"; it is shocking, hilarious, and painful all at once and shines light on a vulnerable community battling bigotry on all fronts. The chaos of being trans in the US, where health coverage is “patchy” at best, is particularly tough if you also happen to be black. In the past two years, 25 trans women of colour have been murdered in the States, an incredibly high number for a minority within a minority – and these are just the ones we know about. “There’s this thing going around talking about “Black lives matter, you know black are people getting killed and we should all stick together”. Tell me this: does my black life matter?” says Taylor, who points out that the bullied often become the bully. “The issues that I’ve had in my life have always been from black people. I know a lot of people will bash me for saying that but it’s important and it’s true.”

Though she raises serious points about race, gender and intersectionality, voices like Taylor’s are rarely featured in mainstream feminism, or indeed all those debates about “no platforming”. Germaine Greer, who regularly mocks trans women and denies that we face discrimination, was all over the media last month when student activists asked for her invitation to speak at the University of Cardiff to be withdrawn. Apparently, free speech was under attack. I wonder, if Mya Taylor wasn’t in a movie, what would her notional right to “free speech” count for? Of course, bigotry dressed up as feminism is no better than bigotry dressed up as religion – and Taylor knows all about that: “[People] always want to bring in the Bible and say ‘Well God says not to do this’. God also said not to judge.”

On a lighter note, I ask Taylor how she feels about people who are not trans playing trans roles: “People say that trans people should be given more opportunity, which is true, but I also feel like, so long as the story is being told truthfully and it’s being played correctly, I don’t care who’s playing it.” But what if she won that Oscar? What would that mean? “That would mean people are gonna knock down my door for bigger roles,” she smiles, gamely. “That would mean more money! But when you think about it, most of all, that would go in the history book.”

Taylor is quick to point out that, media progress aside, there’s still a lot of work to be done when it comes to transphobia. “We see what’s happening with Hollywood for trans people but what about the people who are still struggling on the streets?” She should know, having been forced into sex work when her family rejected her for being trans. Her backstory reads like a checklist of problems affecting the trans community: “I’ve been through all of that, having to sleep inside a bathhouse because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Growing up with my grandparentsm, I was pretty much mentally and physically abused by them. I was always scared at home. I wished that I could have stayed at school. At school, everybody knew. I was open about myself and I’d beat the fuck out of you if you tried me.” It’s not hard to see where the tough girl persona comes from.

What does Taylor think is the number one issue affecting trans people in 2015? “There’s a lot, but I’d say the main thing is employment.” Trans people have some legal protections in the States, but discrimination is rife: “Employers go around like ‘Oh I didn’t hire her because she just didn’t fit the description and we found someone better’. But when you’ve been turned down by X number of jobs, you know what it is.” She may appreciate the dynamics of discrimination better than most, but Taylor says she will never understand the prejudice that powers such oppression: “It’s like, why are people transphobic? Why do they feel they have to hate another group of people? What’s it got to do with you? Just mind your business and respect everybody.”

Tangerine is in cinemas on 13 November. The annual IoS Rainbow List, celebrating Britain’s most influential lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, is published next week.