I haven’t been to see The Danish Girl yet. I probably won’t until it comes out on DVD because I don’t want to be ejected from the cinema for throwing things at the screen. Whatever it’s qualities as a film (and I understand that it is very good indeed), it also has an obligation to do right by its subject, and by the minority group it purports to represent. Hollywood, sadly, has very little interest in telling true stories.

Over at The Conversation, Clare Tebbutt, whom I had the honor of meeting at a conference in trans history last year, takes a look at how the film stacks up. Clare is an expert on trans life in the 1930s (there was a lot of it) and she’s not impressed. She notes that, rather than being based on Lili Elbe’s life, the film is actually based on a novelized version of Lili’s life published in 2000 and written by a cis man. That’s a much more serious issue than the casting, because it means that the whole story is being viewed through a cis male gaze. It also means a lot gets left out.

Sadly, Clare only scratches the surface of the problems with the film. If the reports I’ve been seeing from trans women who have seen it are correct, there are lots of subtle messages in the film that encourage viewers to come away with incorrect and harmful views of trans women. So I guess I am going to have to see it at some point.