The release of the film Scarlett Johansson highlights the lack of roles for transgender actors

Johansson's decision to withdraw from a transgender film role could give the impetus to sending a larger number of transgender actors

LONDON: Scarlett Johansson's decision to withdraw from a film starring an American gangster born in as a woman but identified as a man could give a boost to new transgender actors The Hollywood star Johansson had agreed to play Dante "Tex" Gill in the movie "Rub & Tug", but last week, she had decided to leave the role after realizing that the casting was "insensitive".

Her initial cast triggered a violent reaction on social media while the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community criticized the lack of opportunities for transgender actors.

"The exclusion of trans media is endemic. Said Lily Madigan, a transgender activist and women 's rights officer for the British Labor opposition party.

"I hope that the attention given to the question by this recent event will be sufficient. Hollywood has long favored the cast of non-transgender actors in fluid genre roles, including Jared Leto who won an Oscar for playing a transgender woman in "Dallas." Buyers Club ", and Jeffrey Tambor who has won several awards for playing a father who travels to a woman in the television series" Transparent. "

Juno Roche, an author and transgender rights activist, said that" I have not seen it! " there would be "outright outrage" if a white actor was projected to play a black character.

"That sounds completely illogical," she said about Johansson's cast as Gill, a true criminal who used a massage parlor as a front for prostitution in the 1970s and 1980s.

None of the 109 films released by the seven largest Hollywood studios in 2017 included a character transgender, according to data from the US-based LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD.One of the problems we usually have is that of people who are transsexed only for a transgender role, "said Ian Manborde, organizer of equality and the dive from Equity, a UK-based syndicate for actors and performers. is that some people (who have made the transition) might not want to identify or self-identify as trans. He added that Equity was planning to advise industry employers on how to deal with transgender actors.

Filming has not yet started on "Rub & Tug" and no Johansson replacement has been announced

"I can now only hope that the party is going to a trans person or – at the very least – to someone who identifies as a member of the LGBTQI community (queer and intersex), "said Rebecca Root, one of the only

the Johansson controversy at the Chilean actress Daniela Vega becoming the first transgender presenter at the Oscars and a Cannes Film Festival award for "Girl" – on the quest of a transgender teenager to become a ballerina – this year has seen debates on the portrayal of transgender people in the film.