On Saturday, transgender singer-songwriter Our Lady J shared the good news on her social networks that she'll be the first trans* writer to join the staff of the critically adored Amazon series, Transparent.
Our Lady J is best known as a classical pianist who has worked with the likes of Sia Furler, Debbie Harry, and Lady Gaga. You may also recognize her from her appearance in season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race. After being hired by Transparent series creator Jill Soloway, the musician is now adding “TV writer” to her impressive resume.
Autostraddle reports that the show, which details the transition of Maura, played by Jeffrey Tambor, had employed about 25 trans* people on its cast and crew, but it was noticeably missing a trans* writer on staff. In October, The Guardian reported that Soloway was unable to find a trans* TV writer for the show’s second season, so she was willing to train an inexperienced writer.
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According to The Guardian, Soloway said, “No matter what we did, we were always going to be otherising Maura in some way. And in the same way where I wouldn’t want a man to say, ‘I can have a writers’ room full of men and we can write women just fine,’ I can’t say that I can create a show about a trans woman and not have a trans woman writing for me.”
During the hiring process, Soloway whittled the candidate pool down to several would-be writers who she helped develop spec scripts. So, the writers who didn’t get hired now have a polished spec script that they can shop around. According to Autostraddle, the purpose of this was to “help create a pool of trans writers who all had spec scripts and some industry experience that other shows could pull from.”
In any case, we're excited to see what Our Lady J ends up bringing to the show and where those other candidates end up. (Autostraddle)