It’s an evening in Los Angeles, and Thorn Bachaud is crouched before the screen. With short, warm blond hair, it’s cut sharply like a bowl at the front, with subtle wisps of texture held within. Before brown almond eyes, the translucent indigo body of their glasses framed a soft tranquil smile on Bachaud’s face as a thick, pitch-black nose ring hung from their septum.
Composed on a couch with a loose sleeveless white top and a hardly seen black sports bra underneath, just above Bachuad’s left outer elbow, a small tattoo of a coffin is revealed as Bachaud looked off, recalling their early acting career.
“For a long time, my experience as a trans actor was not out professionally but out personally.”
— Thorn Bachaud.
Having been in Los Angeles for the last five years, Bachuad notes that some rising actors are on something of a roll such as Liv Hewson from “Yellow Jackets”.
Bachaud talks about Liv Hewson. Photo: Math Erao
Playing the role of the teenage soccer player, Vanessa Palmer, Hewson is known for that character’s same sex relationship with Taissa Turner, but in Bachuad’s eyes, Hewson is only one of few emerging nonbinary (someone whose gender identity is not male or female) actors to create change in Hollywood.
An example being the public coming out experience of Elliot Page in Netflix’s “Umbrella Academy” where in the first season Elliot Page’s character was known as Vanya Hargreeves, transitions seamlessly in the show as Viktor Hargreeves after the actor publicly came out as a transgender man.
In a situation where nonbinary and transgender roles were once seen as uncommon, non-existent, or strictly comedic relief played by cisgender (a term used to define those who are not transgender) people. In recent years, there have been some clear signs of change in media representation.
Emerging nonbinary actors such as Theo Germaine from 2022’s thriller film “They/Them” that focuses on a group of teenagers sent to an LGBTQ+ conversion camp where all of them are being stalked by a mysterious masked killer to Dua Saleh from the latest season of Netflix’s award-winning series “Sex Education” in 2023.
Increasingly, the unsaid requirement of transgender or gender non-conforming (people whose expression of gender differs from traditional expectations of masculinity and femininity) actors needing to strictly portray cisgender men and women in acting roles may be a thing of the past.
While there is still a long way to go for how gender is seen in Hollywood, the norm of narrowing transgender actors' identities down to be more suitable, or rather cisgender, to be selected to play a role turns out to be what was holding an aspiring actor like Thorn Bachaud back from pursuing certain roles in the industry.
“I had felt like I had to look a certain way and pass a certain way in order to stay castable is a part of a grander thing that I've been trying to get over,” said Bachaud.
Bachaud’s Exploration of Gender
Similar to some others in the LGBTQ+ community, Bachaud’s exploration of gender began on Tumblr, a once primarily used social media years ago.
A website that acted as a safe space on the internet for LGBTQ+ artists, activists, and those exploring gender and sexuality. In 2011, Bachaud started exploring gender expression, the external manifestation of their gender identity.
Bachaud in 2013. Instagram: @seawitch.jpg
Presenting a little masculine at first with clothing such as short sleeve loose-fitting graphic tees layered with vests and bright neon (sometimes pastel) colored hair. However, this version of Bachaud would be short-lived.
Bachaud had moved to Los Angeles in 2018 as an actor and planned to commit to their career, making femininity more vital than ever.
Bachaud's past headshot for acting.
“I had to stay castable,” said Bachaud. “which to me meant I had to stay passing.”
With a thought of needing to cast ‘the widest net possible’, Bachaud, when responding to people who asked about Bachaud’s goals as an actor, would respond that they’d take any role offered.
As Bachaud got older, they realized that this wasn't true.
“I don't just want to do whatever they give me,” said Bachaud. “There's actually a lot of acting I don't want to do. I used to think I needed to be passing so I could play any female role I was called to do and do as many things as possible, be in as many things as possible.”
It was with this realization that the long, wavy natural brown hair of Bachaud at the time grew to make them self-conscious about not looking ‘queer (an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender) enough’.
Thorn Bachaud's long brown hair; Instagram: @seawitch.jpg.
“I was just scared to let go of the safety of this ability to pass as cis,” said Bachaud. “So since cutting my hair, I've been stewing a kind of butch (someone who deliberately presents masculine in appearance) for the last few years in style.”
It was by having shorter hair, landing on a mullet haircut that brought out a feeling of gender expansiveness that helped Bachaud learn something important.
Bachaud's mullet haircut; (Math Erao)
“Passing is not my goal in my gender journey,” said Bachaud. “Nor is it something that I actually want without the context of fear.”
The biggest aspect of passing (a term used to define when a gender non-conforming or transgender person’s ability to go through daily life without others making an assumption that they are transgender) for Bachaud and for a lot of people they know is safety.
With multiple instances of violence and death towards transgender or gender non-conforming people who might not pass, safety is often a common thought for those who explore a visible expression of gender that opposes traditional views.
Serwin talks about the unsaid message in passing.
“Passing is the idea that one has to be read as a cisgender person,” Jordyn Serwin, an associate marriage and family therapist said. “Even if one is non-binary and or trans, anybody that doesn't pass by that standard will be judged or potentially harassed.”
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) began tracking the violence and deaths ten years ago, finding at least 300 violent deaths of transgender and gender non-conforming people over the last ten years.
Including 32 in 2022 alone, the organization’s website says the numbers are likely underreported due to many who may not have been properly identified as transgender or gender non-conforming by police, media or other sources.
There are many factors that lead to these violent deaths, but a way to lessen them is by accurate representation of transgender and gender non-conforming people in the media.
About 80% of Americans don't personally know someone who's transgender, according to a study from GLAAD. Which means most people learn about trans people from the ways they are depicted in movies, social media, and television.
In 2022, 100 movies featured an LGBTQ+ character, the highest number in the history of GLAAD’s study, but in those films, there were 292 LGBTQ characters: 163 that were men, 119 women and 10 nonbinary.
Seven of the women characters and six of the men were transgender, but a record number for nonbinary characters with 10. With the growing number of nonbinary roles in media, Serwin sees that passing is growing to evolve.
“I feel like society is becoming more aware of all the different ways that one person can be transgender,” said Serwin. “There’s different identities, different nuances. There is less pressure for some folks, and I don't mean to speak universally, but there are more ways to be trans than just passing.”
However, passing is still an internal battle as Bachaud noticed that a lot of their difficulty in imagining themself as trans or queer enough was held in attachment to being perceived as cisgender.
“It is based around this idea of, like, ‘Well, no one is ever going to see me as I want to be seen anyways because of X, Y, and Z; and I think the issue is because I'm non-binary and I don't have an end goal for transitioning or anything.”
Compared to their more binary (male or female) transgender friends, who know what the end of their transition could look like, Bachaud says that they don't know what passing as nonbinary would look like.
“I've been very focused on letting that go because I'll never achieve it,” said Bachaud.
In reorienting their mindset, Bachaud finds that they can make changes to their appearance that would make their personal sense of self feel more affirmed, aligned, and ‘make the mirror a better place.'
Bachaud’s Experience with Modern Hollywood
Even as a transgender actor, the conflict between individual and public perceptions of passing for their career is becoming less of an issue for them in Hollywood.
“There's more roles available for queer and trans people especially, but like queer of any flavor,” said Bachaud. “Especially the roles that are just looking for a queer person, not necessarily of a specific expression.”
But having previously existed in the closet with their identity for most of their early career, Bachaud mentions they know a couple of cisgender and heterosexual, or, as they note, ‘hetero leaning actors’ who have cut their hair on purpose to capitalize on emerging queer roles.
“I'm like, hold on. I'm staying closeted for whatever reason, and that straight person's capitalizing on this,” said Bachaud. “That happens in every industry, I feel like.”
Bachaud became aware that, by thinking that passing was keeping their options open, it was actually doing the opposite.
Thorn Bachaud; (Math Erao).
“It was closing doors and keeping me trapped in a safe little box,” said Bachaud. “By breaking out of the box and cutting off 60% of the straight women roles or whatever that I might be up for, the 40% that's left is like such a beautiful, deep, interesting, expansive 40% that becomes 100%.”
Having found what fits them as an actor, Bachaud speaks about how the state of the industry changed how casting is for actors today.
“It used to be that actors were really against being typecast, and now because the industry is so saturated, we're encouraged to find a niche, find our corner,” said Bachaud.
While typecasting yourself as an actor ‘can feel very restrictive’, Bachaud sees things differently.
“I used to think I didn't want to be pigeonholed as the token queer,” said Bachaud. “But the queer roles are actually written by queer and trans people more and more. Therefore, there isn't nearly as much tokenizing as there used to be.”
With such an overall good experience as a nonbinary actor, Bachaud alludes to the fact that most of that experience is due to their agents at Baron Entertainment Talent Agency.
“I came out to them when I got signed, and they were very excited,” said Bachaud, mentioning how their agents set Bachaud up for queer roles, but the level of inclusivity Bachaud has met even reaches beyond their agents.
“I've come out to my director or the writer early on, and they're like, ‘Oh my God, cool. We're just going to make your character nonbinary too,'" said Bachaud, somewhat shocked at how open the director and writer was.
The film later ended up coming out as "Roller World". With the director and writer named Tamara Issi, Bachaud ended up playing the role of Velvet Lynx in the film, becoming one of the experiences in the industry for Bachaud that showed there is growing acceptance of nonbinary roles.
Elliot Page on set with Emmy Raver via Instagram.
“There are enough people in the industry that are committed to affirming people's genders and committed to enforcing the right pronouns, and stuff like that among a wider set makes it feel safe, whether or not everyone on set is on board.”
Bachaud goes on to mention that if there was a problem because the director is ‘old and out of touch and doesn't get it’ that it doesn't really matter because there's someone right there to correct him every time.
Although Bachaud does acknowledge exceptions to that.
“The people who don't necessarily agree still have the power to do whatever the fuck they want, probably,” Bachaud said. “But that industry-wide commitment feels pretty near the percent of not total acceptance but very widespread acceptance.”
Bachaud finds that a lot of people who don't act get lost and associate acting with moving into something outside of yourself and embodying something that's not you: the act of ‘playing pretend.’
In agreement with seeing acting as ‘playing’ as part of it, Bachaud shares an insight.
“The goal of the actor is actually to find the truth in this imaginary thing and to find rather than put myself into a character,” said Bachaud. “I'm finding where the character fits within myself.”
Acting to Bachaud is a sight into selfhood and asking where does the character already exist?
“I can still do that with cis and cis-het female characters because I was socialized as such. My experience has a lot in common with that, at least for most of my life,” said Bachaud.
By being out and Bachaud being more castable for queer roles they want, it allows them to find the parts of themself that they like embodying a lot more. Something that they don’t mind doing for a long time.
“If I only played queer characters for the rest of my life, that'd be fucking sick."
