Early in the just-launched web series Her Story, streaming now on YouTube, Violet (Jen Richards) and Allie (Laura Zak) have lunch at a laid-back L.A. restaurant for the first time. Allie’s writing an article about trans women for a local gay rag. She asks Vi whether she was a gay man pre-transition, then apologizes when Vi laughs awkwardly and demurs.



“It’s OK,” Vi says. “Before transition, I actually dated women.” When Allie asks her whether her current preference for men means Vi prefers straight men over gay men, she replies, “It’s not about them. It’s about me. When I’m with a man I have no doubt about my womanhood. My body next to theirs is so obviously feminine.”

Vi goes on to talk about how she can’t help but notice, for example, how much bigger her hands are compared to Allie’s — and how it makes it harder for her as a trans woman to see herself with a cis woman.

This is the kind of deeply complicated insight that escapes writers who observe trans experience from the outside rather than living it from within. When Her Story screened for the first time at the NewFest LGBT Film Festival in New York last October, a palpable silence followed this scene, punctuated by sniffles, as it brought a number of trans women in the audience to tears.

Besides starring in Her Story, Richards and Zak also co-wrote the script. Richards’ close friend and former roommate Angelica Ross plays the third lead, Paige, a black trans civil rights lawyer who has to deal with not disclosing her status in both her personal and professional lives. Another trans woman, Sydney Freeland, directed the series, and Zak’s friend Katherine Fisher serves as head producer.

At a time when trans people are titillating curiosities for mainstream audiences, the worlds of film and television are finally beginning to spotlight trans lives — but in almost all cases, those stories are being told by cisgender creators, with cisgender actors. When accused of cashing in on trans stories without actually involving the creative talent of trans people, higher-ups in entertainment tend to offer this excuse: There just aren’t enough qualified trans directors, writers, and actors to go around. With Her Story, Richards, Zak, and Ross set out to blow major holes in that excuse — while also, of course, creating a high-quality series on par with mainstream standards, a success in its own right.

“I’m so glad it’s good,” Laverne Cox told the gathered audience at NewFest before she moderated a Q&A with the cast and crew, likely echoing the sentiment of everyone in the room. Her Story is a groundbreaking show that explores trans and queer women’s lives in deeply nuanced ways, one that moves squarely away from depictions of trans women as stereotyped curiosities for mainstream audiences.



