But Vanya can’t transition! Only a ciswoman can < checks notes > blow up the moon with the power of her mind!
Don’t you oppress her… er, him!
It works perfectly well in the Umbrella Academy world. Sequels based on other movies Page has done could be more difficult.
.
It mattered to them because they had been hoping that Page would show that trans actors are actors, and thus can play a character that is a different gender than themselves. They were looking forward to Elliot playing Vanya, and held out hope that maybe Vanya would meet Viktor.
However, another trans person in the comments pointed out that a lot of people think trans folk are just “acting” in their day-to-day life, and that it was probably best to not allow for that perception.
Also, do remember that Vanya is a preexisting character from the (White Horse) comics. The usual practice is to try and maintain those. I’m actually a bit pleasantly surprised they’re not insisting on keeping the White Violin as a woman.
I don’t want anyone to spoil anything, but I have to ask. This season will be set in a different timeline or universe, correct? Is the Viktor character already transitioned in the new timeline and a member of the Sparrows, or will he be the Umbrella Vanya transitioning to Viktor during the season?
They’ve revealed the Sparrows cast and Elliot isn’t part of them.
Thanks. It’s going to be interesting to see how the writers handle the balance between the transition and the ongoing story arc. I’m looking forward to seeing the results.
Do I understand correctly that the show includes multiple timelines/dimensions/whatever, with different versions of the same people in the different timelines? This might mean, then, that even if the “main” Page character has transitioned, the show might also include alternate versions who haven’t.
Yes and no. There’s time travel and changing time lines, but we haven’t really seen any “alternate” versions of the main characters. That might change with the upcoming season.
Well in the last season finale we saw an alternative Ben, at the very least.
UA Season 3 trailer is out:
Brian
Okay, I’m a little confused and need some clarification. In 2014, he was a she, Ellen Page, right? So, if gay, she liked women because, at that time, she was a woman. Now transgendered, he likes women. So, that means he is no longer gay because he likes the opposite sex?
Yeah, a man who is solely attracted to women is heterosexual, even if the man in question used to be a woman himself. So Elliot Page, assuming he’s solely attracted to women, would be heterosexual now.
Yes, he is no longer gay. ‘Gay’ describes a logical relationship between Page and members of the same sex. He changed his sex so that relationship no longer exists. Now he is ‘straight’, which describes a logical relationship with members of the opposite sex.
These are artificial concepts, ‘gay’, ‘straight’, ‘same sex’, and ‘opposite sex’ don’t conform well to the modern fluid concepts of gender and relationships.
A small nitpick - transitioned would be the appropriate word here. To be transgender (or just trans) is an internal sense of self, that your identity differs from your sex assigned at birth. Page may have felt this way for a long time prior to the act of transitioning. To transition is to begin presenting to the world in accord with your identity.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Sex is an objective biological concept, almost completely binary in humans, and where the rare exceptions are developmental abnormalities. Sex is certainly not an “artificial concept”. Gender is a much less rigidly defined spectrum of mental states; it is quite strongly bimodal with the two modes corresponding to biological sex, but the entire spectrum (including fluidity) is part of natural human variation. Orientation is also a widely variable spectrum, but the terms gay/straight/bi are still widely applicable for most people, and useful since gender is strongly bimodal.
Good thing I didn’t say ‘sex’ was artificial. Or do you think Elliot Page is still gay because ‘same sex’ and ‘opposite sex’ refer only to people’s chromosomes?
I’m not interested in having a silly fight with you about whether I parsed what you said correctly, and whether you were thus technically correct. I said I wasn’t sure what you meant and I was seeking to clarify matters.
Language isn’t perfect. Some usage doesn’t reflect the conceptual difference between biological sex and gender identity, the word “sex” is widely used to mean several different things. When we talk about “same sex” or “opposite sex” attraction I think in common usage that’s synonymous with gay/straight. It certainly references the gender identity of the person whose orientation we’re describing - as noted in prior posts, Elliot Page is a man who is (if I understand the way he describes himself correctly) attracted to women, i.e. straight.
Sorry, I should not have had that attitude. I am being called elsewhere but I’ll try to clarify my statements later.
I’ve commented before that it would be useful to have a single word for “person attracted to women”, and likewise for “person attracted to men”. “Gynophile” and “androphile”, maybe?
I thought it was obvious that the term ‘same sex’ did not refer to people’s chromosomes all the time. Elliot Page is the case in point, he is now a man attracted to the ‘opposite sex’, the ‘opposite sex’ used to be his ‘same sex’. Gender is now fluid, and some traditional binary terminology doesn’t conform to the way people view themselves now on a broad spectrum of possibilities. I don’t know if Elliot Page considers himself gay, straight, or other, and I don’t know what ‘opposite’ and ‘same’ means for all people, and a status like ‘straight’ or ‘gay’ isn’t permanent either.