British actor Eddie Redmayne told
Reuters this week that he was shocked at the lack of progress on
transgender rights in the past century.
Redmayne plays transgender pioneer Lili
Elbe in The Danish Girl.
In the period film, Redmayne (The
Theory of Everything) plays Elnar Wegener, who is asked by his
wife, illustrator and artists Gerda Wegener (played by Alicia
Vikander), to stand in for a female model. The paintings became
wildly popular in 1920's Copenhagen. Gerda's dressing of her husband
as Lili ultimately led him to his historic 1931 operation. The
transformation shocked the world and threatened the couple's
marriage.
“Some of the things that … Lili
specifically has to go through of violence, discrimination, almost
100 years on from that story, those things haven't necessarily
changed,” Redmayne
said.
“There is a huge amount of job
discrimination and discrimination generally against trans people and
a huge amount of violence particularly for trans women of color.”
“And so it's kind of shocking that
there hasn't been as much progress in that amount of time,”
Redmayne added.
The Danish Girl arrives in
theaters November 27.