On The Trans Rating

The Trans Rating is a collection of conceptual statements to apply as a test to given representations and portrayals of trans people in books, film, stage, television, comics and sequential art, and related popular media that provides a rating scale of -10 ( really horrible) to +10 (really decent) with zero being the baseline default.

Using it is simple and straightforward: apply the statements as a test to your work.

The Rating rules are:

A – Their Transition or Transness is not in and of itself the crux of story driving conflicts or humor

B – Their ability to do their job is not based in their Transness

C – Those who make pronoun or sex/gender based jokes are quickly chastised by other characters in the story, and made to look foolish as a result.

D – There is interaction with 2 or more other Trans people, and they talk about something other than hormones, surgeries, clothes, or activism

E – They are not only white, late transitioners from a middle class or better background

F – Trans women are held up as role models for women, Trans men as role models for men

G – They are not limited by the tropes applied to them as a result of their gender; Women are not limited to just women’s tropes, men are not limited to just men’s tropes

H – The story does not feature only trans women, or only trans men, and includes those who are both and neither

I – Those that are not Trans that they interact with are aware of terms like Cisgender, and avoid extraneous “-ed”s

J – Poverty, suicide, and workplace harassment are not portrayed as a choice of the Trans person, nor in a positive light.

The process of using this is fairly straight forward.

One point for each one they get right, minus one point for each one they get wrong.

This means the scale can run from -10 to +10. With 0 being a wash.