The Joke Was on Them: How Cis Filmmakers Exposed Their Own Ignorance

In Ace Ventura and Silence of the Lambs, cis discomfort wore the costume and wrote the script.

Photo by on

This piece continues a conversation I’ve been exploring through earlier essays, including Hollywood’s Trans Villains and How Ace Ventura Mocked a Trans Woman.

This isn’t just about old movies. It’s about the ways cultural rot gets repackaged as humor, horror, or “bold storytelling.” And it’s still happening. I didn’t just watch these films — I absorbed them. I laughed when I was supposed to, winced when the crowd did, and never realized I was being taught to hate myself.

I didn’t see myself in Lois Einhorn or Buffalo Bill — but I did see what the world might think if I ever came out. These characters taught me to flinch at my own reflection, to join in the mockery before it could be turned on me. That’s how deep the damage went. It wasn’t just bad storytelling — it was indoctrination disguised as entertainment.

It’s taken me from 2019 — a full decade after I first knew — to realize I might’ve always looked more feminine than I thought. But the damage was done. These filmmakers didn’t just poison the water — they kept us splashing in the shallows, convinced that a dip was all we were worth. They…