Spider-Man: Far From Home will have the MCU’s first transgender actors

Spider-Man: Far From Home has cast two transgender actors, and we are really excited to see the MCU taking this positive step towards LGBTQ+ diversity.

When talking about diversity in superhero movies, we’ve come a long way since superhero movies first started becoming popular. We’ve had a lot more diverse casting when it comes to women and race, and films like Black Panther and Wonder Woman have shown that people will support movies that have diverse characters.

However, there still are a lot of firsts to be had in superhero films. One of these firsts is finally being met in Spider-Man: Far From Home. The film, as CBR.com notes, will be the first of any Marvel movie to have transgender actors playing roles.

This is definitely an exciting development as it’s important that diverse actors get cast. On-screen representation is important, and the MCU definitely has a ways to go to be more inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community. This is a positive step, however, and we definitely applaud it.

Two transgender actors have been cast in the film. According to Advocate, Zach Barack is going to be playing a friend of Spider-Man’s while Tyler Luke Cunningham will be an extra. Since both of these actors are trans, this is an exciting first step for Marvel Studios being willing to show some possible LGBTQ+ diversity on screen. This effort may come after Marvel (and DC) came under heavy criticism from GLAAD last year for severely underrepresenting the LGBTQ+ community on screen, as Digital Spy reports.

“It is becoming increasingly more difficult to ignore that LGBTQ people remain almost completely shut out of Hollywood’s big budget comic book films that have dominated the box office over the past several years,” GLAAD said. The article notes several instances where Marvel could have alluded to its LGBTQ+ characters, including a cut scene in Thor: Ragnarok that would have confirmed Valykerie as bisexual on screen.

While there still needs to be more transgender representation on screen, there has been an increase in roles with transgender actors lately. Series like Pose have paved the way, and other television shows like Sense8 and Supergirl have had notable transgender representation.

Positive, diverse, and complex representation of transgender and genderqueer characters on the big screen is still behind television, however. So, we are glad to hopefully see this changing a bit. We would love to see a transgender person be given a much larger role in a Marvel film in the coming years, too.

It’s definitely more than time to have LGBTQ+ representation in superhero films, and we hope that Marvel and DC, too, will take positive steps to include more diversity going forward.