‘How dare Karla Sofia Gascón use her trans identity to deflect from racism row’

One of the most uniquely infuriating issues of being transgender in the kakistocratic hell-pit we call modern society is the way that your gender identity overshadows literally everything you do.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a world-renowned composer beloved by millions, an affluent doctor at the height of their career, or a sex worker trying to make ends meet – there will always be this unspoken asterisk that subconsciously compels people, well-intentioned or not, to judge your actions differently.

In the nine years I’ve been publicly out as a trans woman, I’ve foolishly assumed that our community all want to live in a world where being open about who we does not prompt others to exercise their own personal beliefs, whether supportive or otherwise. This assumption was shattered after Karla Sofía Gascón bizarrely used the backlash over Timothée Chalamet’s ballet comments to incorrectly claim she had been cancelled for being transgender.

For those who don’t know who Karla Sofía Gascón is – which, if Emilia Perez’s box office sales are anything to go by, is most people reading this – she is an Academy Award-nominated Spanish actress and trans woman best known for playing the titular character in the aforementioned musical crime thriller. Outside of her acting work, Gascón is probably best known for her work calling George Floyd a “drug addict swindler” and Muslims “r*******d” in a series of X/Twitter posts several years ago.

If you weren’t either under a rock or aggressively heterosexual, you likely remember the furore directed at Gascón during the later half of 2024 after her past racist posts online were uncovered. Some of you may remember her tearful attempt at an apology on CNN, in which she stated she was “deeply sorry” for the posts but also that she was misrepresented by those pesky journalists apparently took now-deleted posts calling for Islam to be banned out of context.

18 months later and I, and I imagine the rest of the world, had blissfully returned to a world where Emilia Perez had no cultural relevance. Then, like a sudden sharp pain in the neck, Gascón pulled what I am sure was a masterfully constructed PR gambit by reminding the world she was banned from the Oscar’s, sharing an Instagram meme that looked like it was pulled from a Mom’s For Liberty Facebook page.

The post saw the 53-year-old put together a fake conversation between her and Chalamet – who is currently in hot water for his belief that opera and ballet are dying arts – in which she reassures the actor that because he’s not trans, he won’t be stopped from having his red carpet moment.

Now, let’s give credit where it’s due; it’s incredibly impressive for Gascón to have a take so perplexingly tasteless that her badly-edited meme, which is the equivalent of smashing two Timothée and Karla dolls together, isn’t the most nauseating part of this post.

In making this post, Gascón has not only proved that she has not learned a damn thing about why people were upset with her in the first place, but has attempted to use her identity as a shield for criticism by conflating the vile abuse that I am certain she has unfortunately faced for being trans with the legitimate criticism regarding her behaviour. Yes, Chalamet will likely still get his red carpet moment – but is anyone seriously conflating a controversy over the popularity of ballet in 2026 with racist posts?

The problem here isn’t so much that she is making an unrelated issue about her identity – Saoirse Ronan expertly did this during a 2024 appearance on The Graham Norton Show – but that she is trying to get a pass on her disgusting actions by claiming everything she does is somehow related to her existence as a trans woman.

Here’s a reality check – not everything is about gender identity. Our gender identity absolutely affects just about everything we do, but that doesn’t mean it always relevant. When Gascón wrote, at 45-years-old, that Adolf Hitler “simply had his opinion of the Jews,” she did not do so because she is transgender, she did so because she is a woman who, at some point in her life, lost touch with society.

What frustrates me the most is I imagine that if Karla and I sat down, we would share trauma as trans women. I am sure she has been treated differently in a doctor’s office or been spoken down to by peers because they view her as lesser simply for the way she expresses herself. If she indeed has, then I struggle to understand why she would willingly put herself in that position again.

This opinion piece was writter by Amelia Hansford, a transgender news reporter for PinkNews.