Hilary Swank Says Transgenders Are Still Not Accepted

Hilary Swank believes that her role as a transgender male in “Boys Don’t Cry” did not make great strides toward the ensuring of equal rights for transgenders. She said that even though some progress has been made since the movie, the LGBT community still faces a lot of problems borne from people dictating others who they should love.

According to Hilary Swank during her appearance on Thursday’s all-new “Meredith Viera Show," playing a transgender male in the movie “Boys Don’t Cry” back in 1998 made her earn a lot of rewards, particularly the GLAAD award and Outfest award. She also became a staunch supporter of the LGBT community since then, which is lauded by the community. In spite of her personal success, she said that the community is still struggling with many issues to date. The actress said that some are so intent on not giving the LGBT community equal rights that they forget there are other far more important issues that need attention.

She shared that she could see some progress since the movie, but the society still has a long way to go before the transgender community receives equal rights. "It's astonishing to me that we are here in 2015 and there are so many issues that need to be looked at and handled and we shouldn't dictate who people should love,” she said.

She said that in a world full of issues such as homelessness, sickness, and other world problems, people should let others love freely. More time should be devoted to the urgent world problems than preventing equal rights for those in the LGBT community.

This is not the first time the actress talked about the breakthrough movie. She told Larry King that looking back, she really did not have an idea that the movie or the role she took on would have such a big impact. She said had she known that the movie would spur so much controversies and debate, she would have become too overwhelmed. "It was an enormous responsibility just to play someone who had lived and been murdered so brutally and whose life was taken short because of their choice of whom to love,” she explained.

Her compassion for people and her worries for the big problems of the world do not come off as surprising. Last year, in an interview with Vulture, she shared that she sometimes lose sleep because she keeps thinking of what is happening in the world. She explained that being an actress and playing all sorts of roles made her see the world differently, through the eyes of her characters. She said that she sometimes wish she could do more to ease the hardships of others.

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