14 DAY TRIAL // Much like Patricia Arquette in her Oscars 2015 acceptance speech, when she won Best Supporting Actress for her performance in “Boyhood,” Alice Eve, the actress who became a household name with “Star Trek Into Darkness,” is coming under fire for saying transgender issues come second to feminist issues like equality in the workforce.
Eve posted a message on her Instagram shortly after ABC aired the Bruce Jenner 2-hour special in which he came out as a trans-woman, saying how Bruce was only “playing at being a woman” and how it was more important for real women to get the recognition they deserved before the world could deal with transgender issues.
Alice Eve puts her foot in it, is called out on it
Eve’s original Instagram post is no longer available online, but the BBC confirms it was up. The thousands of negative comments about it on both Instagram and Twitter confirm that it was online long enough for people to pay attention.
Lamenting the way in which voices were praising Bruce for how brave he was for coming out, Eve said that he was no hero because he wasn’t really a woman. He would never be one, but not because he hadn’t been born female: because he had never experienced the downsides of being a woman.
“If you were a woman no one would have heard of you because women can’t compete in the decathlon,” she wrote. “You would be a frustrated young athlete who wasn’t given a chance. Until women are paid the same as men, then playing at being a ‘woman’ while retaining the benefits of being a man is unfair. Do you have a vagina? Are you paid less than men? Then, my friend, you are a woman.”
It didn’t take long for angry voices to call her out on what they deemed was a transphobic comment: first of all, Jenner was a woman if he identified as female and would undergo gender reassignment surgery, which he plans to do this year.
Secondly, feminism doesn’t exclude trans-women, just like the fight for equality for women doesn’t exclude the fight for transgender issues.
Alice Eve backtracks, apologizes
At first, the actress tried to keep mum on the topic, but as comments became more and more virulent, she began engaging her followers. In one reply, she said she didn’t mean any offense by what she said, as she had only tried to shine light on feminist issues.
Later on, she understood that she’d done it at the expense of the LGBT community, who too have been fighting for equality.
In a statement to People, she apologizes for her ignorance and the poor wording in her original message.
“I deeply apologize for offending anyone. I support equal rights and equal dignity for all. I have deep compassion and support for Bruce Jenner. My intention was not to offend. My intention was simply to express that, with the overdue and welcome acceptance of us all living on a gender spectrum, we must encourage equality for all,” she says.
#OneLove A photo posted by Alice Eve (@aliceseve) on Apr 27, 2015 at 5:27am PDT