(written by Terry MacNeil, on March 5-7, 2025)

I am WAY late to the game, when it comes to learning about the transgendered community. I’m well-aware the trans community is among the most hated (AND most misunderstood) parts of society – and it only gets worse if you’re trans AND a racial minority. These days I’m mainly focused on reading economic and political books – but I figure I’ll need to keep an eye out for a bunch of books (for future reading) about what it’s like to be a transgendered human, and their experiences/perspectives in a (mostly) cisgendered World.

I recently re-watched the movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. It’s a movie I’ve loved since my childhood – and I still consider it a hilarious film. Jim Carrey’s comedies aren’t for everyone – but they are for me! However, after taking a glance at the film’s Wikipedia article recently – it is clear A LOT of people have criticisms about its transphobic content.

In the movie, the INCREDIBLY HOT (cisgendered) actress Sean Young portrays one of the main characters (who is also the main villain). The main villain is later revealed to have had a sex change – though it SEEMS the villain is NOT transgendered. It SEEMS to have been a case of an evil cisgendered male villain who gets a sex change, ONLY as cover so that he can carry out his revenge plot. So the movie makes it seem the male villain was NOT “born in the wrong body”. At least, that is how I read the film – if it turns out the villain IS legitimately transgendered, I will be genuinely surprised. But I digress.

Another reason people condemn the film for being transphobic – is because “Ace Ventura” is grossed out when he realizes he made out with the main villain. It must be emphasized – the villain still had a penis and testicles. Does that matter? Well, heterosexual cisgendered men aren’t “grossed out” by male genitalia per se – but we have a habit of being grossed out (and often incredibly embarrassed/insecure) when we are sexually attracted to someone who appears (to us) to be a physically attractive woman (when we find out the person we were attracted to has male genitalia). For many heterosexual men, if they see a male transvestite or a transwoman that they are physically attracted to – they panic, fearing that they’re sexually attracted to MEN. As for me, there’s been times I’ve seen (on TV and in movies) transvestites and transwomen (like in the movie The Crying Game) who I considered sexually attractive. Would I ever fuck a person that I KNEW was someone who had male genitalia? NO. But that’s just me. It also means I consider (by my standard) a TINY percentage of androgynous men can pass as a “pretty” woman (when they’re “done up” to look like one).

In closing, I highly doubt the filmmakers of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective knew anything about the transgendered community – and I doubt they cared. It is clear they had no intention of making a movie that was respectful of other peoples’ sensitivities (which is what you should expect from a movie made in the mid-1990s). I say the movie IS HILARIOUS – though insensitive, and in bad taste (especially when the main villain was being publicly exposed/humiliated by “Ace Ventura”). The film provides a window into the mind of the cisgendered heterosexual male – and that so many of us cisgendered heterosexual males react with SHEER HORROR when we are “getting it on” with a physically attractive woman – who turns out to have a penis and testicles. Sadly, that’s one reason so many transgendered humans are murdered by cisgendered killers. Ⓐ