Meet Jake Graf: The trans filmmaker, actor and writer bringing his experiences to the big screen (2024)

When you think of some of the big transgender names in the film industry, many of our minds jump to the likes of Laverne Cox, Hari Nef and Trace Lysette. There does seem to be a noticeable lack of trans men represented on screen – but not for long, at the rate that the filmmaker, actor and writer Jake Graf is going.

Jake thinks this lack of trans masculine representation in the media is down to two reasons.

Firstly, trans women were raised as men, so societal conditioning has played a big role. “They were much more used to having their voice heard, and being seen and being visible,” Jake says. Compare this to how trans men were raised: “Their voices weren’t quite so important, and I think that does tend to stay with you as your formative experience.”

The other reason is physicality: Jake argues that it’s much easier for trans men to live quiet, stealth lifestyles, whereas for trans women “there is no slipping through the cracks”. Through necessity, many more trans women were first to mobilise.

Luckily, Jake is doing much to give trans men a voice – predominantly in the form of short films dealing with very real issues.

His latest film DUSK has just launched, featuring five transgender actors, alongside cisgender stars like Duncan James. The film is under 15 minutes in length, but deals with a whole range of issues. Starting in 1950s England, it tracks the journey of one individual’s life. Jake says: “It’s a very rare and intimate glimpse into a queer person’s life, and what they might have gone through.”

DUSK’s release is particularly poignant as this year marks 50 years since the decriminalisation of hom*osexuality. Through making the film, Jake says: “It does show how little things have changed over 50 years.”

In fact, much of Jake’s work focuses on the day-to-day reality of life for trans people. A lot of his early work was inspired by his own experiences, particularly his first short XWHY. “I wrote it and shot it over two years, and it used my own transition to document the fictional character’s transition, which apparently hadn’t been done before,” he says.Artistically, his films are remarkable – his 2013 short film Brace was shot on a shoestring budget (just £10,000) and looks incredibly polished. But perhaps more importantly, his work is eye opening. When Brace came out, it was at a time when “trans was just in its genesis of becoming super-trendy and everyone’s fixation” he says. It felt like a completely new type of film, telling the story of gay trans men.

The feedback Jake got from Brace was positive: “I had people at film festivals coming up and saying they’d never seen themselves on screen before which was really nice. Older people were saying that it made them reconsider what trans was, and that they’d contacted friends or family that they hadn’t spoken to in decades.”It’s not just writing and directing that Jake is making his name in. He calls acting his “real passion” – you might recognise him from his role in The Danish Girl, which meant that he went to the White House for its first ever trans event.

Jake praises Eddy Redmayne for his role in The Danish Girl, and dismisses arguments that cisgender actors (like Redmayne or Jeffrey Tambor in Transparent) shouldn’t be picked for trans roles. “I think that we’ve moaned for so many years about not being seen on screen in any sort of positive light, and finally now we’re being seen on screen. I think the reach that programme (Transparent) has had, the broadening of minds, and understanding of the trans experience that it has elicited is immeasurably positive,” he says.

For Jake, “acting is acting” – and it would be dangerous to compartmentalise actors and pigeon hole them into certain roles. There is a broader social purpose to Jake’s work. He says: “I think it’s very important to put yourselves out there because there’s a whole generation of younger trans men who have no one to look up to and haven’t for years – I certainly didn’t. So I think it’s important that myself and my trans brothers across the world are putting themselves out there to be seen and counted.”