26 Years Later, Twin Peaks Still Has The Best Trans Rep On Televison

“…and it was wearing underwear.”

“Boxers or briefs?”

“Tighty whiteys, like I used to wear,” she says.

A dramatic pause: “I transitioned last year.”
— The X-Files Season 10, Episode 3

Because that is totally how trans women talk.

I hadn’t really attempted to catch up on the new X-Files until recently and…were the characters always this cartoonish? Along with the trans woman sex worker that also *sigh* happens to be on crack, there’s a crusty old Freudian psychologist with an Eastern European accent and a skeezy motel manager literally drinking isopropyl rubbing alcohol from the bottle. All we need is a disgruntled property owner with a rubber mask.

Later in the episode, the “monster” claims the sex worker “hit like a man” and expresses wild-eyed distaste as Mulder patiently explains the concept of transgender existence. The monster also appears incredulous to the idea of changing sex, which is contextually strange because (SPOILER) many species of lizards and amphibians change their sex based on environmental factors. We’ve been over this! It was the plot of the first Jurassic Park movie over 20 years ago.