‘What a trans woman is, is somebody who is a woman but whose biology has betrayed them in someway’

“One of the things I realized in approaching this role was that I actually figured out early on that I was going to learn a lot about being a woman — period. Because, really, what a trans woman is, is somebody who is a woman but whose biology has betrayed them in someway. For me, I take for granted my identity as a woman. I take for granted my anatomy and physiology. I don’t really think about those things. What if actually I was born with my body betraying me in some way? I would think about it differently. I go to the gym four times a week to get rid of my ass but what if instead I was paying thousands of dollars on the black market in hormone therapy to have an ass? [Laughs] I might walk differently, stand differently, dress differently — I might think about celebrating my identity as a woman in a different way.” —Actress Kerry Washington on playing drug-addicted transgender prostitute Marybeth in Life is Hot in Cracktown [Clay Cane/BET]