Scarlett Johansson, looking trouble in the eye. Image by Getty Images

Scarlett Johansson has been cast in the provocatively titled movie “Rub and Tug,” which tells the extraordinary real-life story of Dante “Tex” Gill, a 70’s-era, mobster-esque impressario of sexual massage parlors.

Tex Gill was a woman…if you ask Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, or Variety.

Tex Gill was a man…if you ask ScreenCrush.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

And according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which published Gill’s obituary, Tex Gill was “sexually ambivalent.”

Gill, writes the Post-Gazette, was masculine-presenting and may have gone through some degree of gender-confirming surgery. “She was always ‘the woman who prefers to be known as a man,’” the newspaper reports, continuing to refer to Gill with female pronouns throughout the article. A writer for ScreenCrush lays out a case that Gill “lived as a transmasculine person,” arguing that “while it is often tricky to know the exact language a historical figure used to describe their identity, especially for a trans person who’s no longer living,” descriptions of Gill suggest that the “massage” proprietor was a transgender man.

This is problematic, they argue, because Johansson is a cisgender woman, meaning her gender identity corresponds to the gender she was assigned at birth.

Johansson, no stranger to this type of controversy since playing a cybernetic Japanese woman in 2017’s “Ghost in a Shell,” won’t be the first cis star to portray a trans character — Eddie Redmayne did it in “The Danish Girl” and Jared Leto did it in “Dallas Buyers Club.”

But is it acceptable now? Was it acceptable then?

Scarlett Johansson, as always, gives us a lot to consider. We’re going to have to sip some SodaStream seltzer and think this over.

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount