Nobody Lives Here

Elliott Page is a man. Juno is a girl. (Yes yes Vanya Hargreeves is a trans man but Page came out midway through filming and the filmmakers' solution was to have the character transition too - if they'd kept Hargreeves a woman or written Hargreeves out altogether, Hargreeves would still be a woman regardless of what Page was up to because Vanya Hargreeves is not Elliott Page.)

I make a point of never knowing any more than the absolute bare minimum about an actor who plays a character I love, because they are different people. I will look up their height because it's useful for fics, their pronouns in case I ever have to refer to them, and their nationality and whether they're still alive. I will sometimes look up an actor's filmography if I particularly want to see them in more stuff, with the understanding that in other stuff they are playing a different character and, for instance, Bryan Mills and Qui-Gon Jinn, exist in different universes and will never meet and have nothing to do with each other. I will occasionally read interviews about the experience of playing specific characters because the actor, practically by definition, knows the character really, really well and Christopher Lee especially has a lot of very interesting stuff to say about Dooku. Other than that I do not care and I do not want to know.

Elliott Page is not Juno, he's Elliott Page.

Ewan McGregor is not Obi-Wan Kenobi, he's Ewan McGregor.

John Barrowman is not Captain Jack Harkness, he's John Barrowman.

You can, and I have, which is why I'm so militant about this now, get yourself in a world of hurt feelings by assuming otherwise.

[ survey.gendercensus.com ]

The 13th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th August 2026.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

Tenna art by @9Aaaalt29 on twt