i think we had this conversation with Love, Simon so I won't repeat the details. Let me differentiate it now.

I think my primary objection to straight people playing LGBTQ+ roles on film is closer to the ones for when actors played autistic roles. This was, as you might know, actually a joke in Tropic Thunder when Robert Downey Jr and Ben Stiller discussed whether playing 'full retard' got you an Oscar rather than autistic. That I have come to find more offensive. I found a similar offensiveness in the straight actors who played gay roles, though I have to be honest it varies with degree. Tom Hanks may have been the only actor who could have been willing to risk his career to play a gay man in Philadelphia in 1993 and it says a lot that Hilary Swank was almost a complete unknown when she played Brendan Teena in Boys Don't Cry. Ian McKellen playing an openly gay man in Gods and Monsters was an outlier back then; playing a gay role in Hollywood in the 20th century was often the kiss of death for a straight man and the times it was done, it often was terrible (Richard Burton and Rex Harrison in Staircase, for example)

It's only become more acceptable in the last decade or so for LGBTQ+ actors to play LGBTQ+ roles and that's only because the dam has been slowly opening. Even HBO, which was groundbreaking in so many ways, was not willing to risk it with some of his shows: Michael C. Hall was cast as the gay David Fisher in Six Feet Under and I can't say with certainty how many actors in the American versions of Queer As Folk and The L wORD were gays and or lesbians (I might be able to find out on imdb.com) We turned a corner around the last decade in both film and televisiion but even then it hasn't been easy. I seriously doubt one could have found a real transgender woman to play Maura in Transparent and I'm not convinced Amazon would have paid for it if they had, it was already a risky sell as it was. It was only seven years ago that the first openly non-binary actor Asia Kate Dillon was cast in the non-binary role of Taylor on Billions.

This is not going to be an easy question to answer because it deals with a third rail issues: LGBTQ+ and I don't know if there is a solution that can universally solve the problem. I think, whenever possible, LGBTQ+ performers should play LGBTQ+ roles but sadly I also know how Hollywood works and that if that they reveal their sexuality, those will likely be the only kind of roles they get. I think there's a reason Jodie Foster kept her sexuality private for forty years; she knew all too well that the moment she did, the lion's share of female roles would stop coming her way. But I also know that if straight actors do get cast in these roles, the LGBTQ+ community will be up in arms for having their stories stolen from them and while I think there is hypocrisy in this (that we did talk about beofre) they're not wrong.

I have stronger opinions on this on how it pertains to other issues (most significantly omitting gender as a limitation on award categories) but those you will find if you choose to seek them out, and its beyond the scope of this article. That is my overall opinion.