Jeffrey Tambor at Emmys 2016: ‘I hope I’m the last cisgender man playing a transgender woman’

'It's time to hand out the keys to the kingdom and open the gates.'

When Jeffrey Tambor took the role of Maura Plefferman in Amazon’s Transparent it was de rigueur for men to play transgender characters in TV and film.

The last couple of years have seen more trans actresses land roles however, and now Tambor thinks the time has more than come for it to be the norm.

After accepting the Emmy for best actor in a comedy series for Transparent last night, Tambor said backstage: "I just hope there are more opportunities for transgender talent," he said. "I would very much like to be the last cisgender male playing a transgender female. I think we are there now."

This was a doubling down on his powerful acceptance speech, in which he declared: "It would be one thing if trans people had told their stories for hundreds of years, but they haven’t. It’s really a problem. It's time to hand out the keys to the kingdom and open the gates."

Transparent creator Jill Soloway also used her acceptance speech as a podium to discuss LGBTQ topics - you can watch that here.

In spite of the pair’s words, several projects with cis men playing trans women are in the work, the most recent set to star Matt Bomer.