Or: An Exegesis on The Book of Loretta
“Monty Python’s Flying Circus” excelled at generally absurdist, often surreal comedy. In comedy terms, it rarely “punched down”: Common real world targets included the rich, the pompously religious, and middle class housewives that can’t mind their own business.
For the housewives, because the troupe was all men (with the occasional appearance from Carol Cleveland), the players appeared in drag. Let me say this clearly: That’s fine. That was absolutely fine. That was commonly done in “Kids in the Hall” as well, and yeah, that’s fine.
In the movie “Monty Python’s Life of Brian”, they even mock their own drag habits by having men actors dressed as women characters pretending to be men in the stoning scene; Terry Jones plays Brian’s mother as the two of them buy stones and then proceed on to the stoning.
Again, clearly: I have absolutely no issue with any of this. This is all acceptable within the realm of comedy.
So what’s the problem?
The problem is the portrayal of Stan/Loretta. That’s it. One joke, a handful of lines, slightly over a minute in a 94 minute film. This is what John Cleese, the comedic genius central to not just Monty Python but also “Fawlty Towers” and “A Fish Called Wanda”, wants to hold so tightly onto that it shapes his character as a human, not in 1979, but several decades later as well.
Instead of saying, “Hey, yeah, that wasn’t the best. Maybe we can reconsider that one scene.”
That was then…
In 1979, representations of transgender characters were rare, and generally negative. One of the most impressively nuanced characters on TV came several years later, in a 1982 episode of “The Love Boat”, where Gopher meets a former college roommate, played by Mackenzie Phillips. At the time, Phillips was at the top of her acting game, near the end of a decade-long run in “One Day at a Time”, so it’s beyond impressive that she’d agree to such a career-endangering role.
People often point to the “All in the Family” character Beverly LaSalle, who appeared in three episodes from 1975-1977, and while this character was indeed positive, it hits two sour notes for transgender representation: First, it’s not entirely clear whether she’s intended to be transgender; the role was played by a drag queen. Even now, people confuse drag queens (who are predominantly non-transgender men) and transgender women, and “All in the Family” is part of that cultural confusion. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly to this conversation, Beverly’s character ends the way so very many such characters end: Murder. “All in the Family” gives a two-part episode to that story, the second episode of which is devoted to centering a non-transgender character (Edith)’s reaction to the murder.
This is not a criticism of the 1970s TV show “All in the Family” within the context of what was allowed on television in the 1970s. Beverly’s story arc was, in that context, absolutely progressive and rule-changing, because that era was such an absolute quagmire of queer representation.
This story arc even preceded the equally groundbreaking role of Jodie on “Soap”, a gay character who is portrayed with sensitivity and nuance. Jodie also has a problematic arc about being transgender, specifically that he falls in love with a straight man and decides to present as a woman, to the point of planning surgery.
And while the examples I’ve given are from US media, transgender representation in the UK media was comparably meh. So in that context, the Loretta scene wasn’t absolutely execrable.
The scene in question
But it wasn’t great, either. For its comedy, it relies on a persistent strawman trope that is still used to mock and abuse transgender people: That we believe that we can change our reproductive anatomy.
The scene begins with Stan/Loretta correcting his colleagues each time they use gendered language. One of the other characters is a woman (Judith, played by Sue Jones-Davies, so a rare use of a woman to play a woman [the credits only list two others: Carol Cleveland and Gwen Taylor]). Whether the inclusion of a woman playing a woman here is intentional is unclear, and if it’s intentional, the specific intentions are likewise unclear. But, given the paucity of women-playing-women in the Monty Python universe, it is at least noteworthy.
When asked why he keeps correcting people, Stan announces that he wants to be a woman and to be called Loretta. “It’s my right as a man,” he says, and continues that he wants to have babies. The rest of the scene is the other three characters arguing about his right to have babies while Loretta cries.
Francis defends Loretta by saying, “It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.” John Cleese’s character Reg responds, “It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality.”
And… scene.
… this is now
One common complaint against the current gender-questioning cultural movement is the policing of language. This complaint extends beyond that specific movement. Many humorists complain that jokes that could be easily made in past decades without blowback are now unsafe because of fragile feelings.
This is presaged in the scene in question: Rather than sitting idly by (he is played by Eric Idle, after all), Stan insists on correcting every use of “brother” and “he”, to the point that Francis forgets what he was saying.
I’ll insert an irony here, though: The use of “he” as a gender-neutral pronoun was common through much of the 20th Century specifically because of the misguided linguistic pedantry that Monty Python rightly skewers in the “Romani Ite Domum” scene. “They” has been allowed in the singular when someone’s gender is unknown since at least 1375, but in the 1700s, grammarians–again, the very pedants that Monty Python mock in that scene–started pushing to eliminate singular “they”. By the early 20th Century, this evolved to a singular “he”, which further evolved (under the mid-century woman’s movement) to the awkward “he or she” or “he/she”.
A relevant sidebar: “he/she” was also used as a noun in that era to mock drag queens and transgender women.
Point being: The first part of the Loretta scene is criticizing the language policing that was emerging in 1979 but is very much front-and-center today. I could see how someone (like Cleese) who is concerned about bending to respectability politics would want to protect the scene. Especially since a main goal of the movie is deliberate cultural iconoclasm. Monty Python wanted to deeply offend the status quo through satire and humor, a noble goal that they excelled at throughout the film.
So why is this scene different?
Problem 1: I have met many transgender people. I have talked with many transgender people. While many of us regret that our bodies cannot do what we want, we are fully aware that no amount of medical intervention (in 2025) can change that. While it’s true that uterus transplants have resulted in healthy pregnancies, this has only been performed on people who were born with uteri. It is unclear when, or if, it would be possible for a transgender woman.
So for now, for the foreseeable future, it’s just not possible. Likewise, transgender men do not expect to be able to create and ejaculate sperm. Eventually, who knows? But not any time soon. (Caveat: In these last two paragraphs, I’m not speaking of intersex people, because I have no idea what the state of the medicine is there.)
Problem 2: “So what’s the point?”
To be fair to Reg, he’s asking the point of defending the right of a person to have babies if they can’t actually have babies. Fair question.
But within anti-trans rhetoric, the question “What’s the point?” is as reductive as the second half of the Loretta scene. It suggests that the only difference between men and women is which side gives the sperm and which side gives the eggs.
A core of the feminist movement was to dismantle this reductive attitude, especially inasmuch as it drove the attitude that women’s primary role was to produce and care for children. But if gender isn’t just who grows the babies, then what is it?
This is the question that we are struggling with. Many of us want to just stick to the traditional answer: Men impregnate women, women make babies. A progressive can balance that with feminism by saying that, that difference aside, everyone can do whatever they want.
But if that’s so, then let’s flip that question around: What’s the point? What’s the point of having language, dress, and other cultural indicators of gender? Why not just let everyone dress how they want and refer to themselves as they want? When it comes to intimacy, body parts matter to many people, but that can be worked out. When it comes to reproduction, body parts definitely matter. Other than that, let people be who they want to be.
Which leads to…
Problem 3: A common anti-trans talking point is that transgender people are mentally ill and, hence, should be treated as such. That we are deluded and detached from reality, and that the “truly compassionate” thing to do is to refuse to pander to our false beliefs.
Which is precisely what Reg does at the end of the scene. That one line supports that sort of bigotry.
It is true that gender dysphoria has appeared in some form of the DSM’s last three major iterations. There are two key issues here, though: First, as the DSM has evolved, the focus has been moving from mental illness to mental health challenges. Just as there are many physical health challenges where the goal is management rather than eradication, the same is true of many mental health challenges. Also, calling gender dysphoria a “delusion” or suggesting someone is not connected to reality is a gross misunderstanding. As I’ve mentioned, trans people are generally fully aware of the reality of our bodies. We just wish things were different, and strive to do what is medically possible to ameliorate that.
Okay, so, this is just one scene in a 1979 movie…
Here are some sobering facts:
- The HRC has been tracking the violent deaths of transgender and gender-expansive people in the United States since 2013. Last year’s count was 32, and while the motive did not always involve the person’s gender, it often did. These acts overwhelmingly involve Black trans women.
- Transgender Europe tracks such violent deaths globally, a number which includes state-sanctioned deaths. Their number for 2024 was 350.
- As part of its ongoing military violence, Israel apparently killed about 100 transgender inmates in an Iranian prison earlier this year. In Iran, a Muslim state, it is legal to be transgender, but trans women are still socially ostracized, and the prisoners are kept separate. Israel should have known this, and possibly deliberately targeted that prison.
- In the US so far in 2025, almost a thousand anti-trans bills have been introduced, in every state except California, of which 121 have passed. Thankfully, the majority (646) have failed.
- The majority of the queer population in the US lives in a state that allows gay/trans panic as a defense for criminal violence, including murder.
- In the UK, the Supreme Court ruled this year that “sex” refers to birth certificates, and hence that laws protecting women do not protect trans women.
- In the US, several prominent Democrats, especially Gavin Newsom but also Pete Buttigieg, have been seeking “nuance” or “understanding” in positions that ultimately support anti-trans bigotry. Rahm Emanuel flat-out said that men can’t become women, while Kamala Harris gave a “follow the law” dodge in her Presidential run after having supported trans right earlier.
So don’t we have bigger things to worry about than about one minute in a decades-old film?
Abso-f***ing-lutely, we do. No question. They could cut that scene from the putatively planned “Life of Brian” revival and little would change. It might even be a net negative for that to happen, as the bigots would use that as yet another example of the fragile snowflakes and the cancel culture and political correctness.
Which is exactly what John Cleese, still somewhat influential as a cultural voice, is doing.
Which is exactly why it would help if John Cleese did what professionals do all the time: Admit that it was harmful at the time, admit that out of all the humor that he helped create with Monty Python and other projects, that mistakes can be made, and then… move on.
Keep it in. Take it out. I don’t care.
But own it. Fully.
As a key scene in the history of transgender representation, it’s not just a tiny historical blip. It’s the flap of a butterfly’s wing, and it contributed to how a lot of non-transgender people saw transgender people. It reinforced a false narrative about what transgender women believe. It mocked, and gave ammunition for others to mock, a culturally vulnerable group. It punched “down”, and did so hard.
“Bachelor Party” has a more blatantly toxic anti-trans scene. Tom Hanks has admitted to hating some of his own films, and has stated that that particular movie was a career stepping stone and “it is what it is”.
“Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” is one of the most transphobic movies ever made. Jim Carrey has since said he’d make it differently today and, that while his intent was to mock transphobia and not transgender people, “There’s a learning curve for all of us.”
In “Disclosure”, an in-depth look at transgender representation in media over the decades, Laverne Cox talks about being laughed at in public, especially early in her transition, and how people have been trained to have that reaction to transgender people. It is scenes like most of the ones I’ve mentioned here, as well as the many others mentioned in “Disclosure”, that have contributed to that training.
So, Mr. Cleese, just acknowledge the mistake. Unless, of course, you believed and still believe your character’s anti-trans rhetoric. In which case, shame on you.