Amazon StudiosThe world really has changed in the past year and a half since Transparent first premiered.
When the Amazon series, which tells the story of trans woman Maura Pfefferman (Jeffrey Tambor) as she and her family adjust to her coming out, first debuted, it was the most high-profile exposure trans people had in pop culture.
Now, things are a little different.
Not only have laws started (key word: started) to adjust to being more inclusive to all human beings, but the entertainment world has also embraced the trans acceptance movement, as more and more trans people have stepped into the spotlight, including, of course, Caitlyn Jenner.
As we watch Maura and her family learn and adapt to her new life as her true self on TV, we also get to watch Caitlyn Jenner do the same in the real world—and on her E! docu-series, I Am Cait. Naturally, the cast and creators of the highly-acclaimed and 11-time Emmy nominated Transparent get asked about Caitlyn quite often, and she was the subject of the first question when they addressed critics during Amazon's press tour panel.
When asked what Maura would think about Caitlyn's coming out process—including her closet full of designer clothes—Jeffrey Tambor said she would "absolutely" be jealous.
"I think Maura loves a party," Tambor said. "I think Maura would be very empathetic or empathic to that response, and would like that. Unlike me—I'm a little shy—Maura I think would welcome people in her closet."
"Maura would love this, and Maura loves a red carpet and loves a party," Tambor continued, referring to the glamorous life of promoting a TV show, as Tambor and the rest of the cast are currently doing. "That's something she would really like. We have met Caitlyn on a personal level, and we love Caitlyn."
After the panel, E! News caught up to creator Jill Soloway—who has "of course" watched I Am Cait—and she highlighted some important and somewhat more serious similarities between Caitlyn and the fictional Maura, and explained why Caitlyn wouldn't be a major figure in the series' fictional universe.
"I would sort of like the Pfefferman world to exist in its own world, even though both families are from Los Angeles, I don't want to try to conflate the two as much as they naturally get conflated, as much as it's fun for me to think of myself as having a lot to do with Kim Kardashian," Soloway joked.
"The truth is that every trans person is different, there are millions of ways to be trans, and one of the things that Caitlyn and Maura both have is that they come from financial privilege and they have the ability to be in control of their transition," she continued. "There's a real crisis for trans people. Many of them can't get jobs, many of them don't have any legal protections, there's a crisis of people being murdered, committing suicide, a preponderance of having to do sex work."
"In many states it would be legal for you to interview a trans person for a job and say to their face, I'm not hiring you because you're trans. That's legal in most states, but it's a huge civil rights problem and a huge learning curve for the medical industry, and for the government, for everybody to catch up that trans people are people who deserve the same rights as all people, and that's probably what Maura and Caitlyn have in common. They have access because of their class."
Interestingly, some of those topics are exactly what I Am Cait is currently dealing with, as Caitlyn has been learning from some of her new trans friends exactly how much she doesn't yet know about her new community.
During the panel, it was also revealed that Transparent will return for its second season on Dec. 4 on Amazon.
Learn more about what it means to be transgender from GLAAD. If someone you love is transgender, contact PFLAG.