Silence of the Lambs star Ted Levine says he regrets film’s trans depictions: “Having gotten aware and worked with trans folks, and understanding a bit more about the culture & the meaning of gender… It’s unfortunate that the film vilified that, and it’s fucking wrong. And you can quote me on that.”
My book club read the book about a year ago and from what I remember it devoted a scene to clearly explaining that Buffalo Bill did not meet the criteria for gender reassignment surgery and was just kinda sick in the head. We were impressed with how it was handled for the time that it was written. Unsurprisingly this scene did not translate well when rewritten for the movie.
I just finished the book last week and the part where Lecture and Clarice discuss Bufaalo Bill being trans, they basically say “He isn’t trans, he’s just crazy and real trans people are not violent usually and keep to themselves”. I’m not defending the passage, it is still not great when reading it today, but for being from the 80s it was pretty dang respectful, mostly.