Tom Hanks is an actor — someone who pretends to be someone else for entertainment. In real life, Hanks is heterosexual. But in the 1993 movie Philadelphia, he played the part of a gay man.

“Could a straight man do what I did in Philadelphia now?” Hanks said in a recent interview with the New York Times Magazine. “No, and rightly so. The whole point of Philadelphia was don’t be afraid. One of the reasons people weren’t afraid of that movie is that I was playing a gay man. We’re beyond that now, and I don’t think people would accept the inauthenticity of a straight guy playing a gay guy.”

What about the inauthenticity of his playing a naval captain, a cowboy, a FedEx worker stranded on a remote island, a teacher-turned-soldier, a prison guard, etc.?

Of course, Hanks isn’t the only actor who feels this way. Eddie Redmayne made similar comments about the 2015 film A Danish Girl, in which the character he played identified as trans. Redmayne has since called his performance “a mistake” and said it’s a role he “wouldn’t take on now.”

So there we have it. In real life, men are to be accepted literally as women. But in movies — the realm of make-believe — only gay and trans actors can play gay and trans parts. Fantasy and reality have swapped places.