My unexpected Pride icon: Adriana from The Sopranos fought for acceptance and safety. I can relate

The Guardian

14 hours ago

I have never been excited about fancy dress, but when I received the invitation to a Sopranos-themed party a couple of months ago, I knew immediately who I wanted to go as: Adriana La Cerva. As a transgender woman, I empathised deeply with Adriana. I loved her wit, naivety, garish glamour and scandalous moments – the same reason I admire so many of the women in my trans community. Just look to Hunter Schafer or Alex Consani if you want a masterclass in all the above.
Some of Adriana's one-liners – 'If you think I'm gonna blow this guy for your sick purposes, you are sadly mistaken' – contain the sort of lewd, campy bravado of a ballroom queen. This is not the aspiration of gender transition, of course. But it does approximate to some of the ways trans women respond to their exclusion by a culture that expects women to be respectable, polite and discreet about their sexualities.
But there is a more devastating side of Adriana that speaks to the trans experience: her quest for belonging. She longed for approval not only as a source of validation, but as a means of securing safety and stability. Her greatest struggle was that she craved acceptance from men and the family, even though she could never quite fit into their world.
Adriana's death in The Sopranos is devastating. After betraying the Soprano crime family by choosing to cooperate with the FBI rather than face prison, she confesses to her abusive fiance, Christopher. He turns her in and she is then lured into a car and taken to a quiet forest to be killed.
As a trans woman, I identified with Adriana, and not just because of that iconic wit, naivety, glamour, and scandalousness. Adriana never belonged. She was beautiful, but in the end, it wasn't enough.
For much of the series Adriana was viewed by the men around her as a classic trophy wife: young, hot, highly desirable. This doesn't last. Adriana's deterioration is slow and drawn out. First, she is diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, which the mafiosos find sexless and amusing. Then, she reveals to Christopher that a previous abortion may have left her infertile. His cruel retort – 'You knew you were damaged goods and didn't tell me' – laid bare his true feelings for Adriana, steeped in ownership and manipulation. Her infertility is also the first real moment we see Adriana begin to lose her power and feminine status. By the end, she dealt with the same predicament many trans woman face too, fighting for recognition, social acceptance and protection.
When I think about what it's like to live by the sharpest edge of patriarchal violence, my own life feels stranger than fiction. Adriana resonated with me because she navigated a world where the stakes were highest for women whose biologies didn't align with extremely narrow standards of femininity, where falling short meant not just humiliation, abandonment and alienation, but life-threatening risk. It's no exaggeration to say that my survival is inextricably tied to my appearance – to my body's ability to 'pass' and conform to misogynistic ideals of femininity, just to exist safely in public.
The writers of The Sopranos spared us from having to watch our beloved Adriana die: we hear the gunshot, but the camera pans away. It's tempting to interpret this as an invitation to picture some other universe in which she survives. When I walked into the party wearing her tiger-print bodysuit, the one that went TikTok viral last year, I wondered if I was in some way trying to live out the fantasy that the character gets to live an alternative future, one without the constant threat of patriarchy. Dreaming that it could happen feels personal, somehow.
Whatever I hope for Adriana's future, I hope for mine, too.