CW developing first mainstream show about a trans character
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The CW has announced a new show in the works: “ZE,” an hour-long drama about a transgender teenager growing up in Texas. It will be the first mainstream show to be centered on a trans character.
The original, somewhat-insensitively written Hollywood Reporter post on the topic (linked in the much better Autostraddle coverage above) says that the main character will come out to his family as trans and navigate those relationships throughout his transition.
Recently, more and more trans* characters have been getting roles on mainstream TV. There are characters like Adam Torres on Degrassi, Alexis Meade from Ugly Betty and Unique from Glee, but none of them have been the main character of a show. This will mark the first primetime television show to have its main character be transgender. Additionally, trans* actresses like Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black and Candis Cayne on Dirty Sexy Money and Elementary have been blazing trails by having trans* characters actually be played by trans* actors and actresses. Hopefully the CW will pick up where they have left off and cast a trans* actor in the lead role and any other roles that are for trans* characters. For the popular network to put a trans* actor in a starring role like this would be a great step in transgender visibility.
The CW does have some experience with trans* people on their shows. Back in 2008, Isis King was a transgender contestant on the eleventh cycle of America’s Next Top Model. She was eliminated in week five, but later returned in America’s Next Top Model: All Stars and has since had a successful career in the modeling and fashion worlds. Another transgender model, Virgg, was featured on the current cycle of the show.
As Autostraddle points out, it’s no longer unheard of to feature transgender characters on television, but it’s still pretty rare. In addition to a trans person being the main character as opposed to a side character, if this character actually uses the pronoun “ze,” as the show’s title would imply, that would be another pretty huge development; media has generally been slow to catch up on covering non-binary folks.
There are lots of reasons to keep an eye on this one. Let’s see what happens.
please teach the people of this generation genderless pronouns PLEASE
im tentatively excited but also the reports seem to suggest the character is a trans*man so im like. kind of worried.