Sci-fi show Orphan Black introduces trans character
Cult science fiction show Orphan Black has introduced a male transgender character.
The series, which stars Tatiana Maslany in several roles, revolves around a series of identical clones, who all have different lives and personalities.
However, in a surprise twist in the eighth episode of the second season, a new clone played my Maslany was revealed to be a transgender man, Tony.
The show’s creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett told Zap2it they feel a lot of ‘responsibility’ in portraying a realistic trans character.
They said: “[Maslany] had already come up with the idea sort of on her own. There was never a moment where we were trying to convince her. We were all immediately on the same page.
“We definitely felt the responsibility of portraying this.
“We did a lot of work and Tatiana did a lot of work to portray this character in a way that we felt was respectful of that community but also worked within the context of our show.”
“It was important that Tony, even though we wanted to introduce a new character, that he came with a part of the puzzle – it wasn’t just something random. It was part of the intricacy.
“”We have a lot of balls in the air but we also like that we are finding parts of our puzzle from lots of different places.
“We were hoping the character could stand on his own a little bit and return, but also to be an outlier who didn’t have to become attached and glued to the main story.”
Orphan Black airs on BBC3 in the UK, and BBC America in the US.
