Gossip Girl boss confirms key character is trans – but reboot won’t ‘weaponise’ her gender
Zion Moreno (L) is a trans actress playing a trans character in the Gossip Girl reboot. (HBO Max)
Gossip Girl showrunner Joshua Safran has confirmed that Zión Moreno’s character Luna La is trans in the hotly-anticipated HBO Max reboot.
The first episode of the rebooted series debuted on 8 July with trans actress Moreno playing Luna, a close friend of Julien Calloway (Jordan Alexander) who also doubles as a social media assistant.
In an interview with Variety, Joshua Safran was asked if Zión Moreno’s Gossip Girl character is cis or trans.
“No, Luna is trans,” Safran confirmed.
“I say that, but I don’t know how oblique there is of a reference to it. But yeah, Luna is a trans woman in the show.”
Gossip Girl creator says ‘Luna is Luna, and that’s that’
Safran continued: “We decided as writers that this isn’t a show that’s about how she became her authentic self. That’s just not our story. Luna is Luna to these people, and that’s that.”
Safran said there is a storyline “later in the season” that “talks about disclosure”, but he insisted that the HBO Max Gossip Girl reboot isn’t interested in obsessing over Luna’s gender.
“Gossip Girl is not weaponising anyone’s gender or sexuality in the show, or race or identity,” he said.
Moreno made her debut in the musical fantasy film K-12 in 2019 before being cast in Netflix’s Mexican teen drama Control Z the following year.
She later won a part in the reboot of Gossip Girl, which originally ran for six seasons from 2007 to 2012.
The revival takes place almost a decade after the original series concluded and follows the titular Gossip Girl, voiced by Kristen Bell, as she watches and reports on the scandals of a group of teenagers at an elite school.
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The Gossip Girl reboot has already won the hearts of queer fans for its LGBT+ representation.
Last week, Thomas Doherty – who plays pansexual character Max Wolfe in the series – revealed that he had never kissed a man before taking on the role.
The Scottish actor told Variety taking on the role made him “question” how he has “been conditioned to think in terms of gender and gender identity and sexual preferences stuff”.
“That kind of thew that all up in the air and it was kind of very liberating. It’s been an amazing experience for me, definitely,” he said.
