Waterloo Road’s moving and emotional trans plot praised despite predictable right-wing outrage

BBC drama Waterloo Road has caused outrage among right-wingers over a sweet trans storyline featuring actress Miya Ocego.

The episode’s plot involves an elderly grandmother with dementia referring to her trans granddaughter by her deadname.

Miya Ocego, who plays the character Lois, is met with confusion when she is visiting her grandmother with dementia and telling her who she is.

Her grandmother responds: “I don’t have a granddaughter. Only a grandson. It is you (deadname), isn’t it?”

Lois later expresses her upset at this to the headteacher of Waterloo Road, saying: “What if she never saw me as Lois at all and she was just pretending? What if the dementia didn’t make her forget, it just brought out her true self?”

Many right-wingers were angered by the story, suggesting that Lois was displaying “callous apathy & depraved narcissism” by portraying a grandmother with dementia as a transphobic “villain”. The Daily Mail called it “woke” and an example of the BBC pushing its “agenda.”

Others said it was “pathetic drivel”, calling for the defunding of the BBC – a common refrain when the broadcaster portrays so-called ‘woke’ storylines – and some even said it was “offensive” towards people living with dementia or Alzheimer’s and their families.

But, despite the objections, many have praised Waterloo Road for the storyline as well as the trans representation of the show itself, as Lois is a regular character.

Waterloo Road has in fact featured trans characters since 2011, even before it was rebooted.

One person wrote: “Love how there’s been a trans character (played by a trans actor) in Waterloo Road since last series & they didn’t mention it till [sic] it became part of the story. Nobody said anything, what will the “we can always tell” people say?”

Another said: “To be honest, as trans storylines go, it’s less about trans issues unless you focus on it as such because of the culture war. It’s more of an Alzheimer’s storyline that happens to use a character transitioning to question whether them being forgotten is how they’ve always, truly felt.”

A third simply said the storyline was “great” and called the series “brilliant”.

Ocego, who plays Lois, previously defended the episode before it aired. She said: “When I got the script, I knew they wanted to address her gender identity and I was really happy to do so, to bring more awareness to the trans community.”

A BBC spokesperson told GB News that the storyline does not infer “that the character is transphobic and the episode concludes with Lois declaring that her grandmother was a ‘real superwoman’.”

Following the visit to her grandmother, Lois discovers an envelope left by her grandmother containing photos of them together and labelled with “me and Lois”, confirming that she accepted Lois all along.

Love how there’s been a trans character (played by a trans actor) in Waterloo Road since last series & they didn’t mention it till it became part of the story, nobody said anything, what will the “we can always tell” people say.. #WaterlooRoad pic.twitter.com/cnWciBGWR3

— Andrew McBride (@andrewmcb) February 11, 2025

Who is Miya Ocego?

Ocego is a trans actress and model, best known for appearing in BBC’s Wreck, The Jetty alongside Jenna Louise Coleman, and the recent series of Waterloo Road.

She has also appeared in the Billie Piper-fronted drama I Hate Suzie as Alexa Dennis and in an episode of the popular Netflix miniseries Baby Reindeer.

Ocego trained at the Arden School of Theatre in Manchester and later began her career in modelling after signing with the agency Contact ZYX before transitioning to acting.

Speaking about being a trans actor, she previously said: “We as trans people are not going anywhere. We’ve always been here, we will always be here.”