Even cosy ITV cop drama VERA is at it now…

Oh yes of course! That would explain it.

I'd forgotten about those as I switched the option to show similar threads off on mine eons ago because it threw up any old crap!

The 'similar threads ' underneath a thread are often the reason old threads get bumped.

In fact you get better results using google (and probably other search engines) by specifying results for mumsnet FWR ...

We’re not even forced to call him a woman any more. Do keep up.

Personally, I’ve often think about that scene and I’ve not watched it for a while but I’m sure Vera had that look in her eye when she said the line as though she thought what she was saying was utter bollocks. I’d have to rewatch but I think there was a little smirk. Or maybe a men’s hostel being no place for a lass is the same as a women’s hostel being no place for a lad? I love Vera so I’m choosing to believe that’s what she meant. Thank the women for Supreme Court ruling.

I don't know whether Anne Cleeves would agree - but she shows signs of wokeness in her books.
Strange, JKR has a very sympathetic portrait of a TiF in The Silkworm - but I can't remember if she appeared in the TV series, and it's JKR who gets the abuse.

The search facility is so shit on Mumsnet I struggle to find threads I've posted on. How does someone/ multiple someones keep managing to find and resurrect really old threads?

And the Vera episode this thread is about was shite.

😂

I know, we've worked our way right up to the Supreme Court!

Brand new poster, tick.
Drive by scolding, tick.

There.We.Are.Then.

😁😁

This thread is over two years old! We've got much, much more worked up in the interim.

Wow! Came across this thread because I was impressed with the actor[s perfomance in another programme. You lot must have some serious suppressed issues to be this worked up about one trans woman on a TV show. (Straight, white, British, 70-year old woman, in case that is relevant to anyone)

Glad you all agree and yes, spotted you twas a lad at that first glimpse. The real humdinger was the 'female' ensemble at the funeral... difficult to spot that 'lass' towering two foot taller than the others...
But yes, nasty women making the poor, wulnerabubble lassie leave the safety of a female space, how wery dare they! Has the writer/producer/director been weaned yet?

Oh yes, the final insult.

Thanks AmigoDogs re Silent Witness.

But going back to Vera, in fact the bit that grated most was at the funeral where Vera virtually pushed the trans woman character towards the bereaved daughter. She of course was warnly welcoming as though it is normal that as you are sitting there in a church contemplating your loss that someone would push themselves forward for a hug.

If this was going to happen surely after the service.

I do think even if Anne Cleeves says she wanted to do this, the way it was plotted made it too forced.

But it has gone downhill for some time now and have toned down Vera's charachter to it being more her having little oddities rather than expressing her view of the world based on her life experience.

Series 8 episode 7.

Silent Witness did it ages ago - there was a male body which was never identified - burnt in a car fire/train crash i think so no clothes or long hair or nail varnish or high heels or anything so those bloody transphobes had decided it was a man based on the skeleton. Turns out it was the army man's wife who went missing at the same time as the car fire. He hadn't claimed the body at the time because it had been identified as a man. He knew but was ashamed, wanted to keep the secret.

I also had this unsettling notion...

If people like Rae are presented on tv screens as women, without comment... sooner or later people will unthinkingly assume that some women are particularly angular and bony, with low voices, big feet, and adam's apples.

I don't want to sound either think or paranoid, but it does happen.

Take gay marriage- at one time, the word marriage couldn't be used in the context of a same sex couple. It literally didn't make sense. Embarrassing but the first time I read about a gay wedding I simply couldn't work out how it would work. I wondered how you'd decide which was the bride. I know how stupid that sounds, believe me. That was how entrenched the meaning of the word was.

Yet now it's totally normal. Yes, we're still inclined to heteronormativity, but it's certainly thoroughly understood (if not, sadly, universally accepted).

Until last night I didn't think the language would actually shift.

Another reason to never watch telly again.

DH and I watched it last night and we're enraged.
I agree with everyone on this thread - the scene was unnecessary. It was just inserted into the episode and did not move the story on in any way whatsoever.
Vera even referred to the transwomen as "your girlfriend" to the estate agent character.
Pointless point-scoring by the programme makers.

But everyone is terrified of being cancelled, persecuted or just unemployed. It just shows how brave thé few who dare to speak truth to power must be.

How do you know that’s her genuine opinion - she could be being forced to toe the gender woo line or risk cancellation by the publisher/pile on by the transactivists/death threats ala JKR?

I'm afraid Anne Cleeves does approve. She said on Twitter it was lovely writing and a great episode.

That very much used to be the norm, from Hayley in Coronation St, Lisa Edelstein in Ally McBeal, etc. But in the last 10 years it's most likely to be a transwoman, where the character is attracted to women but the actor is biologically a homosexual male. It's quite clever, as the actors are the less threatening type of transwoman, while the character is shown as a "lesbian." So the reality of what a transbian actually is, is masked. It worked on me for a bit, before I peaked, on Sense8 with Jamie Clayton and Freema Ageyman playing a "lesbian" couple that the mean lesbians didn't accept.

As a rule, Vera is one of the best cop dramas - acting is generally very good (Brenda Blethyn is superb), they're well produced, Northumberland scenery is stunning and the scripts, though formulaic, are excellent, with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. The exchange with the trans woman in this episode felt very much shoehorned in - it wasn't necessary. Plus, I felt quite sad because the actor was obviously male. If an actor, whose entire job is to pretend to be someone else, can't pass as the opposite sex, then who can?