Even cosy ITV cop drama VERA is at it now…

[LynneBenfield]

It has been giving the vibes for a while with a subtly (unspoken), possibly NB police officer side character and a few other bits and bobs. However they’ve laid just laid their cards clearly on the table. This week’s story involves a conversation with one of the side characters (a young male identifying as a girl) re domestic violence and use of women’s refuges. The character explains that they were devastated to be moved to a men’s refuge because someone complained that he was a threat to the women there. Cue Vera exclaiming, something along the lines of “Oh, a lass shouldn’t be with the men, pet”…

I know. Serves me right for watching such dross but it shows how it’s all just creeping in. The campaign for sympathy and the normalisation of intrusion into our women’s spaces.

Just watching it now.

"Ohh a lass like you shouldn't be in a mens hostel' FFS
Get in the bin. Sick of it

Vera's going downhill and this is the last straw.

Mary malone is a character in his dark materials.
IMDB doesn't list Rae at all, under cast.

The 'you've always been a woman' was certainly quite jarring though! I haven't seen this episode, but if she said that surely it means they were meant to be a trans woman. It just isn't someone anyone eould say to a woman.
With regards things set I the 50s and 60s with added trans characters - it's possibly part of the general push for 'trans ppl have always existed'. A very current identity category plonked in the past.

The moment Rae answered the door to Con, saying no, then shut it again was enough to see that the character is a transwoman.

Which is fine. Vera's lack of reaction less likely though. I'm sure Vera would have been nice to Raes face, but there's have been a raised eyebrow afterwards!

When I saw it I just thought I bet when she gets back to the office she makes some nearly crossing the line comment to Kenny, partly hoping to embarrass him, and to shake off her in the public personna!

IMDb didn't even have the episode listed last night. Its TV data isn't as robust as the films'. And according to the end credits Rae was played by Mary Malone.

@SinnerBoy The recent Vera's have been on ITV1 at 8pm and obviously lost out to Happy Valley. It has or was their premium sunday night series.

The problem is that since ITV went ITVx they dont allow catch up other than through that www.itv.com/watch/vera/1a7314

And to add to the confusion although this is series 12 they also showed the end of series 11 delayed by covid.

But I think the older series are shown on ITV3 which may be different

Thanks, yes, I think it's ITV 3 I see them on.

Funny thing I said on one of the telly addicts thread that I bet Silent Witness has a gender identity storyline as they have been squeezing every minority representation they can into each episode.

I imagined them carrying out an autopsy refering to her, then a dramatic pause, but not knowing which words would be acceptable, didn't know how to then record that they were actually carrying out the autopsy on a man.

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?

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

Another reason to never watch telly again.

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.

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.

Series 8 episode 7.

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.

Oh yes, the final insult.

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?

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)

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