Scripted TV

Historic Firsts

The history of depictions of trans people on television includes these firsts.

• In 1977, All That Glitters featured the first trans regularly occurring character in a television series, played by Linda Gray of Dallas fame. This short-lived series, produced by Norman Lear, was a primetime soap opera that took a satirical look at a world ruled by women.
• From 2006 to 2007, Zoe Luper, played by Jeffrey Carlson, became the first trans character on a U.S. daytime soap opera, All My Children (ABC). Zoe first appeared as Freddie Luper, an English rock star millionaire who was suspected of being a serial killer. Zoe was attacked by the real killer and survived, thus clearing her of suspicion.
• In 2007, Candis Cayne became the first trans actor to play a recurring trans character on a primetime series, in Dirty Sexy Money (ABC). The character was the mistress of one of the series’ main characters. Cayne later had a recurring role as a trans character in Season 6 of Nip/Tuck (FX). She also had ongoing appearances in RuPaul’s Drag U (Logo TV), I Am Cait (E!), Elementary (CBS), and The Magicians (Syfy).
• In 2013, Laverne Cox was the first openly trans person to be nominated for a primetime acting Emmy Award for her portrayal of Sophia Burset on Orange Is the New Black (Netflix). Burset was a prison inmate found guilty of credit card fraud, which she committed to fund her gender-affirming surgery. Cox later won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word. She had recurring appearances on Doubt (CBS), I Want to Work for Diddy (VH1), and TRANSform Me (VH1).
• Asia Kate Dillon was both the first nonbinary trans actor to appear on a television show and the first actor to play a nonbinary trans character, with their role as a hedge fund intern in Billions (Showtime) beginning in 2017. Dillon was nominated for a Critics’ Choice Television Award for their portrayal. Prior to this series, Dillon played a white supremacist inmate in Orange Is the New Black.
• In 2018, trans actor Nicole Maines played the first trans superhero, Nia Nal/Dreamer, in Supergirl (CW). Born with precognition superpowers, the character works as a speechwriter for the White House press secretary. Of note is the fact that Maines and her family sued her school district for barring her from using the female bathroom. The case went to the Maine Supreme Court, which ruled that the district had violated the state’s Human Rights Act and had to provide bathroom access consistent with students’ gender identities.[Page 746]
• The show Pose (FX) made television history in 2019, when it premiered with the largest number of trans actors in a scripted series, including five trans women of color: Dominique Jackson, Indya Moore, MJ Rodriguez, Angelica Ross, and Hailie Sahar. The series spotlighted New York City’s African American and Latinx LGBTQ ballroom culture in the 1980s and 1990s. The series was nominated for both Golden Globes and Primetime Emmys.

Negative Representations

Historically, most roles for trans characters on the small screen were peripheral to the ongoing storyline or appeared in one episode. In the earliest storylines, trans people served as objects of confusion, ridicule, and sensationalism. Some early portrayals conflated sexuality and gender. For example, Billy Crystal’s character in the hit series Soap (ABC) began the first season wanting gender-affirming surgery but then realized he was a gay man.

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