The Role Of Gender Identity In Pretty Little Liars

In more recent times, however, transgender representation in film and television has reached new levels and strides. There is Emmy-nominated actress Laverne Cox, who plays Sophia Burset in Orange is the New Black, a trans-woman of color; There is Amazon’s Golden Globe winning and first original series titled Transparent, that revolves around the story of a transgender woman. Popular shows such as Glee explored and developed a new arch about one of its main characters transitioning from female to male. Even ABC Family premiered a show on its network documenting a young man’s experience as his one of his parents comes out as transgender, calling it Becoming Us. But with all of the seemingly positive examples of trans-characters that are being

This story creates a very problematic and oppressive representation of trans-individuals, while also taking the whole trans movement four steps back in its journey of liberation. The dialogue between trans-culture and mainstream culture becomes broken because the narrative of trans lives is once again being negatively shaped.

ABC Family’s teen drama Pretty Little Liars follows the story of five young women being stalked and tormented by a hiding-in-plain-sight-all-along-villain known as “A” (whose real name was revealed to be Charles). On the other end of the spectrum, the show focuses on one character’s revenge against this small group of women. Many fans carefully analyzed the episodes and its characters, both main and reoccurring, to determine who could be this villainous individual. Finally, on August 11th this past summer, Game Over Charles aired, and the person behind the mask, behind the cryptic messages, behind the murders, and behind the terror was finally revealed to be a character known as CeCe Drake. CeCe Drake has been a reoccurring character on the show since its third season. She was portrayed as mysterious and even suspicious at times, with some fans even speculating that she could be the tormentor.

The season finale was anticipated to be a beautifully heartbreaking episode, where the audience would be able to make sense of A’s horrendous actions and even feel sympathy for the character. It turned out to be an impressive episode to say the least because the writers and producers of the show managed to create a character that instantaneously exemplified all of the negative stereotypes that have prevented transgender people from receiving proper health care, finding housing, getting jobs, and being accepted for who they