I've been watching Sens8 on Netflix - three episodes in and I'm only just starting to get vaguely interested. Anyway, I didn't realise at first but there is a trans woman character (Nomi) and she's played by a trans woman actress. I didn't realise at first because I was rather distracted by the somewhat hot sex scene between her and her female partner (played by the woman who played Martha Jones in Doctor Who). I presume Lana Wachowski had a part in developing that role since she and her brother are directing it and co wrote/created with J. Michael Straczynski.
It's not giving away much to reveal Nomi as trans, or the fact she is portrayed as a trans activist blogger since that is covered fairly perfunctualy in the first episode. To be honest the activist blogger role comes across as utterly contrived, surely they could have thought of something more interesting for her. As a result I was pretty bored with Nomi as a character until we meet her mother in the second episode who insists on calling her by her male birth name. I'd say it felt overplayed except that's how my father is right now with me. So that was really uncomfortable and had me wishing a horrible fate on the mother. But at this point Nomi's story starts to deviate from "cliched trans character" to something a bit more interesting. I won't say more, so no spoilers from me. I've only watched three episodes, I hope/expect I'll get through the rest this weekend.
Anyone else watching? No spoilers!
