#shondaland hates gay people

[quinnfabraymybeloved]

i can’t believe marina got calzona’d

[whatamessofthoughtswithjess]

Just some random thoughts I’d like to mention:

ADHD chaotic word vomit commencing in:

3……2…….1……. 💥

1. Fandoms can be extremely toxic. Like SCARY TOXIC! 🥴

2. PR Tours aren’t geared towards the established fans. PR tours are to engage new viewers. PR tours are created to sell the story being told. If you’ve got a romance show that’s trying to sell a story of “friends to lover’s” the PR tour will lean into the natural chemistry between the leads, they’ll create an atmosphere to enhance the chemistry, and they’ll use whatever techniques necessary in order to sell the story.. to bring in new audiences.

3. We all fell for the #Polin PR tour. Nicola and Luke have unsettling chemistry & Shondaland knew this as well. They also knew how much they could play off of their chemistry and bring in a large viewership. 2.3 billion minutes watched the first week alone? The PR tour paid off really well for them. I can’t even be mad at them at this point. You can’t say it wasn’t smart financially.. even if it was quite shitty to play with the hearts of Polin fans.

4. Luke and Antonia didn’t deserve the hate that was and continues to be thrown at them. They’ve been linked together for over a year now. He never hid her existence. The fandom chose to ignore her existence. That’s on the fans.. not Luke.

5. This one is going to piss a lot of folks off. Sorry not sorry. Luke Newton doesn’t owe the fandom anything. The “he has yet to claim her” comments are ridiculous. This man has been seen with her on multiple occasions, he has travelled with her, he’s been papped multiple times with her, he brought her to both Bridgerton premieres. That is claiming her. He doesn’t have to post her on his professional instagram just to appease his fans. He owes you nothing regarding his private life. Stop with the entitlement. It’s icky.

6. It’s never okay to bully anyone. Ever. The bullying against Antonia and now Jake Dunn is GROSS! It’s even more gross watching grown ass women bully a 23 year old young lady. It’s giving “I’m jealous” vibes. Do I like the way Antonia has acted towards the fans? No. She’s been a petty Betty at times.. however.. I can’t say I wouldn’t have been myself. That young woman has watched thousands of people publicly ship her man with his costar. She’s been bullied non stop & ridiculed for her body, her looks, her work, everything. I’d be acting a bit petty too if I were in her shoes. Grace is free & showing grace isn’t hard. She is human like the rest of us.

7. Now let’s talk about Nicola Coughlan and Jake Dunn. The absolute bullshit hate comments being left on Jake’s instagram are absolutely ridiculous. This man has done NOTHING WRONG except for crush any insane delulu you have in your mind. If you have something negative to say about this man? Do it in your private spaces & don’t take it to this man’s social media. Do you truly think Nicola will have any sort of respect for you by saying such hateful and nasty things to someone she clearly cares deeply for? Newsflash! She won’t. She’ll probably dislike you greatly for such vile behavior. Grow up. It’s legit that simple.

8. Like with Luke, Nicola owes you nothing regarding her personal life. Who she dates, spends her time with, chooses to love is no one’s concern but her own. She deserves to be able to live her life with who she wants and how she wants without fans acting the fool.

9. We don’t speculate on people’s sexuality. That’s gross behavior. That’s extremely disrespectful and invasive. Touch grass. Oh and did you know that you can tell your friends you love them without being gay? Shocking, right? Who knew? 😉

10. Stop. Full Stop. With stating your personal delulu opinions as facts. The biggest reason why this fandom is so toxic and drunk on delulu is because so many larger creators have planted false information in their minds as facts.. now they can’t see past the delulu & anything that goes against what they’ve convinced themselves of in their minds is false.. regardless of the receipts that are dangling in their faces. Please stop. It’s time to come back to reality.

11. Bullying one another for different opinions is TOXIC AF! There is no reason for people to be bullied off their own platforms because you don’t agree with their views. Take that toxic behavior right on out of here.

12. Colin Bridgerton is the BEST of the Bridgerton men.. apart from Edmund Bridgerton of course. You can’t convince me otherwise.

13. The best Bridgerton characters are as follows in this specific order:

Penelope Bridgerton

Lady Agatha Danbury

Queen Charlotte

I can’t be convinced otherwise. I stand by these choices.

14. Daniel Radcliffe will always be Harry Potter. I don’t care who they cast to play him in the new HBO Max series. Daniel is Harry. Point. Blank. Period.

15. Draco Malfoy deserved better.

16. Cats are the superior pet.

17. Shrimp is GROSS. You can’t change my mind.

18. I could have fixed Anakin Skywalker. 😅

19. Heck I could have fixed Kylo Ren too.

20. Pumpkin spice is trash. Apple cider is where it’s at. Fight me. ����🍎

Chaotic enough for you? I know it was for me. I’ve been wanting to get some of those thoughts out of my head. What better way to do that than here? Welcome to the asylum y’all. Enjoy the chaos! ✌🏻

[thekatebridgerton]

Okay so two things because I adore you and your vibe

1. I am writing a fanfic about Penelope thinking of her two first and greatest loves being Eloise and Colin bridgerton

2. Do you think the show will include queer activity with any of our mains?? (Why'd that sound homophobic to say) I thought they mightve with Benedict or perhaps Eloise though I am not sure

Okay so I am trying to answer most of my old asks today, because tomorow everyone will know what’s up with season 2 and there will be no more room to make up headcannons 

1) send me your link and I’ll give you a signal boost

2) I think the show can include queer activity, just not with the main cast and I say this completely respectful of the opinion and rights of the LGBTQ community. 

In my opinion It would be different if the characters had been created yesterday or even last year but “The Duke and I” and “The Viscount who loved me” were published in the year 2000, and the last Bridgerton book “On the way to the wedding” was published in 2006. These characters have existed as part of a male-female couple for 22 years. It’s not that the showrunners want to deny the LGBTQ community the representation they deserve. It’s just that to make any of the main cast queer, and end up in a same gender relationship, would negate 22 years of them existing in the books, canonically as part of a male-female couple. I mean Shondaland sure can, but it would be messy and complicated. 

This is why, when Shondaland creates characters for her own convenience, like Henry Granville, Will and Alice Mondrich or Theo Sharpe, the showrunners can play a lot more with their stories and plotlines and adapt them better to a modern audience. And I suspect it’s also the reason why new characters are being given their own storylines outside of the main cast. Simply because things like making an original character queer or having them rig their own boxing match, does not negate Julia’s 22 years of cannon storylines. It only adds to it.

If you know me in this blog, you know I am way too attached to Sophie and Phillip to wish for Benedict or Eloise’ sexuality to be gay. Just as a lot of people hate on Phillip and Sophie, simply because they wish Benedict to be gay and Eloise to lesbian. I want to keep sunshine Sophie and I also want to keep plant daddy Phillip where they canonically belong, happy inlove with their love interests. So I kinda want Benedict and Eloise to stay at least partially attracted to the opposite gender.

Don’t worry this just means that if Benedict and Eloise fall under the Pansexual, Bisexual or Demisexual umbrella of the Queer community I’ll be happy as ever. Or you know, they could be heterosexual, I’m not judging.  But I realistically don’t see any of the main cast having a same gender relationship, because of reasons cited above. And I’m sorry if that’s something that disappoints people. 

And that’s today’s tea

[mermaidsirennikita]

hope its ok to send a bridgerton comment/ask - I keep seeing people freak out about the possibility of Benedict being bi, including the possibility of him ending up with a male partner. And like...I feel like a lot of fans don't get that this show is supposed to take the essence of the books and then go beyond that?? And doing a season 3 about the AOFAG plot...is pretty regressive for Shondaland? Shondaland isn't perfect but I don't see them doing something so basic as a Cinderella plotline for s3. It's just not enough to maintain interest for a wider viewing audience. Beyond just views, they also need critical praise - and the book plot won't get them that; this is not the 1990s lol. Benedict fighting against the norms to be with a guy would take the essence of the book plot of fighting to be with someone society doesn't deem appropriate. Listen they probably wont do it and they'll be boring and do another cis-het relationship, but - ya gotta dream

It's totally fine lol--I don't publish all of them because I just published something similar ooooor I feel like I can't say anything ooooor I feel like it's about one of the things I just decided not to discuss for whatever reason (Phoebe's career, for example lol--no disses to people interested in discussing that, I just feel like I've said all I can say on it).

But I agree with you completely. The reality is that the Cinderella story is done, and it's been done over and over from a heteronormative lens. The reality, too, is that the only truly interesting aspect of Cinderella from a modern perspective is the idea that it's an interclass romance. It's much more interesting, imo, if you go even deeper as it were and examine it from the perspective of like... two queer men finding love in a world that frowns upon their union even more?

Idk, I'm also quite passionate about this on a personal level because historical romance is my favorite subgenre. And it is, almost definitely, the most heteronormative subgenre of romance. I fucking hate that. I hate that this a subgenre with a capacity for happily ever afters and amazing romances and wish fulfillment, but the wishes of LGBT+ people have been excluded from it since its inception, almost. Don't get me wrong, there are amazing authors doing important work there, but it's only very recently that that work has begun on a large scale.

So what would it say for the first adaptation of a historical romance to depict, for a whole fucking season, a queer love story? That's more important than anyone's desire to see (a cis woman) Sophie.

I don't know if they'll be smart or open-minded enough to like... get that, tbh. But it would be such a weird thing for me to see a Shondaland show just.... not have any of the Bridgertons be queer. Because when I think of Shondaland, I think of three big hit shows prior to Bridgerton: Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and HTGAWM. Now, all of them have varying results re: queer rep, and it's not my place to say how well they did. But undoubtedly, they all normalized queer rep. Grey's, in particular, did a lot of that when other shows weren't? Calzona, as much as it got fucked up, was a major couple I remember growing up with and seeing as this representation of queer women--they got married before that was a normal thing for two women to do. And it was an EVENT. Scandal, as WILD AS THIS WAS LOL, depicted a Republican president with a chief of staff who was openly gay, married to a man, and the father of a child with that man. (..........). HTGAWM had Connor and Oliver as one of the flagship couples.

It just would be weird, but unsurprising, if every Bridgerton was straight as an arrow. And almost insulting, imo, to the work JB is doing as an out and proud gay man who's playing the leading man against a woman? Like y'all are gonna use that to promote how progressive the show is, but not depict queer people as leads? Okay.

[popchoc]

If they are making the redemption ark story for Sullivan in order to get him back to the Chief job position imma be pissed.

He’s selfish and he thinks he’s the righteous one, the savior, he’s just a self absorbed ahole and also a bit misogynist if I may so myself.

It’s clear that he’s only thinking about himself and his career, he doesn’t give a sh*t about Maya or the team, or who he crashes on his path to the top (like Ben said to him on the first episode, he encapsulated Sullivan essence perfectly)

He’s the one that took advantage of Maya and the situation she was in, he’s a shark, and she didn’t broke all the rules as he claimed, she saved a life while disobey an order, but Sullivan broke so many protocols while endangering himself and others, a probi and the whole Fire department.

Maya did what she did in order to save a life and support her friends and the black firemen (the protest and so on…)

If Sullivan become the hero I’m gonna vomit, but thing is, in the real world, it would probably happen cause he’s a man.

But the writers need to make a choice that I don’t think it’s been very clear yet from the first 3 episodes, but they already made him look like the hero twice, too forced imo…

Do they want Sullivan to be the hero or the villain?

In my eyes he’s the villain.

I loved what Maya said to Carina, that she should not blame him for her not wanting children, I think it was the rage speaking, but Sullivan thinks it’s all about that and the breaking the rules, he’s missing the bigger picture, he broke trust, friendship and respect of them all, especially Maya Carina and Andy.

Dean last season was spot on about Sullivan selfish behavior and he was pissed about Him, but once again the writers made it all go away with one episode…

It’s a clear pattern of behavior for Sullivan.

It’s more than that, he almost destroyed Station 19 twice and he always had the back up from 19, if it wasn’t for Maya he wouldn’t even be a firefighter any longer, but he seems to have forgotten that…interesting…

For the love of God please don’t do an episode where Sullivan and Carina are trapped together somewhere and he plays the hero once again,in order to be forgiven, I just can’t, I think if the writers want to redeem him, the journey must be longer and he needs to stop with his abrasive behavior and commanding attitude.

But I’d rather him be the villain than the hero, even if I hate when writers do so to a black character, but this is also one of the reason why i think the writers are leaning towards making him the hero and everything is gonna be forgotten, cause he’s a man and that’s what happens…

I think this season main team is “sexism and misogyny” as many ppl said and if they go with that route than Sullivan is totally one of the bad guys, masked as a hero, but I also never really liked how he treated and talked to Andy, he’s just so unlikable and self centered and psychologically and emotionally aggressive.

I hope Maya and Carina completely get rid of him and his shadow and can be happy in their own gay bubble!

Aaaaah remember when asks could only be like 200 characters long?! ;)

I'm not disagreeing with you though. I just don't think Shondaland really is about heroes and villains, they're about the grey in the middle. Good people make mistakes, bad people can do good. It's been like that for 18 years, and it probably will be so for the next 18. Who knows, if this show is gonna be as endless as Grey's, five or ten years from now, Maya might be about to marry Sullivan, after just giving birth to his twins. I'm just kidding of course, but also, you know, not really. Just be prepared. Always be prepared... ;)

[alrightsnaps]

what's up with the benophie and kathony drama on twitter???

*sigh*

just more meaningless fandom drama I guess??

I mean there have been benophies making a big deal out of Kate and Anthony having screen time in s03, which is ridiculous cause a) all Bridgerton siblings (not to mention non Bridgerton characters) have had their own arcs as supporting characters in seasons 1 and 2 and b) this was originally the plan for Saphne as well before RJP left the show, of course Kate and Anthony will be a fixture in the show in future seasons. And you bet I'm expecting Benedict and Sophie to stick around after their own season too obviously. Plus there have been benophie stans who've pulled similar attitudes as saphnes, telling us that we were overdramatic when they kept sidelining Simone and Jonathan in the promo back in February/March, that we were toxic for complaining about the literal leading couple not getting their own poster etc. That one's really ironic cause being both a kathony and a benophie stan I absolutely knew that they'd pull this shit with Benedict and Sophie too in the future when I saw how dirty they did Kate and Anthony, like??? Maybe don't be that condescending when it's pretty much a certainty that you'll go through the same??

And on the other hand there have been some kathonies doing more of the same now that the s03 leads were announced, saying benophies are"harassing" netflix/shondaland on twitter because we were (obviously) dragging them in replies and quotes. That and joining casual stans on how Benedict should be given a male love interest when a) many of the people who want Benedict to be with a man are actually calling for Sophie's character to be altogether erased which is misogynistic af b) if they make Benedict bi Sophie is 100% getting sidelined and/or hated for "getting in the way" of a gay ship etc, cause that's pretty much the pattern with female characters when there's a fanon m/m ship and c) it's not like kathonies have exactly loved siena's relationship with anthony so like...no shit benophies aren't exactly crazy about something similar being in the works for Benedict?? especially when we don't even know if or when we're getting Sophie at all???

Oh and then there's me 😂

[amarguerite]

I would love to know all your thoughts on Bridgerton- good, bad, ugly and anything else

I’ve only watched four episodes but my general impressions are:

-the justification for the color-blind casting is baller. they just treat it like it’s perfectly normal for England to have black people in different positions of social power (more like modern America, or the one you see in other Shondaland shows specifically-- there’s a speech Lady Danbury gives to Simon the Duke that could have been on Scandal)-- and then just have one very, very smart bit of expository explanation. Lady Danbury tells Simon the Duke something like, “the king of england fell in love with one of us, and elevated us to the peerage. a king whose grip on reality is growing ever looser!” which tells you so much in so little time. I mean, a lot of it is just that he actress playing Lady Danbury is Viola Davis levels of WHHOOOOA HOW DID SHE CONVEY SO MUCH IN TEN SECONDS, but it’s SUCH good world building

-my favorite part is Queen Charlotte and her pack of Pomeranians. I too would like to sit in a panniered damask gown and have like ten fluffy creatures to pet at all times, with someone else taking care of the feeding and walking and cleaning up

-something about Shonda Rimes pacing just does it for me. I mean: each episode ends on a cliffhanger and has at least one BANANAS subplot, but each beat is enjoyably bonkers, not bewilderingly so. Each time the stakes rachet up absurdly, you get why, and there’s always dramatic fallout that’s really enjoyable to watch.

-the actor playing Simon, the Duke of Hastings, is distractingly well dressed. Those velvet coats! Those richly colored embroidered waistcoats! His cravats are confusing-- I have no idea why they don’t actually hold his shirt collar closed-- but I think that’s part of something else I noticed about the costuming: 

-it’s wonderfully evocative! It’s not like... strictly accurate. Tight-lacing Regency stays is, again, not a thing that is physically possible to do, and of course you wouldn’t wear them next to the skin and they shouldn’t give you sores or anything. You wear them over a chemise to help with posture/ back support/ boob separation. But! I’ve rarely seen a show that conveys character through costume quite so well. Imo there’s a little too much deference to modern sensibilities but I’m also aware that it’s part of the point. This isn’t the Regency, it’s not trying to be. It’s a Regency romance, and so it’s decided to signal that with the tropes of it like, everyone wears gowns from Vera Wang and Vera Bradley’s 2020 collections, Corsets Are a Metaphor For Society, Every English Man Must Do His Duty By Taking His Shirt Off, etc. 

-since @kcrabb88 mentioned it-- Queen Charlotte did like hoops and hated no-hooped high waistlines, so you got these monstrosities of court dresses:

I completely understand why they decided not to go with these. 

-I know that the Bridgerton books are all resolutely heterosexual, but Shonda Rimes already mixed this up and made the cast more to the taste of a 2020 palate. MAKE BENEDICT THE ARTIST GAY YOU COWARDS. He only really seemed happy when he was talking to Granville the artist!!!

-my favorite character is a Cockney lady pretending to be a French modiste. I could watch a whole series just based on her.

-surprised at the introduction of Anthony Bridgerton’s mistress, an opera singer named Sienna (which is really not a good Regency name, I hate it a LOT) and though I’m pleased she’s been in every episode so far, I’m worried about her narrative. Like, first of all, Anthony is a DICK. To show he’s ~manning up~ and taking his place in society, he doesn’t just break up with his mistress! He tells her to get out of the place he rented for her, so she ends up HOMELESS. The implication is also that he stops giving her money, as in the next episode Sienna appears to be living in the back of her friend the fake French modiste’s shop, and she talks about how she really needs to find a new protector as her first one SUDDENLY AND WITHOUT WARNING OR APPARENTLY A CHANCE TO PACK DEPRIVED HER OF INCOME AND HER HOME when breaking up with her! He only comes back to talk with her when he’s jealous she’s trying to find a new protector-- and I did appreciate the fact that she then got to say, more or less, “WHAT DID YOU EXPECT WHEN YOU STOPPED PAYING ME?!” 

I don’t know what they’re gonna do with this plotline, because my sympathy is all with the opera singer so far, and I know Anthony has his own book with an enemies-to-lovers plotline with a woman of his own class.

[trashyeggroll]

Ohh I didn't know we could include Marina in this. Okay! For Maya 14 to 19 and for Carina, 1 to 5. Sidenote: hate that I care about yet another shondaland gay couple when I can literally see the toxicity coming from a mile away... The things * do for hot women I swear.

lmao the side note is too real, I said I was DONE with fandom-level investment in Shondaland wlw because I’ve been HURT so many times and THEN Dr. Carina DeLuca has to go and be so fucking cute with an uptight, tiny fire captain and HERE I AM 🤡 EVEN THOUGH it’s still ridiculous and wrong that they did the cheating storyline 😩 🤡

Guys I triple checked that this isn’t Arizona lmao 🤡🤡🤡

14. Ingrained habits/forces of habit

Pops her fingers. Pop pop pop pop pop—

15. What it takes to make them cry

You know that Maya has been like stoically fighting crying whenever watching a Disney movie with dad issues and thinking, “This is normal. This is fine. Good writing.” And Carina is watching the internal struggle like 😑

16. Dark secrets/’skeletons in the closet’

Abused prescriptions (eg Adderall) to cope with the pressure in college

17. Regrets

I MEAN BESIDES THAT WHOLE CHEATING THING... 😤... and hello, letting Hima go? ... also that time she hit a squirrel driving home 🥺

18. Things they’ll never admit

Well we’ve finally admitted daddio is an abusive loser so, that’s the biggest thing out in the open. Next season Maya will refuse to admit that part of her latecoming rebellious stage was to binge watch all the big culture TV and movie franchises. Carina lets her have all of it and then gently nudges her into 2020, eg “JK Rowling is actually the worst, sorry love”

19. People they’ve hurt or indirectly killed, and how it affected them

Hima and FD calls aside, Maya still thinks about that squirrel who was just trying to get across the street 😞

(still Maya!! I think I’ve got a handle on it now) Carina:

1. Their physical weak spots

Wobbly left ankle from a bike accident

2. Their emotional/moral weak spots

😏 Angsty blondes

3. Scars or painful spots

That ankle hurts when the pressure changes! Maya gives her lil massages 🥺

4. Best places to kiss on their body

PHEW I mean. Like as the person bestowing kisses, where WOULDN’T be the best place?

But Carina likes that base of the neck kissing and some biting, which is perfect for her height difference with me Maya 🥴

5. Guilty pleasures

Do Italians have the same concept of guilty pleasure as US Americans? I’m not in a position to say with any authority but the country that thrives off pasta and the absolute “worst for you” ingredients you could use to make delicious sauces... I don’t think they guilt themselves for happiness like we do in the good ol US of A.

[calzona-ga]

Showrunner Krista Vernoff and out trans actor Alex Blue Davis talk with THR about how they'd like the ABC medical drama to advance the storylines for trans characters and actors.

There's a line of dialogue in Thursday's Grey's Anatomy that showrunner Krista Vernoff rewrote more times than she can count. But the impact of the line — from out trans actor Alex Blue Davis (who plays new intern Casey) to his boss, Bailey (Chandra Wilson) — was worth reworking a million times: "I'm a proud trans man, Dr. Bailey. I like for people to get to know me before they find out my medical history."

The moment comes after Casey has just saved Bailey and all of Grey Sloan Memorial from a hacker who, having taken over its computer systems and air conditioning, left several patients in jeopardy and pushed the hospital to the brink of closing. The episode also followed Casey's very personal reveal, having let both his new colleagues and viewers alike get to know him as a person before they learn something deeply personal about him.

"We worked very hard and very closely with Alex and [LGBTQ advocacy group] GLAAD on this storyline," Vernoff tells The Hollywood Reporter. "The scene in which Casey disclosed to Bailey that he was a 'proud trans man' was rewritten more times than anything else — we wanted it exactly right."

Inspired by President Donald Trump's proposed (and since blocked) ban on transgender individuals serving in the armed forces, Vernoff set out to tell a story about a trans veteran. Vernoff then intentionally cast a trans actor for the role of Dr. Casey Parker, one of the long-running medical drama's six new interns for season 14.

"We wanted the audience to get to know this character before they knew his private medical information; we wanted his disclosure to not feel like an 'A-ha!' shock but a genuine unfolding of this character's truth when he felt safe with someone," Vernoff says.

Thursday's episode resolved the hospital's cliffhanger from last year's midseason finale as Casey confides in Bailey that he was arrested for hacking into the DMV's computer system. Bailey is initially stunned as her background check on her new intern didn't catch that very important fact. That's when Casey discloses that there was a mistake on his driver's license that wasn't a typo: his local DMV declined to issue him a new license with his proper gender after he transitioned so he hacked into the system and fixed it himself.

"A lot of people don't understand what you mean when you say 'mistake' on a driver's license — they think it's a typo," Davis tells THR. "It wasn't enough for people to understand what female-to-male is and it's hard to have that changed [on your driver's license] in a lot of states. It's a serious issue."

Davis, whose previous credits included episodes of 2 Broke Girls andNCIS: Los Angeles, says he knew when he was cast that he'd be playing a character with comedic sensibilities that come from a Sandra Oh-like level of directness — who also was transgender. "What's cool about the show, the episode and Krista's vision for this character is he's about way more than being trans," Davis says, noting that he sees Casey's story as unexplored territory on the small screen. "I cried at the table read, it was very moving for me. I've been waiting for a moment like this on TV my whole life. I am so honored I got to say that line on TV because it's a long time coming."

Indeed. Just like Ellen's coming out on her ABC comedy in 1997 proved to be a landmark moment in television and pop culture, transgender characters have become more common on the small screen: Showtime's Shameless features trans actor Elliot Fletcher (who also played trans characters on Faking It and The Fosters) in a romantic storyline with a gay character; Orange Is the New Black star Laverne Cox made history last season as broadcast's first openly trans actress playing a transgender series regular character (on CBS' short-lived Doubt) and multiple trans actors have had roles on Amazon's Transparent. But what Davis and Vernoff hope Grey's can do is advance the types of storytelling featuring trans characters and actors.

"Trans people for years have been represented as punchlines, victims and villains and not as whole people and I was not aware of that until I went through the experience of my friend's son disclosing that he was transgender," Vernoff says.

Those (married) friends were former Grey's Anatomy showrunners Tony Phelan and Joan Rater (whose son helped inspire Cox's character on Doubt) and whom Vernoff remains close with after working with them as far back as season two of the Shondaland medical drama. (Phelan and Rater's son, Tom Phelan, played a trans character on Freeform's GLAAD Award-winning drama The Fosters.)

"When Tom transitioned, I found myself confused, frightened and bewildered by it all because I had never personally known a trans person or understand what it meant for Tom," Vernoff confesses. Rater, Vernoff recalls, at the time sent a lengthy email to friends and family in which she posed questions and answers that they might have about her son. Vernoff was moved by the experience and never forgot the feeling of love and acceptance she saw for Tom from Phelan and Ratner and those around them.

"Realizing that a trans person is like any other person with a journey in this lifetime — they are not victims, villains, weird or wrong; they're none of the things people believe when they support laws like the one that Trump put forward," Vernoff says. "My goal as a storyteller was to help illuminate that experience as an ally. I reached out to GLAAD for help in doing that because I am only an ally and not a member of LGBTQ community. They were more than happy to help."

For the L.A.-born Davis, also a singer-songwriter whose music has been featured on shows including MTV's Pranked, seeing more inclusive storytelling in which trans characters are not sensationalized is a welcome change.

"TV is opening up a greater range of roles [for trans characters]: Laverne played a lawyer on Doubt, and I'm playing a doctor — both roles haven't really been seen before [for trans characters]," Davis says. "People can see trans folks in a new light: these are people who walk among us and are human beings who have lives. They're not defined by being trans." And just like the gay actors playing straight roles debate that has (thankfully) come and gone, Davis and Vernoff hope the next frontier is seeing trans actors playing characters in which their gender is not the central storyline as well as trans actors playing heterosexual characters where their trans-ness also has no impact on the role.

"What's important for me to remember is there are opportunities out there where I don't have to play trans," Davis says. "I'm an actor. I love acting. I do love that I'm also representing a group of people who have been underrepresented, and that's awesome. But being trans is not my identity; I identify as male. There are male roles out there that I want to play. And being an actor who happens to be trans, it'd be awesome if all those roles opened up for me because people see me and how I define myself."

As for what comes next for Casey, Vernoff says the writers have talked about casting a love interest for Davis' character. The showrunner also hopes to reunite with Fletcher, with whom she worked on Shameless, and cast the actor as "just a dude" on Grey's.

"There's so many beautiful stories to tell and representation changes minds and hearts," Vernoff notes of the impact of art on society. She pointed to Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes adding characters like Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) and Callie (Sara Ramirez) at a time when it was still considered a rarity to put gay or bisexual people on TV and having audiences fall in love with them before revealing their sexuality. "When there's bigotry in the world, people can point and say, 'No, I have a friend who is gay and it's someone you know' — and you realize that it's a character you love on TV. That's how we influence people to open minds and hearts."

That's part of the reason Vernoff wants to try and avoid telling a story in which Casey faces any backlash just because of who he is. "One of the things we talked about with GLAAD is wouldn't it be revolutionary to just tell human stories about trans characters? There's a fair amount of hate that's already depicted and hate feeds hate. I just wanted Casey to be a whole person who is an Army veteran, a good doctor and one of the gang — who happens to be trans. I didn't want to do hate," she says.

That's not to say that Casey won't disclose his medical history again in an upcoming episode as Vernoff and the Grey's writers have yet to break the last third of season 14.  

"We talked about how, when and why trans people disclose their private medical history to their community. Casey might disclose out of advocacy, if we had patient who was trans or doctor who was insensitive to patient but I imagine Casey has disclosed to some of the interns," Vernoff notes. "My goal for Casey was to gently disclose his private medical history to Bailey and, by extension, to America and then keep him in our world as the doctor he is becoming. I told GLAAD and Alex that I'm open to continuing to talk and work with them if there are more stories that would be helpful or ways that I can be an ally."