For 16 years until 2014 Julie Hesmondhalgh played a trans woman called Hayley Cropper on Coronation Street. Nobody screamed. Nobody rioted. There was no national meltdown. People just watched the show and got on with their lives.
During those same years Helen Joyce worked at The Economist and Maya Forstater was a tax advisor and JK Rowling just wrote books.
Oh and Nadia won Big Brother!
So what changed.
Not trans people.
The only thing that changed was the hate campaign.
when I was a kid I lay on my back on my bed chewing a Bratz Baby by its pigtail, it popped out and fell down my throat and I was paralysed choking thinking I was going to die
Fun fact: Peter Griffin’s reaction to the hospital explosion in The Dark Knight (2008) was completely improvised due to a delayed explosion. Christopher Nolan was so impressed that he kept it in the final cut.