Pretty Little Liars star defends decision to make ‘A’ transgender
By Will Stroude
[Warning: Major spoilers for the sixth season of Pretty Little Liars follow – so if you don’t want to discover the identity of ‘A’ just yet, look away now…]
During its mid-season finale last week, Pretty Little Liars finally revealed the answer to the six season-long mystery that has had fans of the teen drama scratching their heads for five years: Just who is the evil ‘A’ who’s been terrorising the town of Rosewood?
That person was revealed to be Allison DiLaurentis’ long-lost sister CeCe Drake, played by 34-year-old Vanessa Ray, but show bosses quickly faced controversy and criticism after it was revealed that CeCe was in fact born born Charles, and that her sociopathic behaviour was seemingly linked to the rejection she experienced as a result of being transgender.
Ray has spoken out about the decision to make the series’ primary antagonist transgender, describing it as a “bold” move and insisting it wasn’t a “calculated” attempt to cash in on the recent increased media coverage of transgender issues.
Speaking to Yahoo, the actress revealed: “I’ve always known that CeCe was doing more than being sassy. But this explains where her sociopathic tendencies came from and why she is like this. Of course when I found out I was ‘A’ I went back and looked at every conversation and every line of dialogue. I was like ‘Oh, I should have known all along.'”
She went on: “This is a relatively new conversation in this country. We have some amazing people that are standing up for transgender people and it’s very cool to see that. I was bursting with the desire to talk about it and have conversations and see where the country is at.
“My only concern was that people were going to think it was calculated, but it’s not. This was a really bold move on [our creator’s] end.”
Following a mid-season break, Pretty Little Liars returns to ABC Family in the autumn for the final half of season six.
More stories:
Liam Payne slams accusations of homophobia at 1D gig
Patrick Stewart talks kissing McKellen, plants one of Conan O’Brien