The BBC has been accused of using an elderly character’s dementia to boost its woke trans agenda in its school drama Waterloo Road.
In last Tuesday’s episode, a trans schoolgirl visits her dying grandmother in her care home – and is offended when the old woman ‘deadnames’ her, calling her by her former male name.
Viewers reacted with fury, claiming the plot portrays the grandmother as transphobic.
During the bedside conversation, the teenage trans girl says: ‘It’s Lois, nan. It’s Lois, your granddaughter.’
In her confused state the grandmother replies: ‘I don’t have a granddaughter. Only a grandson. It is you Jake, isn’t it?’
Lois, played by trans actress Miya Ocego, is aghast and tells friends, who advise against seeing her grandmother again.
The character complains to the headteacher: ‘What if she never saw me as Lois at all and she was just pretending? What if the dementia didn’t make her forget, it just brought out her true self?’ The headteacher praises the pupil’s bravery.
And, in what some saw as a nauseating ending, after the grandmother dies hours after the visit, the trans girl finds she’s left an envelope full of photos of the two of them together.
The grandmother has labelled it ‘me and Lois’, apparently proving she respected her gender identity after all.
The BBC has been accused of using an elderly character’s dementia to boost its woke trans agenda in its school drama Waterloo Road
In last Tuesday’s episode, a trans schoolgirl (pictured) visits her dying grandmother in her care home – and is offended when the old woman ‘deadnames’ her, calling her by her former male name. Viewers reacted with fury, claiming the plot portrays the grandmother as transphobic.
During the bedside conversation, the teenage trans girl says: ‘It’s Lois, nan. It’s Lois, your granddaughter.’ In her confused state the grandmother replies: ‘I don’t have a granddaughter. Only a grandson. It is you Jake, isn’t it?’
Waterloo Road, which is set in a failing comprehensive school and stars former EastEnders actress Lindsey Coulson, is highly popular with a younger audience.
But viewers lambasted the plotline and took to X – some even calling for the BBC to be defunded.
More than 4.6 million people watched a clip of the scene posted on X. One user wrote: ‘My mum died of Alzheimer’s last September. This is so offensive.’
Another posted: ‘It perfectly encapsulates the trans mindset. Even when the person next to them is dying, it’s all about them. No one else’s feelings are important.’
A third wrote: ‘Imagine the level of callous apathy and narcissism required to use a scene about a dying grandmother with dementia to portray her to be the ‘transphobic’ villain and the trans granddaughter to be the brave and suffering victim.’
Maya Forstater, of human-rights charity Sex Matters, said: ‘The storyline about an elderly woman with dementia who forgets to pretend she now has a granddaughter instead of a grandson is a new low for the BBC.
‘It is incredibly insensitive to dementia sufferers and the families caring for them to use the symptoms of this devastating disease as political propaganda for the discredited practice of transitioning children.’
Ahead of the episode being aired, Ms Ocego, 24, said: ‘When I got the script, I knew they wanted to address her gender identity and I was really happy to do so, to bring more awareness to the trans community and remind everyone that we’re still here, we’re not going anywhere.’
A BBC spokesman said: ‘In the storyline about Lois’ grandmother there are many references to the cruelty of dementia.
‘There is no inference that the character is transphobic and the episode concludes with Lois declaring that her grandmother was a ‘real superwoman’.’
