Heartstopper S3 will ‘educate’ viewers with trans sex scenes

Yasmin Finney has teased her upcoming sex scenes with co-star William Gao in Heartstopper season three, revealing that they will “educate a lot of the audience”.

The third instalment of Alice Oseman’s queer Netflix series will see both Nick and Charlie (Kit Connor and Joe Locke) and Elle Argent and Tao Xu (Finney and Gao) exploring sex for the first time.

While Nick and Charlie will likely experience the typical first-time difficulties that many teens experience – particularly given this season will also see Charlie struggle with an eating disorder – Elle’s experience with sex as a trans character will be unique.

Speaking to Drag Race winner Tia Kofi and her co-star Gao on the most recent episode of Heartstopper: The Official Podcast, Finney teased that the upcoming scenes will touch on the difficulties of having sex when you’re experiencing gender dysphoria.

“I’m just going to start by saying there’s a lot of adulthood that starts to blossom this season. Let’s just start with the big thing: me and Tao have sex. It’s just a natural thing,” she explained.

“What I like about it, the way it’s done, it’s obviously catering to all audiences so it’s PG friendly to watch but not only that it’s quite nice to have a trans girl on screen,” she added.

Sex scenes between trans characters are practically non-existent on mainstream TV, so Finney and Gao’s scenes are expected to be seen as a huge step forward for representation.

Last year, the final season of Netflix’s Sex Education aired a sex scene between trans couple Abbi and Roma (Anthony Lexa and Felix Mufti), in a TV moment dubbed “groundbreaking” by fans and critics.

Speaking about how Elle and Tao’s scene go down, Finney continued: “You see the complications of being trans, and you see it’s not just easy to have those relationships and go deep into a sexual relationship with your partner straight away, especially when you’ve got gender dysphoria and all these complicated things that come with being trans.

“I think we really delve into that and educate a lot of the audience hopefully,” she added.

Gao revealed that fans will see his character Tao tackle the “challenge” of having sex head on, explaining that “we really see Tao support Elle on the journey”.

While the scenes are set to be powerful viewing for trans people and allies alike, Yasmin Finney described filming them as “emotional” as she is becoming “a bit more of a method actor”.

“I actually got really emotional a few times on set. I’ve never really gotten emotional before on set. I just had to have a moment to myself,” she admitted.

“As I’m more into this industry I’m starting to be a bit more of a method actor, and sadly for me, it’s really easy to relate to being alienated.

“It’s a lot, it’s very overwhelming to think of. It’s just really difficult – hopefully you’ll see that in my performance.”

Heartstopper season three is released on Netflix on 3 October. 

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