ST M Doctor is Woman The Independant

It was slight, but it was another moment of showing that it’s not just men that go on interstellar odysseys in this canon.

It’s tiny- most of the show’s references to bisexuality and gender identity are often inconspicuous- but it is there.

Moffat’s run on Doctor Who has built up to this regeneration with a series of small litmus tests that have proved each time that people are more than ready for a woman to take on the two hearts and title of Doctor.

It was perfect casting: who better than Green Wing‘s Sue White to show that a female Master could be just as psychotic and camp as the men that preceded her? But the show also played on several of the audience’s built-in expectations: what woman could possibly be scheming against the Doctor,...

Though her role was not written as trans, it was still a watershed move from a show once helmed by a man afraid to bring trans issues into the British living room.

If you are shocked that the Doctor will be regenerating into a woman I have news for you: Steven Moffat, who took over from Davies as head writer and producer for the series in 2008, has done more to prepare you for a female Doctor than just featuring Joanna Lumley in his Comic Relief Doctor Who sketch in 1999.

...how could someone called the Master ever become a woman, when their title is specifically male? By deconstructing a far more concrete ‘male’ role, the show set out its manifesto: it is perfectly possible for any Time Lord to become a woman, and don’t let the masculine epithets fool you otherwise.

...a far more concrete ‘male’ role, the show set out its manifesto: it is perfectly possible for any Time Lord to become a woman, and don’t let the masculine epithets fool you otherwise.

Moffat’s commitment to building a world where Time Lords can also be Time Ladies proves this is far from a cheap ratings grab on the part of the BBC and his successor.

In the first two seasons the Zoe Wanamaker villain Cassandra – a vain sheet of skin kept alive by her manservant’s constant mosturising- drops a sly reference to being misassigned male at birth.