The hit medical drama has come under fire in recent days after old clips began doing the rounds on social media. Here is how its main character dealt with a trans patient:
For those of you who aren’t au fait with the series, it follows an autistic medic, Shaun Murphy, played by Freddie Highmore, and life at the fictional San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital.
The show recently finished its sixth season and has been put under the microscope after Highmore’s character interaction with a trans patient was heavily criticised.
In the episode, titled ‘She’, from the first season, Murphy meets a young girl, Quinn, who is admitted to the hospital with abdominal pains.
However, when Murphy is told that the young girl was born male and is now transitioning to female, he struggles to get his head around it.
During the episode, the surgeon keeps referring to Quinn as ‘he’ and bombards her with questions about whether she plays with dolls and likes the colour pink.
At one point, he says: “Science says he’s male.”
When pressed on the subject, Murphy adds: “I’m not supposed to be anything. I am a boy. Biologically, that’s it.”
People have now slammed the show’s makers for its display of transphobia.
“I didn’t see anyone mention it but there was an episode of The Good Doctor where he was transphobic as F**K to some poor little girl,” wrote one user.
Another commented: “I’d never heard of The Good Doctor but it turns out it stars Charlie from the cursed Willy Wonka movie as this VERY TRANSPHOBIC surgeon.”
“Why is he called the good doctor if he’s transphobic, he’s obviously not good,” remarked a third.
While someone else added: “Who wrote the episode where The Good Doctor is transphobic because every goddamn autistic person I know loves trans people or is trans themselves.
“Typical neurotypicals trying to make autistics in media look bad.”
Other fans of the show, though, while understanding the offence it clearly caused, have spoken out about its depiction of those with autism and how it dealt with episode.
They claimed that it was a way of depicting Murphy’s journey to understanding Quinn better and what it means to be trans.
“I don’t want to defend the show but people who say that The Good Doctor was transphobic are not really correct, considering that in the end he did end up sort of changing his perception+correctly gendering the girl.”
Another said: “The trans episode: even at the time, I thought the story was forced, like the writers had to check Transgender Issues off of a list (conservative a*sholes would call this ‘being woke’).
“I never questioned Shaun’s ignorance of being trans. He just started working at the hospital and before that, he had almost zero social interactions. He admitted that his medical training did not teach him about transgender care.
“The whole thing was way more about lack of knowledge than Shaun’s autism. By the end of the episode, he understood and was supportive.”
