If you’re watching, you may be wondering . While her gender status is a main plot point, it’s easy to miss whether she’s trans or not early on in the series. Furthermore, many fans are wondering if the actress who plays Teri, Nava Mau, is trans as well.
Teri is trans in Baby Reindeer. Donny meets her on a trans dating website, and she makes it very clear what her gender identity is. However, the show doesn’t focus on this until later on, when Donny’s confusion about his masculinity and sexual identity causes him to push Teri away because she’s trans.
Donny is never outright bigoted, but he struggles with his relationship with his father, who puts up a traditional masculine image. Because of this, Donny is afraid that being truthful to himself and his family about his sexual identity would cause them to disown him. We see later on in the show that this isn’t the case at all. Unfortunately it comes too late to save Donny and Teri’s relationship.
Nava Mau, the actress that plays Teri in Baby Reindeer, identifies as a trans woman. She has played a trans character in most productions she’s worked on to date. According to her official bio, before working in filmmaking, she spent 8 years “working in the fields of healing justice and culture change with community-based service providers, student organizations, and survivors of violence.”
Nava Mau’s previous works include:
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