Michelle Coats, a trans writer, voiced her concerns about Lady Cassandra’s depiction in Doctor Who years ago, offering one of the few critical analyses of the character’s trans identity to date. In her essay, “Little Boxes Will Make You Angry,” Coats argued that Cassandra’s pursuit of surgery and her “othering” from humanity linked her trans identity to villainy, concluding that there was “nothing positive…can be gained by having Cassandra being trans.” Coats suggested that if Cassandra were cisgender, it “would completely eliminate anything offensive about her character.” It’s hard to entirely disagree; Cassandra’s debut in “The End of the World” is undeniably filled with gendered undertones that are unflattering to trans women.
However, my interpretation diverges from Coats’ when considering Lady Cassandra’s return in “New Earth,” the season 2 premiere of Doctor Who. In this episode, Rose and the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) find a seemingly reformed Lady Cassandra at a hospital after receiving a psychic distress signal. Cassandra, however, quickly reveals her true intentions by possessing Rose’s body and later, the Doctor’s. It is during these events that we gain a deeper understanding of Cassandra’s character, particularly her longing for a time when she was last called “beautiful,” an event from centuries prior. “After that,” Cassandra laments, “it all became…such hard work.”
This line resonated deeply and shifted my perspective on Cassandra as a trans character. While Coats criticizes Cassandra’s enjoyment of inhabiting the Doctor’s “male” body – “for a lot of us it’s our worst fear,” she notes – I see her body-swapping experiences as a poignant reminder of the desire to feel fully embodied again after a long disconnect from one’s physical self. This sentiment ignites a crucial moment when Cassandra inhabits a disease-ridden zombie and realizes these vat-grown beings have never experienced touch. This shared isolation and loneliness connects Cassandra with her own buried emotions and empathy, ultimately leading her to accept her mortality. Struggling to maintain her cloned host body, she travels back in time to whisper to her younger self that she was beautiful, a quietly powerful and moving conclusion.
Considering these nuances, Lady Cassandra can be viewed as more than a simple, offensive caricature of transgender womanhood. Instead, she becomes a distorted reflection of the medical transition journey itself. Her defining characteristics – selfishness, an obsession with beauty standards, and a desperate need for validation – are exaggerated and warped versions of anxieties and pressures that can accompany transitioning. While Cassandra may embody some cisgender stereotypes about trans people, she is also a uniquely trans antagonist. Looking at Cassandra, repulsion is a natural first reaction, yet there’s also a strange sense of envy for her hairless skin, a desire many trans women might understand. If achieving that level of hairlessness, from the lip down, required extreme measures, like 700 electrolysis sessions, questionable actions, and vast wealth, would it be tempting? For those deeply affected by dysphoria, the answer, in a painful way, might be yes.
