The ongoing debate over “authentic” casting, where actors play people not like themselves, spiked online Friday with HBO’s announcement that a lead trans boy character in the upcoming third season of The Last of Us will be played by a cisgender girl.

Casting a trans boy in the high-profile role would have been a slam dunk for the streamer in its appeal to the show’s very online audience – what’s left of its fans after the popular, action-packed odyssey of Season 1 devolved into “feelings” amid the post-apocalypse in Season 2.

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With that, the show kind of fell off popular culture’s radar.

The casting choice, if anything, has made The Last of Us news again and revived the debate over who actors should and should not play on stage and on screens, as if there were rules about these things rather than just feelings.

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Those feelings center on executive producer/showrunner Craig Mazin’s choice of Kyriana Kratter (Star Wars: Skeleton Crew), a cisgender actress, for the role of 13-year-old Lev, a central trans character in the second installment of the video game that inspired the TV series’ third season.   

According to Deadline, Mazin felt Kratter “best embodied the character,” whom the industry pub felt compelled to clarify will still be a transgender boy in the show.

Up-and-comer Kotaku called the casting decision “an obvious misfire.”

Casting “a cis actor as a trans character in a trans-inclusive story, especially when the original game went out of its way to cast a trans actor in Ian Alexander, is a real f**king shame,” the HBO takedown read.

The post inspired many thoughtful responses; one particular back-and-forth summed up the debate and the “feelings” like a well-written HBO script with smart, invested characters.

“I wondered if it would be difficult to find a trans male Asian teenage actor who is at the beginning of their transition and doesn’t have facial hair, etc., to play Lev,” one person asked.

“I think because Lev is pre-any medical transition,” they added, “a cis teen girl can certainly pull off playing him, and it’s likely this actor is going to be great in the role, but it’s a bummer they couldn’t find a trans actor.”

Said another: “As long as the actors pull off a great performance, at the end of the day, that’s all that should matter. Tim Curry isn’t trans, yet Dr Franknfurter was an iconic role for him. Certainly not comparing the Last of Us to Rocky Horror but hopefully you get what I mean.”

“Something that’s not clear, though,” asked another: “Are there trans actors who were appropriate for the role, openly trans, knew about the role, and wanted to take it?”

“As someone who lives in LA, I can confidently say that there is no shortage of trans actors who would be interested in this role,” said one Hollywood local. “There is, in fact, no shortage of any type of actor you could possibly ask for.”

“Actors regularly play roles outside their personal experience. That’s acting,” another reply added. “Tom Cruise is not a spy. Jeff Goldblum is not a scientist. Patton Oswalt is not a cartoon character. I consider myself left LEANING… But this is a prime example of why the left is losing the culture war.”

“So you make some good points, but here’s what people are missing,” said another in the “authentic” casting breakdown. “There’s so FEW trans roles in film/gaming that getting an authentic person to play the role should be a thing, as trans actors are not going to be cast for CIS roles EVER out of fear of conservative religious backlash.

“That’s why it is important for those actors to get those roles.”

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