A trans actress who played the role of a trans teen in a Pixar series is speaking out after her character was turned cisgender by Disney.

“I was very disheartened,” Chanel Stewart told Deadline about hearing that Disney cut her character’s storyline in the upcoming series Win or Lose.

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The series is about a co-ed middle school softball team called the Pickles, and Stewart’s 14-year-old character was originally written to be trans.

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But she said that Disney called her earlier this week to tell her that her character would no longer have a storyline about her trans identity.

“It was upsetting because my daughter is transgender and this is her life. I felt like it was very important that we not hide that fact,” her mother, Keisha Stewart, told Deadline. “There may be some parents out there who are not ready to have that conversation, but this is the world that we live in and everyone should be represented. Everyone deserves to be recognized.”

Keisha Stewart was referring to Disney’s statement justifying the changes to the character, which said that “when it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.”

“It felt like it was just another setback for the LGBTQ community, because it’s very hard on transgender teenagers … transgender people, period. Especially when you’re young and you’re trying to figure out how to navigate this world that you live in and be able to grow into your own person,” Keisha Stewart continued.

Stewart said that she first learned of the role in 2020 when she, at age 14, saw a post on Twitter saying that Pixar was looking for a trans girl to voice the trans teen character.

“I was exactly what they wanted to a T, and that’s why it felt so right. It felt just so right,” she said. “I immediately asked my mom if I could do it, because I just felt like if I don’t do this, it wouldn’t make sense. You know what I mean?”

She explained that she “wore it as a badge” that she was providing the voice for a trans character.

“I wore it with pride,” she said. “I wore it with honor because it meant so much to me. The thought of authentically portraying a transgender teenage girl made me really happy. I wanted to make this for transgender kids like me.”

This explains why she was upset to learn that the character’s trans storyline – which involved a situation where her character experiences dysphoria in the girls’ bathroom – had been cut, according to PinkNews.