Last week, HBO’s The Last of Us announced the casting for the character of Lev. While the character is a trans man whose story revolves around that identity, the show has cast a cis woman in the role, with the executive producer defending the choice by saying she “best embodied the character.”

That has upset a lot of people, with Out Magazine saying the choice “lets fans down.” Kotaku called it an “obvious misfire.” Those criticisms are entirely correct, but they don’t go far enough. This isn’t just a disappointment over a single casting decision, but a statement made by a major franchise that represents a huge step backward in trans representation.

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While some will always argue that an actor’s job is to portray something they’re not, there are important reasons to have trans people represent themselves in media. From giving trans actors a chance to break through when they might be denied cis roles, to providing a more authentic portrayal based on a full and personal understanding of the trans experience, trans casting for trans roles should be the natural choice.

Too often, marginalized communities are pushed out of the conversation about their own identities, whether that’s in fictional works about their existence or in political discussions around access to healthcare. We might one day live in a utopia where trans people are so accepted as part of daily life that it doesn’t matter who plays us. But with anti-trans hate spreading globally, and Trump’s America being so unsafe for trans people, it’s a crucial time for us to get to tell our own stories.

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There are two major factors in The Last of Us’ TV casting that make this move even more appalling. First, it truly felt like we were past this when it came to major productions. The last time we saw a genuine good-faith attempt to portray a trans character with a cis actor was in Transparent’s run with Jeffrey Tambor from 2014 to 2017. Both the creator, Joey Solloway, and Tambor himself (who didn’t appear in the final feature-length episode due to sexual harassment allegations) have said that we need to move past cis casting for trans roles, with the latter saying, “I would not be unhappy were I the last cisgender male to play a female transgender [person] on television.”

The other factor comes down to who played Lev in the video game The Last of Us is based on, and the importance of their roles to trans representation in media as a whole. Ian Alexander (they/he) voiced Lev in the game, did the motion-capture for the character, and was the model for the character’s appearance. Lev was a trans character portrayed by a trans actor in a central and important role in a triple-A game released in 2020. But Alexander’s role in trans representation goes back further than that.

As we moved out of the era when trans characters in mainstream media were either villains, offensive jokes, or both (looking at you, Ace Ventura), we moved into one where stories about trans characters focused solely on the character’s transness. That was the case with the cis-led films Transamerica (2005) and The Danish Girl (2015). It was still mostly the case when trans actors got to play trans roles, such as Laverne Cox as Sophia Burset in Orange is the New Black.

But then trans representation reached an exciting new point where a character could be trans, not as a defining point of their character, but simply as a small facet that was incidental to their narrative. Alexander was at the forefront of that, providing one of the most notable early portrayals of this sort of character in Netflix’s The OA in 2016. Since then, they’ve taken similar roles in everything from Star Trek: Discovery to Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

By casting a cis actor in the role of Lev, the showrunners are not only failing trans representation in general, but taking trans representation back a decade while failing the source material and the trans representation icon who defined the original character.

The Last of Us: Part II already did trans representation pretty well. While some have suggested that the character’s narrative leans too heavily on their trans identity, it made sense within the larger setting, theme, and the stories the game was looking to tell. Casting a trans person in this role was a no-brainer, and casting Alexander to reprise the role (as Merle Dandridge did for the character of Marlene) could have been a simple bullseye.

The show doesn’t need to worry about alienating any meaningful part of their fan base by casting a trans actor in the role, but rather the opposite. The character was already trans and played by a trans actor; the game includes other LGBTQ+ storylines; and the show already features queer cast members, most notably Bella Ramsey, who stars as Ellie and is nonbinary.

There might be valid reasons to not have cast Alexander in particular as Lev for the TV adaptation. For one, they’re now quite a bit older than the character was in the game. However, aging the character up could have worked well with the tone, and Ellie is already being played by an older actor, so there’s wiggle room to make that change. It’s also possible that Alexander was not available or interested. But in 2026, there’s no excuse for not casting a trans actor in this role, between how far we’ve come and how much Alexander’s original portrayal deserves to be honored.

Reportedly, The Last of Us held an open casting call for the role of Lev, rather than seeking a trans actor to portray a character ostracized and attacked by their community because of their gender identity. There might be a conceivable future where an open casting call makes sense for a trans character. One where trans people play cis roles and vice versa and it’s no big deal. But that’s simply not where we are today, and The Last of Us’ casting choice is a symptom of the way we are moving further from that future, not closer.

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