‘The White Lotus’ Star Carrie Coon Says ‘Non-Binary, Maybe Trans’ Child Cut from Show After Trump Election

Actress Carrie Coon, star of MAX’s (formerly HBO) The White Lotus season 3, said her character’s “non-binary, maybe trans” child was cut from the show following President Donald Trump’s election.

Speaking with Harper’s Bazaar, Coon said that some of her character’s backstory was left on the cutting room floor for political reasons.

“There was a bit more context to her home life. You originally found out that her daughter was actually non-binary, maybe trans, and going by they/them,” said Coon. “You see Laurie struggling to explain it to her friends, struggling to use they/them pronouns, struggling with the language, which was all interesting.”

Coon called it a “short scene” that would help explain her conflict with the character Kate (Leslie Bibb) upon learning of her being a Trump supporter this season. Apparently, creator Mike White felt the subplot would have been too small for such a controversial subject.

“Considering the way the Trump administration has weaponized the cultural war against transgender people even more since then, when the time came to cut the episode down, Mike felt that the scene was so small and the topic so big that it wasn’t the right way to engage in that conversation,” she said.

Coon defended Mike White from those who would say he chickened out.

“His father wrote a very influential book about what it was like to come out as a gay man himself in the evangelical church as an adult, which a lot of young men have read and was a very meaningful text for them in their own journeys,” she said. “So Mike doesn’t shy away from challenging cultural conversations, and I really appreciate that about his work.”

The White Lotus recently generated controversy for featuring an all-male threesome wherein two of the participants are siblings.