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Transgender child actor appears on “The Baby-Sitters Club” on Netflix

Kai Shappley, 9, appeared in an episode of the 2020 Netflix series.
Kai Shappley, 9, appeared in an episode of the 2020 Netflix series. Photo: Kailey Schwerman/Netflix

A transgender child actor appeared in an episode of the 2020 Baby-Sitters Club television series.

Kai Shappley, 9, appeared in an episode of the 2020 Netflix series entitled “Mary Anne Saves the Day,” where she plays “Bailey,” a transgender child.

Related: Hillary Clinton compared staying with Bill during his sex scandal to raising a transgender child

Transgender advocate and TransGriot writer Monica Roberts said that the show handled the transgender-themed episode “with sensitivity.”

“Bravo on casting a trans child to play a trans child,” Roberts wrote.

The Baby-Sitters Club is based on the books by Ann Martin of the same name. Ten episodes of the series are currently available on Netflix.

In 2017, Kai’s mother Kimberly Shappley talked to Good Housekeeping about being a Christian mother with a transgender daughter who “was verbalizing that she was a girl at least six times a day” since she was three-years-old.

“I used to lead a small ministry teaching Bible study, and I didn’t support or condone those living the LGBTQ lifestyle,” Kimberly  said.

She said that she struggled to accept Kai until she met a group of Christian mothers of LGBTQ children and she learned about a transgender teen who died by suicide “because her parents wouldn’t let her be who God designed her to be.”

When she was four, Kimberly “stopped punishing Kai for ‘acting girly.'”

“There’s never been a moment of doubt or regret after making the choice to let Kai transition,” she said. “I’ve learned too much about identity and faith in loving my beautiful daughter exactly the way she is.”

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