Netflixs Squid game Season 2 follows Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) as he returns to the deadly competition he won in Season 1. His mission is to take on the shadowy cabal of VIPs and managers running the game, with the goal of ending it once and for all for everyone.

**Spoilers for Squid game Season 2, streaming now on Netflix**

However, since Gi-hun, also known as Player 456, was the only player to survive his version of Squid Game, series creator, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk had to introduce 455 new contestants for Season 2. This time there is a young pregnant woman, an elderly mother protecting her unfortunate adult son and, most strikingly, a transgender woman.

Player 120, Hyung-ju (Park Sung-soon), immediately stands out for her tall size and noble courage. During the first game, “Red Light, Green Light,” Gi-hun does his best to save as many players as possible by teaching them when to freeze, when to run, and when to line up for her Aim to minimize. After crossing the finish line, Gi-hun returns and returns to the battlefield to carry a fallen player who was only shot in the leg to safety. Only player 120 joins him and ensures that all three finish on time. However, the injured man is shot again by a sniper and is eliminated from the game.

Through Squid game In Season 2, we see Hyung-ju leading “weaker” players to victory. She is visibly devastated when she is unable to save her closest ally in the brutal game of Mingle and is one of the first to volunteer to join Gi-hun’s eventual rebellion.

When Decider asked Squid game Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk on adding a transgender character in Season 2 compared the character’s purpose to that of fan favorite Ali (Anupam Tripathi) from Season 1.

“I saw the people coming to the games Squid game as people who are usually excluded or neglected by society, and not just financially,” said Hwang. “In Season 1, Ali was the representative character of that, a foreigner working in Korea, one of the most representative minority groups in Korea.”

“Today, unfortunately, the gender minority in Korean society is a group that is not as widespread in society,” he continued. “That’s why I created the character Hyun-ju as a male-to-female transgender woman.”

While American television is full of prominent transgender actors like Laverne Cox, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and Eliot Page, Hwang admitted this to TV Guide’s Kat Moon Squid game struggled to cast a Korean transgender actress for the role of Hyung-ju.

“Initially, we did research and I thought about doing an authentic casting of a trans actor,” Hwang told TV Guide. “When we researched Korea, there were almost no actors who were openly transsexual, let alone openly gay, because unfortunately the LGBTQ community is currently more marginalized and neglected in Korean society, which is heartbreaking.”

Hwang told Decider: “Compared to before, things have gotten better. But if you’re a gender minority in Korea, acceptance isn’t as widespread. Unfortunately, you can still see that you are way outside the norm.”

Hwang eventually cast Park Sung-soon as Hyung-ju. Park is a popular cisgender male actor in Korea who has always shied away from queer roles. “I have seen his work since his debut and had full confidence in him that he would be the right person to portray this character in terms of his talent,” Hwang told TV Guide.

Of course, the decision to cast a cisgender actor in a transgender role has sparked controversy. However, Hwang told Decider that he was hoping for Hyun-ju’s inclusion Squid game could pave the way for more mainstream acceptance of transgender people in Korea, which in turn could lead to more prominent out transgender actresses.

“By creating a character similar to Hyun-ju and through her decisions, her actions and the way she behaves in the game, I hope it can raise awareness of these issues we face today are facing,” Hwang said.