‘Y: The Last Man’ Producers & Cast Say Their Show Has an Updated View of Gender from the Comics

Y: The Last Man is finally coming to FX on Hulu on September 13. The series, based on the beloved graphic novel by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra, has been in development for what seems like an eternity. Now, after false starts, shifting showrunners, and recasting, it’s finally here. FX previewed Y: The Last Man with a panel at today’s Summer 2021 virtual TCA tour. Stars like Diane Lane, Ben Schnetzer, Olivia Thirby, and Ashley Romans joined showrunner Eliza Clark and more to answer the press’s questions about the show’s long road to TV. The one word that was on everyone’s lips? Chromosones.

Y: The Last Man tells the story of what would happen if in an instant, every male mammal on Earth dropped dead. We watch an unlikely senator, Jennifer Brown (Diane Lane), rise to power as president, supply lines dry up, and trauma abound. However, there is one miracle in all this chaos. One young man named Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer) — yup, he’s the new President’s son — survives the nightmare and he, along with his pet monkey Ampersand, embark on a dangerous odyssey. Also along for the adventure are a mysterious secret agent code named 355 (Ashley Romans) and Yorick’s sister Hero (Olivia Thirby), who is embarking on her own dramatic journey.

Gender politics were different when Vaughn and Guerra started Y: The Last Man back in 2002 and showrunner Eliza “Eli” Clark said one thing she wanted to do was have more gender diversity in the FX on Hulu series. Both she, FX head John Landgraf, and the rest of the cast and production crew kept emphasizing that in this version, the mass deaths wouldn’t break along the male/female gender binary. Instead, every mammal with a Y chromosome, including transwomen, gender nonbinary folks, and even some cisgender women, would be affected. “Yorick’s male-ness is not what sets him apart,” Clark explained, “it’s his Y chromosome.”

Later she affirmed that “gender is diverse and chromosomes are not equal to gender.” Clark said that “in the world of the television show, every living mammal with a Y chromosome dies tragically. That includes many women. It includes nonbinary people. It includes intersex people. That’s also true of survivors.”

One of those survivors — who is not Yorick — is also a man. Actor Elliot Fletcher plays Sam, a transgender male friend of Yorick’s sister Hero who undergoes his own adventure in this post-apocalyptic world. At one point, Vox’s Emily VanDerWerff asked Fletcher how he personally dealt with the gender binary implicit in the story’s DNA.

“I auditioned for this and I was able to meet with Eli and the rest of the writers’ room and I was greatly reassured that everyone had the best intentions and wanted to do the right thing,” Fletcher said. “Just to echo something Eli said earlier, it is made so clear immediately that chromosomes don’t equal gender and I think everyone who worked on this show understands that. But I understand how difficult it can be to receive that material and it was definitely something I had to ponder.”

Y: The Last Man star Diana Bang also explained that there is a scene where her character, Dr. Allison Mann, explains to Yorick that “she tries to make it clear to him that her sole interest isn’t about bringing back cisgender men. It’s actually about bringing back all diversity back into the world. And that obviously includes transgender women, nonbinary people, and people with intersex traits.”

But the FX on Hulu show isn’t just making that change from the graphic novel. Amber Tamblyn plays Kimberley Cunningham, the former President’s daughter, whom Tamblyn described as a “conservative.”

“She is a woman who cares deeply about family values and her entire identity is carried through her relationship through and with men. Through her husband and her three sons, her father, who is President of the United States,” Tamblyn said. “And obviously, given the circumstances of the show, all of those people die in the pilot.”

Diane Lane has been attached to the Y: The Last Man adaptation for longer than almost anyone else involved, and she was asked how this final version compared to earlier iterations from different showrunners. She said Clark’s take on the source material was so good, the other versions were “blown away.”

Will you be blown away by this new take on Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra’s Y: The Last Man? You’ll have to watch Y: The Last Man exclusively on FX on Hulu when it premieres on September 13, 2021 to find out…

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