When Pedro Pascal stepped onto the red carpet for Marvel's Thunderbolts premiere wearing a plain white t-shirt with the words 'Protect the Dolls' scrawled across it, it may have looked like a simple fashion choice. However, the three word message stitched into the garment runs deeper than most celebrity outfits.
Pascal was not just donning a t-shirt but he was declaring his soliidaity with trans women, with his own family and with a wider movement that continues to push back against rising anti-trans rhetoric in both the US and the UK. The Last of Us actor's t-shirt appearance came just days after a UK Supreme Court ruiling that legally defined 'woman' as someone born biologically female — effectively excluding trans women from single-sex spaces.
