When Squid game 2 ARLINGTON next weekthe fans will meet many new faces—including Hyun-ju, aka Player 120, the show's first trans character. She enters the competition hoping to earn enough money to complete her gender-confirming surgery, and she proves to be a quick-thinking leader and, thanks to her former career as a soldier, a totally badass.

At a recent press day for Squid game 2director and creator Hwang Dong-hyuk spoke to a group of journalists, including io9, about why he wanted to include a trans character this season.

“The people who come to participate in the games Squid game are often marginalized or neglected from society, and not just financially speaking, but people who belong to marginalized groups,” Hwang explained through an interpreter. "In the first season, the representative character for that is Ali, who is a foreigner working in Korea, which is one of the most representative minority groups in Korea. Currently, unfortunately, in Korean society the minority of a gender that is not widely accepted within society. I wanted to create a character that represented that."

Hwang said acceptance of trans people has gotten better recently, but it's still not where it needs to be. "In Korea, if you're a gender minority, it's still not widely accepted, unfortunately, and you're still seen as out of the norm," she said. "And so by creating a character like Hyun-ju, through his choices, his actions, and the way he carries himself in the play, I hope that will raise awareness of the issues that we faced now."

In another interview conducted by Hwang TV guidehe addresses the fact that even though Hyun-Ju is a trans woman, she is portrayed by a cis male actor, Park Sung-hoon.

While this practice is very common in the West—a recent example: Eddie Redmayne was nominated for an Oscar for playing a trans woman in 2015's The Danish Woman—This is now something that keeps directors and creators away, instead preferring to have transperformers play trans characters. However, South Korean culture is still intact, as Hwang told TV Guide.

"I expected such discussions to come from the first moment I started doing the character Hyun-ju. At the beginning we did our research, and I thought about doing a real casting with a trans actor ," said Hwang. It was more difficult than he realized. "When we were doing research in Korea, there were hardly any openly trans actors, especially openly gay ones, because unfortunately in Korean society at the moment LGBTQ community is more marginalized and more neglected, which is heartbreaking ... find someone we can cast as real.”

Choosing Park Sung-hoon is the best next choice, according to Hwang: "I have full confidence in him that he is the right person in terms of talent to portray this character."

Meet Player 120 and newer characters when Squid game 2 is on Netflix December 26.

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