Written By Ken Storer
Directed By Peter Leto
Recap pages are Spoilers Off per policy and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned
This episode begins with one stripper ripping the bra off another stripper and accusing her of stealing it. That stripper walks outside, only to be grabbed by a guy - and then that guy is shown to be seriously injured, bleeding from his crotch. SVU detectives are called.They find out that the victim did go to the strip club to solicit sex, but the stripper who serviced him left him unharmed. The detectives find a picture of the guy with his young son Henry. They visit his ex-wife to track down Henry (Bridger Zadina), who is gender dysphoric and wants to be known as Hailey. She claims that her father refused to let her go on hormone blockers and transition to female. Her mother is however more accepting. Digging deeper, the detectives find that Hailey is close to Jackie Blaine (Aisha Hinds), her guidance counselor at school. They find that Hailey is part of a transgender "gang" of sorts that routinely go on heists to get the hormone medicines they need. This rules her out as a suspect in her father's attack.
Attention then turns to the guidance counselor Jackie Blaine, who is oddly protective of Hailey... and who seems to be harboring a secret of her own.
This episode provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Hailey's father Mark. In addition to emotionally abusing Hailey by not accepting her gender identity, he also roughly grabs her by the arm in the SVU station when he tries to stop his ex-wife from leaving with her (though he immediately apologizes for the latter). This ultimately proves to be the motivation behind Mark's attack, as Jackie Blaine couldn't stand seeing Hailey suffer because of her father's actions and felt she had to do something. Finding all this out at Jackie's trial inspires Mark to finally accept Hailey as she is.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Hailey yells out to Blake that she loves him as Blake gets taken to jail.
- Asshole Victim: The victim in this case was a transphobic father who didn't accept that his son wanted to transition into a female. And he was soliciting sex at a strip club.
- Big "WHAT?!": Hailey's reaction when Jackie Blaine reveals that she is also a trans woman.
- Bittersweet Ending: Blake and Jackie Blaine go to jail for their crimes, but Hailey is cleared and her father sees the error of his transphobia, allowing the family a chance at reconciliation.
- Boomerang Bigot: Despite being estranged from her father because he wants her to conform to boys' gender roles, Hailey wants to embrace a girls' gender role and vehemently declares girls are "supposed to be with boys!"
- Dirty Harriet: The stripper Misty, who serviced the victim before his attack, was actually an anthropology doctoral student going undercover as a sex worker to do research on them.
- Driven to Suicide: Hailey has attempted suicide many times before due to her gender transition angst. Her first time was drinking bleach when she was 10. The second time (onscreen) was having her wrists slashed and Olivia taking notice of the bleeding. Though she survived her suicide attempts, Hailey claims that she wasn't trying to kill herself last time; she was just angry.
- Gayngst-Induced Suicide: Hailey, multiple times due to her father's lack of support.Ellen: When she was 10 she drank bleach and she almost died. I realized then if we didn't let her be herself, we'd lose her completely.
- Groin Attack:
- The case is about finding out who slashed the groin of a strip club patron. Later, Jackie Blaine reveals that she was violently emasculated before she had her sex change.
- Hailey's mother reveals that when she was 4, she attempted to cut off her male genitals with a nail clipper while screaming, "God made a mistake!"
- Hero Antagonist: ADA Kim Greylek comes off as this when she zealously prosecutes Jackie Blaine.
- Heel Realization: Hailey's mother had this when her child attempted to cut her male genitals off at a young age due to gender transitioning. Hailey's father has this after Jackie Blaine testifies about her violent emasculation prior to her sex change and wants to treat his trans daughter better.
- I Have No Son!: Hailey's father all but disowns his child as he wanted a son, not a daughter, and fights with his ex-wife because of this. He does get better by the end.
- It's All About Me: Mark initially cares more about how the stigma of having a transgender daughter will make him look. He gets over this when the trial makes him realize how violently transphobic the world can be, and resolves to support Hailey from now on.
- Lack of Empathy: Hailey's reaction to learning about her father being attacked was to express disappointment that he hadn't died—much to her mother's shock. Though given his treatment of Hailey since she came out as trans, it's hard not to understand why she feels this way.
- Misplaced Retribution: What ultimately renders Jackie unsympathetic for assaulting Mark. Her Motive Rant makes it explicit she's carrying a lot of anger and trauma from the transphobia she suffered, and she took it out on Hailey's father because she saw herself in the girl.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Hailey's father Mark finally realizes the sheer hell he put his child through after Jackie Blaine describes graphically how she was attacked before she transitioned.
- Open-Minded Parent: Hailey's mother is more supporting of her journey to transitioning than her father is, though he does come around by the episode's end.
- Precocious Crush: While his age is never specified, Blake is clearly an adult. He insists he and Hailey are not sleeping together despite her crush on him.
- Red Herring: It wasn't the daughter, her friend Blake, the mother, or the stripper. It was the school counselor Jackie Blaine.
- There Are No Therapists: Jackie Blaine reveals that when she was younger and wanting to transition, there was no counselor, no support group and no hormone blocker pills to help her.
- Throw the Book at Them: When the detectives are investigating Hailey's school record, they find out she threw a book at a teacher who accidentally called her by her deadname, Henry.
- Toy-Based Characterization: Mark keeps a photo in his wallet of Hailey at age 5 when she was a boy, holding a toy truck. According to Hailey, she asked for a Barbie that Christmas, but her father yelled at her, "No son of mine will ever play with dolls!"
- Trans Equals Gay: Hailey is revealed to be crushing on Blake, a fellow student who is FTM transgender. Her mother is surprised and lampshades this trope.Ellen: A boy? Hailey, are you gay?
Hailey: You still don't get it, mom, I'm a GIRL! I'm SUPPOSED to be with boys. - Twofer Token Minority: Jackie Blaine is an African-American trans woman.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Everyone, including Hailey, is shocked when the guidance counselor Jackie Blaine reveals that she used to be a man named Harold Franklin.
- Wham Line: "What was your other name?" "Harold Franklin."
