Married at First Sight Australia producers have been “actively pursuing” transgender and gender-diverse participants to cast in the 2025 season.
Over the years, fans have slammed the marriage experiment for its lack of diversity.
As a result, this year saw the first same-sex couple since 2020 and the show’s “oldest-ever” couple.
According to Yahoo! Lifestyle, the 12th season is tipped to be the most diverse season yet, with producers “actively pursuing” gender-diverse contestants for the Australian series. Woohoo!
The application process for the 2025 season also asks applicants if they’ve ever been in a relationship with a transgender or non-binary identifying person and if they’d be open to being matched with someone who identifies as one.
Producers will also be asking potential participants if they’ve ever had any same-sex experiences and if they’d be open to having them.
MAFS producers were inspired by UK contestant Ella Morgan, the franchise’s first openly transgender bride
An industry insider told the outlet that Australian producers were inspired by UK contestant Ella Morgan, the show’s first-ever transgender-identifying bride.
“Married At First Sight UK led the way last year by casting an openly trans bride, which caused huge discussion and discourse all around the world,” the insider said.
“Producers are now under immense pressure to raise the bar on our version to keep the format fresh.”
This comes after expert Alessandra Rampolla told Yahoo! Lifestyle that the lack of diversity on-screen came down to a lack of people with “different sexual orientations and sexual identities” signing up for the show.
However, she said she’d love for MAFS to showcase more diversity in the future.
“It depends on the humans that show up and want to share their stories and want to go on this wild ride with us,” she said.
Our fingers and toes are crossed!
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