The Bold and the Beautiful introduced a groundbreaking storyline on the soap opera Wednesday, revealing that model Maya Avant – played by Karla Mosley – is a transgender woman.

Bold & The Beautiful’s Transgender Storyline

During the episode Wednesday, the reveal came from Maya’s sister, Nicole (Reign Edwards). “You’re not my sister, Maya. You’re not Maya at all,” said Nicole. “You’re Myron, my brother.”  The revelation about Maya’s backstory shocked fans, who didn’t see the development coming – and neither did Mosley, who’s played the character for two years.

Mosley was informed about her character’s new arc back in December, and was initially stunned that the soap opera would be exploring a transgender storyline with a regular character. “I didn’t expect daytime to be taking on a story like this,” Mosley admitted to Us Weekly. However, the fact that the show is, is something Mosley sees as a definite positive.

“We reach a demographic that might not watch prime time, that might not stream; we’re in over 100 countries. We have over 35 million viewers or something crazy like that,” Mosley explained. “So we really have an opportunity that a lot of shows don’t have to reach some minds that may be closed at first and that might take a minute to even understand what the terminology is and what it all means.”

“Everyone has a different reaction,” Mosley added. “So even if the audience can’t necessarily be on board with Maya, or if they have [certain] feelings about Maya’s experience now, hopefully they’ll be able to see themselves in the reactions of the people around her and we can all sort of process it together.”

Mosley herself is an activist who sits on the board of a shelter for homeless youth and believes that the more people who understand what it is to be transgender the better.  “The more that we in Hollywood can help people to understand what it is to be transgender, what that experience might be like for someone, and just to normalize it, I think we have the possibility of really changing some hearts and lives,” she said.

Bradley Bell, executive producer and head writer of The Bold and the Beautiful, explained in a statement why the show is exploring what it is to be transgender through Maya.  “The transgender story we are telling on The Bold and the Beautiful is important because it is about tolerance,” Bell said. “It is about people respecting other people’s differences and their uniqueness. In the end, we all want to be loved and in order to love someone else you first have to love yourself. If you are transgender, gay, straight, it doesn’t matter. It’s about finding love in life. This is a love story.”