Bella Ramsey on Celebrity Traitors made me nervous as a queer person, but then came Ross Kemp

Bella Ramsey is quickly becoming a standout on The Celebrity Traitors, and thankfully, my fears over a non-binary person being on undoubtedly the most popular TV show of this decade are starting to dissipate. 

The importance of representation, especially on reality TV, shouldn’t need explaining in 2026. It’s hard to describe the feeling of seeing a slice of your community on screen, but of course, it comes with its own drawbacks. It opens up that person, and the wider community, to scrutiny and backlash based solely on their sexuality, gender identity, or pronouns – not on the substance of their character. We see it far too often on shows like Big Brother. 

In 2023, after rising to fame as Lyanna Mormont on Game of Thrones, Bella Ramsey came out as non-binary, adopting they/them pronouns. 

“I guess my gender has always been very fluid,” they told The New York Times. “Someone would call me ‘she’ or ‘her’ and I wouldn’t think about it. But I knew that if someone called me ‘he,’ it was a bit exciting.”

Credit: BBC

Though embraced by the vast majority of queer people at the time, Bella, of course recieved flak from the LGB without the T crowd, some straight people, and those brandishing the JK-Rowling approved flag of disapproval. 

“Everywhere you look the trans community is constantly inflicted with negativity and politics. I think we’re going backwards,” they later said. 

And they would be right. Between 2022 and 2025, YouGov reported that scepticism towards transgender rights had grown across the board. The change was reflected in the rest of the LGBTQ+ community too, with the United Kingdom dropping to rank 22 out of 49 on ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map. We were once in first place. 

It's refreshing to see kinder comments about Bella Ramsey

They're coming across really genuine on this, a shame the online community were so harsh on them in the last of us.#CelebrityTraitors #TheCelebrityTraitors pic.twitter.com/OpdJ0Vf4Ab

— Harri (@Harriclare92) October 8, 2026

That fear is very real right now, even moreso for people who aren’t conforming to the sex they were assigned at birth. So I was prepared, prepared to wince when one of this year’s Celebrity Traitors crop used the wrong pronouns when talking about Bella; inciting the internet’s unique brand of bigotry in support of that celeb. 

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But then came famed hard-man Ross Kemp. 

The reaction to Bella Ramsey being non-binary has been… hopeful? 

Credit: HBO

The beauty of Traitors, both the celeb version and the civilian one, is that people from all walks of life come together under the unifying banners of Traitor and Faithful. Of course, that comes with unique perspectives, experiences, and beliefs. 

Watching the very first episode of The Celebrity Traitors season two, I was waiting for the moment someone used “she” or “her” when referring to Bella Ramsey. 

Their first big moment came when Bella put the captain’s hat on Ross Kemp, who immediately spiralled with paranoia. Then, during one of his to-camera interviews, he spoke about Bella with the correct “they” pronoun, and I was genuinely taken aback. It was simple, a four-letter word that would have meant nothing to most viewers, but everything to Bella. The rest of the cast followed in episode three, and to my knowledge, Bella’s pronouns were used correctly each and every time. 

Ironically, it’s forced me to think about my own judgements, even if they were born from fears about the ongoing decline of queer acceptance at a national level. I wrongly judged some of the older celebs before they’d even appeared on screen. 

But if one thing has been made crystal clear by just three episodes of Bella Ramsey on The Celebrity Traitors: It’s not hard to be kind, it’s not difficult to switch up our language to accommodate someone else, and respect is easy – if you choose it. 

Three episodes of reality TV have reminded us of something the “culture wars” desperately want us to forget: Queer people aren’t asking for the world. Just a basic human decency. 

If Ross Kemp can do it, you can too. 

Featured image credit: Scott Garfitt/True Brit/Shutterstock