Hayley Cropper
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| Coronation Street character | |
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| Hayley Cropper | |
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| Played by | Julie Hesmondhalgh |
| Duration | 1998- |
| Date of Birth | 1966 |
| Marital Status | Co-habitation |
| Address | 16 Victoria Street |
| Occupation | Machinist at Underworld factory |
| Family | Roy |
Hayley Cropper is a fictional character in the British soap opera Coronation Street. Played by actress Julie Hesmondhalgh, she first appeared on the show in January 1998 as the first transsexual character in a British soap.
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[edit] Origins
She was originally introduced as Hayley Patterson, a shy shop supervisor at Firman's Freezers. Mutual friend Alma Baldwin introduced her to Roy Cropper, the slightly odd owner of Roy's Rolls, a greasy spoon café. They formed a strong friendship which blossomed until Hayley revealed she was a transsexual woman and still pre-operative. Upon learning this, Roy was unable to handle the situation, and initially rejected her. He later relented, accepting that their friendship was more important than Hayley's secret. After affirming their mutual attraction, Hayley left Weatherfield for Amsterdam to have private sex reassignment surgery. Three months later, and missing his friend, Roy followed her to Amsterdam where she was living on a houseboat. He persuaded her that they should work on their relationship so she returned to Weatherfield where she became a machinist in Mike Baldwin's lingerie factory, Underworld.
[edit] Major Storylines
Hayley, in a bid for privacy, had chosen not to disclose her transsexual status, but this was revealed when Baldwin discovered a Tax Office error, showing she was still registered in her original birth name, Harold. Ever the diplomat, Baldwin fired her, and although the factory staff and residents of the Street initially taunted her for being transsexual, she eventually got her job back, and most of the Street characters accepted her as Hayley.
Roy proposed to Hayley at a fancy-dress disco on St. Valentine's Day 1999. At that time, unfortunately, they could not legally marry, since Hayley was still seen as a male in the eyes of the law. Eventually they found a female vicar who would marry the couple, and they were finally united in a blessing ceremony held in Roy's Rolls. As a wedding present to Roy, Hayley officially changed her name by deed poll to Hayley Cropper. Although it has been possible, since 2004, for trans people to change their birth certificates and marry legally, Roy and Hayley have not yet, to public knowledge, taken advantage of this change in the law.
Between them Roy and Hayley have fostered a couple of children (including Fiz Brown, who later returned to the Street after moving out of Roy and Hayley's home), but have not had any children placed with them after they ran away with a young boy, Wayne, in an attempt to protect him from his abusive stepfather. This led to them being arrested and to Hayley's imprisonment because of court complications, though in the end she was released when Wayne's family circumstances became clear. This situation has prevented Roy and Hayley from having any further foster children placed in their care.
Her private life is occasionally interrupted by renewed revelations of her past history, either by someone calling her Harold, or others discovering she is transsexual, such as when attempting to adopt a child.
In 2003, while Hayley was away from Weatherfield nursing her ill aunt, scheming Tracy Barlow bet one penny that she could bed the man supposedly least likely to be unfaithful — Roy! Despite the extremely unlikely pairing, Tracy got Roy drunk, slipped Rohypnol into his drink, took him home and pretended to have slept with him. Roy was desperate to keep the news from Hayley but broke down and admitted everything. Upon confronting Tracy, the Croppers were stunned when Tracy revealed that she was pregnant with Roy's unborn baby. As Tracy revealed her plans to abort the child as soon as possible if the couple didn't want to adopt it, the Croppers recognised a golden opportunity to gain a child, and paid Tracy's demand for £25,000 to keep the baby.
The marriage became increasingly strained, including a suicide attempt by Roy, but they pulled through. Roy grew suspicious and worried when Tracy disappeared on a three-week holiday with the money. Realising how easy it would be for Tracy to disappear with the cash and the baby, Roy said that she must marry him (to prevent her taking the child out of the country without his permission) or cancel the deal. She reluctantly agreed, and they married as Tracy was still pregnant. The adulteress later confessed to her bigamist former stepbrother that Steve McDonald was in fact the true father (due to a one-night stand shortly before her so-called fling with Roy), and admitted that she'd never had sex with Roy. This emerged at Steve's wedding to his ex-wife Karen, as Tracy demanded that baby Patience be handed over to her (she'd grown a maternal bond for her newborn daughter). The Croppers, heartbroken, were forced to do so, and Roy told Tracy to keep the cash. Steve and Karen still remarried despite Tracy nearly ruining everything, and Karen got her own back after gatecrashing the baby's christening. Patience Cropper was later renamed Amy Barlow, and the Croppers became her godparents.
She still works as a machinist for Underworld and is also the factory supervisor, and remains one of the most popular characters on the Street.
[edit] Public Opinion
The appearance of a transsexual woman in a mainstream soap opera attracted initial opposition from trans groups and public alike [citation needed], for different reasons. Many members of the public did not want to have such "bizarreness" brought into their homes on a prime-time television show [citation needed], and some trans people found the original traits that Hayley exhibited to be cliched and ill-informed [citation needed]. Following her first two months on the show, a trans advisor was regularly consulted by scriptwriters and the actress, and trans groups appeared happier with the stories and scripts that resulted from this liaison [citation needed]. The public also grew to love the character [citation needed] and Hayley was made a permanent member of the cast.
[edit] Political Impact
Coronation Street's handling of transsexual issues, the uncertainty of whether her partner would accept her transsexuality and the inability of transsexual people to adopt children or marry, has been praised by transgendered groups. An Early Day Motion was also tabled in Parliament by Lynne Jones, MP, praising the story team and researchers, and Julie Hesmondhalgh for her portrayal.
Following the screening of the "wedding" in 1999, the Labour Government announced that a Parliamentary Working Group was being created to assess how the United Kingdom could grant trans people the legal rights for which they had fought for decades. The result of this was the tabling, in 2004, of the Gender Recognition Act, granting trans people full legal status in their acquired sex. It has been said that the character of Hayley Cropper deserves partial credit for bringing the issues faced by trans people to public attention in a sympathetic manner, rather than the sensationalist coverage that had previously existed. It is also alleged that the resultant public support for this fictional character went in favour of the Bill.
