So, I know we've been warned not to interpolate Claire as a stand-in for all trans people anywhere. And I know that we are dealing with Trollmaster Jeph. But, I've been thinking about this for a few days and thought I'd share:
Portrayals of trans characters in the media has, until recently, been absolutely awful. We're shown as jokes, as predators, as unbalanced, and most definitely as oddities. This is slowly changing, with the addition of a very limited number of sympathetic trans characters finding their way into the average American's household; the most notable examples are Sophia Burset in Orange is the New Black and Maura Pfefferman. Even those are through online providers, and only Maura is positioned as a "main" character. As far as I can remember, there have been no portrayals of a trans person as a legitimate romantic interest in any widely-consumed media. (I'm excluding LGBT-focused media here, because for-us-by-us media plays by its own rules.)
So, in that sense, Claire is a groundbreaking character. She's trans, but that's not her defining characteristic. It certainly looks as though she's got a shot with Marten, which already makes her a basically-unprecedented depiction of a trans person who is not just here and (moderately) well-adjusted, but actually desirable and able to desire. Jeph has obviously gone to such great lengths to put together a believable, realistic, and sympathetic character that I feel he couldn't possibly be unaware of this context. I think even by his standards, to put this out there and then yank it away might qualify as one troll too far. I could be wrong, but I really really hope I'm not. So, think of all this as one more reason why, potentially, this ship isn't sunk quite yet.