Ed was conceived of as a cat-like boy, redefined a girl to balance the cast, then later described as genderless in vague terms that would likely be deemed problematic had they been offered by a Western creator (“Its gender is meaningless, we don’t need it, it is like an alien”). This nonetheless gave fans license to interpret and further specify—and to argue the specification in the usual places.
There’s no wonder Ed isn’t seen in anything yet! The moment Ed is presented, the casting will be a Big Thing with unprecedented aspects to consider, and Netflix knows to avoid that until we’re a few rounds of publicity in. Netflix Ed is going to be weird teenager with a gender and psychology filtered though the corporate anxiety nebula and doomed to overt sexualization online. So who knows, maybe they just decided to avoid it until the show is live, or a later season, or forever.
