Who is/was the first woman Doctor Who?

With the news of Jodie Whittaker being cast as the new Doctor, most every article is claiming that she is "the first woman" in the role.

However, I've also seen a lot of fans scoffing and saying that she is not.

Who is/was the first woman Doctor Who?

Answer

It depends on what you consider "official".

Doctor Who is famous for its very loose and ill-defined canon, with tons of spin-off materials (TV movies, comics, novels, audio-only stories, etc.) piling on top of the TV shows. One, in particular, stands out as an anomaly: the Comic Relief special.

Of particular note here is that, in that show, The Doctor regenerates multiple times over the course of the movie, finally into Joanna Lumley.

However, the Comic Relief show is generally not considered canon by most fans. It's an obvious parody of Doctor Who, written for charity. (This isn't the only comedy Doctor Who special — there's also one where David Tennant plays The Doctor teaching the class from Catherine Tate's Lauren sketches). The actors in the show playing the 9th–13th Doctors don't fit anywhere in the continuity of the TV show (which does, at this point, have an unbroken line from 1st – 13th doctor.)

So, for most purposes, it's accurate to claim that Jodie Whittaker is the first female to play The Doctor.

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The backlash against the media isn't because they claim she's the first female Doctor. It's because there are a number of media outlets claiming she's the first female Time Lord. That's patently untrue, as so far in the show we have seen many female Time Lords.

• One of the Doctor's old companions was a female Time Lord (sometimes called a Time Lady) named Romana,


• and one of the classic villains was a female Time Lord called The Rani.


• There were multiple minor/unnamed female Time Lords shown on the few occasions where The Doctor returned to his home planet.


• Depending on how you define a Time Lord (vs. just being genetically Gallifreyan) it's also possible to count The Doctor's granddaughter Susan (most likely), his daughter Jenny (probably not) or his wife River Song (possible) as Time Lords.

It's not even the first time that a male Time Lord regenerated into a female one.

• It was hinted at a few seasons ago when The Doctor talked about an old friend of his, the Corsair, being both "he" and "she" at different points.


• In Season 8, we saw the Doctor's long-time nemesis The Master had regenerated into Missy, played by Michelle Gomez.


• And we finally, in Season 9, we see an on-screen regeneration of a Gallifreyan general from male to female.

The backlash is coming because it's so trivially easy to check this kind of thing, but so many media outlets are making the same silly mistake.