ITV’s new drama about transgender 11-year-old

ITV is to dramatise the dilemma of an 11- year- old boy who wants to go through a sex change.

The controversial mini- series Butterfly will follow the story of Max, who has always dressed up as a girl at home and now wants to live as a female permanently.

His mother Vicky – played by Anna Friel – faces a huge struggle as she works out how best to ‘support and protect’ her child through the life-changing decision – against the backdrop of her broken relationship with Max’s father, Stephen. But the drama series will not examine the aftermath of Max’s transition.

Instead it focuses on the start of their journey, in what executive producer Nicola Schindler described as a warm drama about ‘acceptance, inclusivity and unconditional love’. Polly Hill, ITV’s head of drama, said: ‘Butterfly is a beautiful story about a young boy on the cusp of puberty who doesn’t feel comfortable in his own body.

‘ It’s a heartwarming and emotional script… that focuses upon gender identity and one boy’s search to be recognised for who he really is.’

It comes a week after it emerged that an Australian schoolboy who decided to transition changed his mind two years later.

Patrick Mitchell was diagnosed with gender dysphoria – a condition in which people suffer distress because there is a mismatch between their biological gender and the sex with which they identify – only for him to decide two years after starting the transition that he was comfortable living as a boy after all.

Adam Kemp, whose firm Aenon will make Butterfly with Red Production Company, said: ‘During our research the topicality of Butterfly was absolutely apparent.

‘It feels as if 2017 is the year when gender identity has become a major national talking point.’