A WORLD OF CHANGE
TRANS MEN AND WOMEN talk openly about their need to change gender
NEW REAL LIFE Horizon: Being Transgender Tuesday, BBC2 HD, 9pm
WHEN TEENAGER Jamie from Leicester first realised he had been born the ‘wrong’ gender – as a girl – he feared he would lose his friends and family if he confided in people that he was transgender.
‘Luckily, they have been so supportive,’ says Jamie, who features in this week’s episode of Horizon, in which transgender people share their experiences, and which also looks at how modern medicine is helping people to change sex and transition from one gender to another.
GRADUAL CHANGE
For Jamie, that means taking testosterone every day. ‘my physical body will appear more masculine and that’s important to me,’ he says. ‘But it’s a gradual thing. It’s not like you get a shot of testosterone and suddenly become Mark Wahlberg.’
TV cameras, in this one-off documentary, follow several transgender people going through different stages of transition, including Charlotte, a trans woman from Birmingham, who works as a rolling stock engineer, and who started socially transitioning 18 months ago.
‘It was such an alien thing going out as a woman for the first time, but it felt right,’ says Charlotte, who is taking estrogen tablets and testosterone blockers. ‘I was a bit concerned about coming out in such a male environment, but transitioning was the most important thing to do. It will take two years to complete the process and I have stored my sperm so I can have biological children later in life.’
LONG-DISTANCE SURGERY
For Sarah, a trans woman from Brighton, the most important thing to her is making the sound of her voice more feminine, and cameras follow her to Seoul for pioneering surgery to change the shape of her vocal folds from male to female.
Sarah began dating her wife, Eleanor, while still a man, but believes her transition hasn’t affected their relationship or young daughter.
‘We are a family like any other family. My daughter has two mums and it has absolutely no impact on her,’ says Sarah. ‘I think that other people’s gender is something that you should just respect. Embrace people for who they are.’