IN THIS ISSUE

Hard to believe now, isn’t it, that Anna Friel once caused an entire nation to hold its breath/clutch its pearls/reach for the smelling salts (delete as applicable) while she rubbed lips – for, I think, 1.5 seconds – with another girl in the soap Brookside in the early 1990s. The gasps. The outrage. The column inches. I can’t begin to imagine what shockwaves would have reverberated if the internet had been a thing back in those days. In a sign of the changing times, I find that it’s very difficult indeed for my very ‘woke’ teenage daughter, a child of the 21st century, to understand all the fuss that ensued from a really very chaste same-sex kiss on national TV. Her generation is one in which it’s not uncommon for classmates to have two mums or two dads. She has not grown up debating whether or not we should accept gay people as the norm.

The hot-button issue today is around transgender people “and their rights. So I find it an interesting development that Anna, who made TV history with that gay kiss, is now the star of the first television drama to really confront the transgender issue for a mainstream audience in ITV’s Butterfly. Yet again she is TV’s virtual canary in the coalmine, venturing into one of the most controversial topics of our age and no doubt setting herself up for all the reactions – positive and otherwise – that the drama will inevitably provoke. (She recalls, on page 24, being abused in the street for months after that Brookside scene.)

A colleague of mine was surprised to learn that I know three people currently transitioning from one gender to another. For what to most of us seems a curious fringe issue, I suppose that is a high number. But I don’t think there’s a sudden spike in people deciding they have been born in the wrong body. Much like the changing attitudes to homosexuality, I think that the many people who’ve wrestled with this issue are finally confident of being allowed some honesty. I know such confusing, unusual topics spark a lot of kneejerk fear and suspicion, but I tend to be an optimist at critical times like this. My hope is that, as with most issues, educating ourselves will lead to better freedoms – and mental health – for us all. So I applaud ITV for shining such a sensitive spotlight on a still very misunderstood phenomenon, and as such I’m proud to have Anna fronting this week’s YOU for our exclusive interview.

Enjoy the issue.

THE HOT-BUTTON ISSUE IS TRANSGENDER PEOPLE AND THEIR RIGHTS”