From the Evening Standard – 23rd December 2015
Actress Annie Wallace transitioned 26 years ago but it wasn’t until October this year that she felt able to come out. She didn’t want to jeopardise her acting career by saying she was trans. Now she is on Channel 4 every weeknight, playing strict head teacher Sally St Claire in Hollyoaks, the first character on the soap to be played by a trans woman.
This has been a year of empowerment for trans people. There have been so many significant moments in 2015, from Caitlyn Jenner’s unveiling on the cover of Vanity Fair to boxing promoter Kellie Maloney coming out and EastEnders casting a trans actor, Riley Carter Millington.
Visibility brings with it a sense of protection that comes from collective strength — to feel accepted you need to see people from your own community represented. When you see someone who reflects your own identity on the cover of an international bestselling magazine or on screen, you no longer feel isolated or like a second-rate citizen. You feel as though you have a place at the table; you’re not a punchline to a joke but someone worthy of being given a platform. This moment has been building for a couple of years, ever since Laverne Cox was cast as a trans prisoner in American drama Orange is the New Black. Everyone I know in the trans community was delighted when she came on the scene — we knew it was only a matter of time before the UK caught up.
I feel privileged to have been given a platform to be involved in this growth in support for trans people, although I wasn’t expecting the show I’m in, Boy Meets Girl, which was on BBC2 in the autumn, to have the impact it did. I play Judy, a transgender woman who falls in love with Leo, a cisgender (ie non-trans) man. It’s the first mainstream on-screen depiction of a trans relationship.
He told me that he was a fiftysomething, overweight, rugby-playing ex-soldier and if I didn’t think I was going to meet his demographic I was wrong: it absolutely had. Others said it had helped them understand what their trans friends and family were going through.
As well as representing the experience of a trans person, Boy Meets Girl has broken down barriers about relationships between cis and trans people, which is still something of a taboo. A lot of cis people feel unable to discuss being attracted to trans women, and worry that some people will think they are closet homosexuals, which is ludicrous. The side of the partner is not always shown sensitively. In my private practice (as a voice teacher working with the trans community) I see a lot of people who are sadly divorced from their partners because of their transition.
I hope that things are easier for young people facing the prospect of transitioning today, that they can look at things like Orange is the New Black and Boy Meets Girl and think: “There is a trans-person who has done it.”
The next big thing will be greater awareness of gender fluidity and non-binary gender expression. Society is becoming more accepting — food writer and cook Jack Monroe is a high profile example of someone who has come out of transgender and likes to be referred to as “they”, and in June Charlie Northrup changed the dress code at her Cambridge college, St Catharine’s, to read: “Smart dress is defined without reference to considerations of gender identity or expression.”
I believe in talking about gender to young people, so they can understand and accept differences, and I am a mentor at workshops in schools. It is easier to open a young mind than an older one with a lifetime of prejudice.
We could do with more trans people in politics, although greater recognition is happening. My former MP Lynne Featherstone was brilliant at campaigning for trans rights, and argued for things like having more gender fluidity on forms. Facebook allows you to fill in your own gender now, so you don’t have to define along preset lines.
Things are starting to change in a real way; friends tell me that in nightclubs there is a growing sense of confidence about expressing yourself.
Then there’s Kellie Maloney the boxing promoter — if you can transition in the macho world of boxing you really can do anything. It’s important to remember that there are people in all walks of life who feel some sort of otherness in terms of gender expression.
It’s set to continue next year. We’re filming the second series of Boy Meets Girl in spring and I have a small part as a nurse in The Danish Girl, which is out on January 1. Eddie Redmayne is wonderful as Lili Elbe, a transgender artist who lived in Copenhagen in the Twenties, and Alicia Vikander is her wife, Gerda.
It is interesting that a trans person wasn’t cast as Lili, but Eddie is an actor of exceptional ability. As a human being he is very sensitive and that gentleness comes across in his performance. Also, if you are making a £30 million film you do need to consider who will fund an unknown star in the lead role. But in the next film about a trans person I’d like to think there will be a trans actor playing them.
I am knocking on the door of the National Theatre — I wrote to the head of casting there saying that they need to step up to the plate and put a trans person on one of their stages.
Tomorrow, on Christmas Eve, I am going to be on Celebrity Mastermind. My specialist subject is Graham Greene’s novels and I was quite competitive. I don’t want to spoil what happens, but I think it will make people sit up. Having a trans person on a popular BBC1 show is another high-profile moment.
There’s been such a growth in support for those going through what can be a difficult and often misunderstood process and I would like people to continue being supportive, open and kind. We’ve been in the wings for a long time; now we’re truly visible.