TV Preview: My Transsexual Summer (C4)

WHAT did you do this summer?

The seven people who “star” in My Transsexual Summer have plenty of tales to tell of their activities, having spent five weekends at a retreat.

These individuals share one thing in common – as transgender, they’re undertaking some of the most profound changes any human being can go through. In various stages of gender reassignment, members of the group share experiences and provide an insight into the problems and prejudices they face in everyday life.

Among them is Lewis, who’s attempting to raise money for a double mastectomy; Donna, who’s proud to be transgender and doesn’t care who knows it; and Sarah, who has just begun life as a full-time woman and now faces the daunting prospect of telling her parents of her new lifestyle.

Born a female, 22-year-old Lewis was only six when he told his mother he felt like a boy trapped in a girl’s body. But his journey has been anything but easy, misdiagnosed at 14 with anorexia, then living life as a lesbian until coming out as “trans” aged 19.

“No one has ever mistaken me for female, or been able to tell I’m transgender. I feel just like a regular guy,” he says.

But his transformation is far from complete, aiming one day to have lower surgery, known as phalloplasty, to create a penis.

Donna, 25, suffered depression when she was younger, but now couldn’t be more fulfilled. She’s been taking hormone pills for the last two years.

“Being trans... It’s more about a journey to find yourself than a journey to find a good surgeon,” she says.

“It makes me so happy to be able to wear make-up, to wear feminine clothes, to have breasts. I wouldn’t change it for the world. Why would anyone want me to if I’m happy?” she says.

Meanwhile, Sarah, 29, is relatively new to the whole transgender scene, having only made the massive life changes a matter of weeks ago, after spending years building up the courage.

“There’s so many things that I would change about my appearance. I’d like to get my nose fixed, my teeth fixed... I feel different on the inside than I look on the outside, you know?” she says.

But Donna’s journey has only just begun. She still has a male body and, despite coming from a deeply religious background, is now bracing herself to reveal all to her mother.

“She’s seen me depressed, she’s seen the scars, I want to tell her that it’s over now. That part of me is gone. The world is full of colour again,” she says.

THE Unforgettable Norman Wisdom recalls the life and career of the British comic who died last year. His first show at the Collins Music Hall, in which he was billed The Successful Failure, earned him a fiver for a week’s work, which the manager immediately took as commission. But the boy with stars in his eyes didn’t care.

He’d caught the bug and for decades he drew the crowds like bees to the proverbial honey pot, with a string of hit films including The Square Peg and Press For Time.

Remarkably, he became a cult figure in Albania, where his films were ruled to be acceptable entertainment during the country’s long years of isolation during the Cold War.