My Transsexual Summer
My Transsexual Summer is a British documentary-style reality series about seven transgender people in different stages of transition. For five weekends in the summer of 2011, they stay together in a large holiday home in Bedfordshire, England, where they meet and help each other with some of the struggles that transgender people face. Between these weekend retreats, they go back to their lives and real-world challenges.
In the early 2010s, British public-service broadcaster Channel 4 resolved to improve the accuracy and depth of their representation of transgender people. My Transsexual Summer was the first transgender programme they created after making this resolution. Channel 4 broadcast the series in November 2011. It was rebroadcast in the UK on More4 in 2012, and on ABC2 in Australia in 2013. Also in 2013, two of the show's participants themselves started making documentary short films and videos about transgender.
Background
In April 2010, non-profit organisation Trans Media Watch published a study called "How Transgender People Experience the Media", which found that there is "an endemic problem with negative and inaccurate representations , and observed that this leads to considerable real-life suffering".The following September, the Westminster Media Forum hosted a keynote seminar on the representation of LGBT people in British mass media. Two speakers in particular addressed the subject of transgender representation: Stuart Cosgrove, Director of Creative Diversity at Channel 4; and Tim Davie, chairperson of the BBC Working Group on Portrayal and Inclusion of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Audiences. They noted a general absence of transgender people in British broadcasting, and reported that "transgender storylines… are frequently lacking in breadth and substance." In a later interview, Cosgrove added that there are "high levels of inaccuracy" in British media reports about transgender people.
In an effort to improve this situation, Trans Media Watch drafted and published a memorandum of understanding for media companies: signatories of the memorandum agree to "work toward… increasing positive, well-informed representations of transgender people in the media." In March 2011, Channel 4 became the first company to sign the memorandum. "Our editorial independence always come first; but it is part of our remit to reflect the diversity of the UK", said Cosgrove.
After signing, Channel 4 engaged journalist/activist Paris Lees of Trans Media Watch to be a production consultant for the show; Lees served as consultant for the duration of production.
Production
Channel 4 gave the programme the working title Girls Will Be Boys and Boys Will Be Girls. Mark Raphael, the commissioning editor for documentaries, contracted a British production company called Twenty Twenty Productions to make the series. Twenty Twenty was at the time a subsidiary of Shed Media. Former commissioning editor for documentaries Meredith Chambers served as executive producer for Channel 4, and Sam Whittaker was executive producer for Twenty Twenty. The series producer and director was Helen Richards.Filming began several weeks after the signing of the memorandum, and continued over a period of four months. My Transsexual Summer aired on Channel 4 in November 2011.
Participants
The participants in the programme are four trans women and three trans men from different parts of the British Isles. They range in age from 22 to 52; five of the participants are under 30.;Drew-Ashlyn Cunningham
;Fox Fisher
;Karen Gale
;Lewis Hancox
;Sarah Savage
;Donna Whitbread
;Maxwell Zachs
Episodes
Response
Before the first episode aired, journalist Patrick Strudwick asked, "Channel 4, why call your new documentary My Transsexual Summer? It sounds like gender tourism, a fun little trip to the other side." Sarah Dean, an entertainment editor for The Huffington Post UK, called the title "sensationalist". Although Sarah Lake of Trans Media Watch found the title contentious, she defended it by pointing out that transition is a temporary process like coming of age; even so, she believed the title to be "only slightly better" than the "dire and totally inappropriate" working title, Girls Will Be Boys and Boys Will Be Girls. Her overall assessment was that "although the programme makers undeniably made some compromises to draw in viewers, millions will have enjoyed the company of these seven, shared in their lives and learned a lesson in diversity.… They will now have an entry point to broadening their understanding of the rich and joyful diversity of gender experience, something which has always existed but of which they were previously unaware."Politician and activist Zoe O'Connell described some of the wording in the narration as "cringeworthy", but felt that "it’s more than just a step in the right direction, it’s a programme that pretty accurately reflected how many trans people carry on with each other in private."
Musician, activist, and writer CN Lester listed some ways in which the show perpetuated misconceptions or otherwise fell short, but still saw it as a turning point in the representation of transgender people on television: "It felt like a game changer. The overall feel of it—of hope, of warmth—that felt totally new to me. And hats off to the seven trans people... for putting that across."
When the second episode aired, transgender journalist Juliet Jacques posted her thoughts to the New Statesman's politics blog, The Staggers: "At this point... the limited level of improvement in trans representation on TV shown by My Transsexual Summer is probably the best we can expect." She felt the major barriers to better representation to be "producers' prejudices about what viewers will accept or understand" and extremely narrow bandwidth for "minority subjects".
After seeing the first three episodes, Maxwell Zachs called the series "a disappointment". One reason for this, he says, is that although "we see... lovely, endearing transsexuals" portrayed in the show, "what I don’t see is anything that is going to make people think or feel any differently about what gender is or how it limits us all in one way or another." He lamented that their expressions of nuance in gender identity and discussions of genderqueerness were absent from the broadcast edit of the show.
After the final episode aired, Juliet Jacques wrote a follow-up article for Time Out. She concludes: "Perhaps in 30 years' time, My Transsexual Summer will look as dated as A Change of Sex does now. If so, this will be because it has, for all its faults, taken trans-related television in a more positive direction."
Participants' lives after the show
Karen, Drew, Max, and Donna
Less than a month after the final episode of My Transsexual Summer aired, Karen Gale delivered part of Channel 4's alternative Christmas message on Christmas Day, 2011. The theme of the broadcast was "Just Be Yourself". In February 2016, Karen's local newspaper, the Romford Recorder, interviewed her about what life was like before she transitioned.Drew-Ashlyn Cunningham made speaking appearances at schools, universities, and youth groups. She became a supporter of Gendered Intelligence, and a celebrity patron of the 2012 and 2013 National Diversity Awards. In 2012 she became a make-up artist for Illamasqua, and also wrote for Gay Star News. In late 2012, she began to train in professional wrestling, as this was a childhood dream of hers; by September 2013 she was preparing for her first match. Her wrestling name is Harley Ryder. By April 2013, she was also working part-time for Gaydio, an LGBT FM radio station in the UK. In January 2014, she reported that she was continuing to work with make-up and to wrestle, that she was still making appearances at schools, and that she was writing an autobiography. Drew-Ashlyn has since left Illamasqua to go on her own. Drew-Ashlyn underwent facial surgery in 2016 which consisted of a nose job, jaw and chin contouring as well as a trachea shave. She was voted number 1 of the 24 Instagram makeup artists to follow for Halloween in 2017 by ELLE magazine. She continues to do volunteer work. She also wrote a chapter in the book To My Trans Sisters by Charlie Craggs.
Maxwell Zachs is a writer, Judaic studies scholar, and trans activist. Since 2011 he has written for various publications on subjects pertaining to gender and Judaism. In 2012, he started a petition calling on the WHO to delist transsexualism from the International Classification of Diseases. After a period of charity work, he moved to Stockholm to study at Paideia, the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden, on a one-year fellowship. In 2013, while living in Stockholm, he published some of his plays, as well as a dystopian novella called The People's Republic of Nowhere.
Donna Whitbread is a stage and festival performer. In 2014, she joined the cast of cabaret act Ladyboys of London—a company of three trans women plus four male dancers, with choreography by Kamilah Beckles. They debuted at the Hippodrome Casino in London's West End on the 29th of December, and Donna opened the show with a fire breathing act. One year later she announced that she had a role in John Cameron Mitchell's film How to Talk to Girls at Parties. In 2017 BBC News videotaped her for Gay Britannia, television programming that marked the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1967. She answered questions written by cisgender people about trans women.
Sarah, Lewis, and Fox
After her time with her new friends at the retreat, Sarah Savage was optimistic. "I left the retreat with a different outlook on life, I could feel my confidence growing, slowly." She appeared on chat shows ITV Breakfast and Live with Gabby in 2011, and returned to television in March 2013 as a guest on The Alan Titchmarsh Show. She took a job in Brighton, and has a blog that she started during the production of My Transsexual Summer. In the spring of 2013, she started HRT. 2013 was also the inaugural year of Trans* Pride Brighton, the first transgender pride festival in the UK, and she and Fox Fisher served on the organisation committee. In 2015 Sarah and Fox published a picture book, Are You a Boy or are You a Girl?, which Sarah wrote and Fox illustrated. "Before I started transitioning, I never wrote, I never... did anything creative," said Sarah in a 2013 interview. "For some reason... living in a female role has allowed me to be more creative."Lewis Hancox' fundraising events attracted donations from TV viewers; among those who gave to the cause were Stephen Fry and Graham Norton. Later that year, Lewis began preparing for a more complicated gender-confirmation surgery: metoidioplasty. Lewis moved to London to study Digital Film and Video at London South Bank University. In 2013, he and Fox Fisher started the My Genderation project, in which they make short documentaries about transgender people and gender variance. Their production company is called Lucky Tooth Films. The Independent on Sunday placed Lewis and Fox on their Pink List for 2013, and on the Rainbow List in 2015.. In 2014, The Guardian included Lewis on their "30 under 30" list of "top young people in digital media".
Fox Fisher continued to work as a freelance screen printer and visual artist. In addition to their creative projects with Lewis and Sarah, Fox wrote a few pieces for The Huffington Post. Like Sarah, they felt a new creative freedom from transitioning: "It's easier to make art now because I feel like I've got a huge chunk of my life out of the way." In 2014, Fox spoke at TEDxBrighton, and was nominated for the alumnus award at the University of Brighton, where they were a Master of Arts student. Fox completed a Master's degree in Sequential Design and Illustration in 2015. In July 2017, the university granted them an honorary doctorate "in recognition of their major contribution to raising the profile, both nationally and internationally, of issues affecting trans people and the promotion of arts in the media". Fox is active in the media as a trans spokesperson, consultant, actor, and filmmaker. They have spoken about trans issues on Good Morning Britain, Inside Out, and This Morning.