British TV drama putting trans on the agenda as BBC castings signal major step forward

Award-winning trans film-maker Jake Graf says 'trans is very much in vogue'

A second series of Boy Meets Girl, a romantic comedy starring trans actress Rebecca Root, is currently being discussed (BBC)

‘We have gone beyond the tipping point,” says Jake Graf, an award-winning trans film-maker and actor. “Trans is very much in vogue.” He was speaking just days after the BBC confirmed that a transgender actor will play a long-running trans character in EastEnders, a first for a UK soap. Riley Carter Millington, 21, has been cast as Kyle, a man who has transitioned from female to male.

The news follows the casting of Bethany Black as the first transgender actor to appear in Doctor Who. And BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw says she is in discussions about commissioning a second series of Boy Meets Girl, the romantic comedy starring trans actress Rebecca Root, which completed a six-week run last week to a positive audience response.

Channel 4 is currently running a Born in the Wrong Body season including a series of intimate online films on the All4 platform, made by and featuring trans people, in which they talk about their identities.

In scripted television, the UK is catching up fast with US dramas including the Emmy-winning Transparent, a series about a 70-year-old transgender woman coming out to her family, and Orange Is the New Black, which stars Laverne Cox, the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy.

“We’re riding a wave,” said Graf, whose short film Brace tackles homophobia and transphobia in London’s clubbing scene.

Graf is involved in a transgender acting course at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. “A lot of actors who have transitioned have deeper voices than most,” said Graf, who has a small role in the film The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne as one of the first known recipients of gender reassignment surgery.

Redmayne secured the role because he possesses a “certain gender fluidity”, the film’s director, Tom Hooper, has said. But Graf has not joined those who criticised the decision to cast a non-trans, or “cis” (someone whose gender identity matches their anatomical gender at birth), actor in such a high-profile role.

“They wouldn’t have got the budget for the film without Eddie Redmayne,” said Graf, who was among those considered for the EastEnders role. “I feel that trans actors should be given the chance to audition for trans roles, but that essentially the best actor for the job should in theory get the part. And that the same applies were a trans actor to outweigh a cis actor for a cis role.”

Riley Carter Millington has become the first transgender actor to play a transgender character in a recurring role in the UK (BBC) (PA)

Graf accepts that the current demand for trans actors may subside. “We want to get to a point where being trans ceases to become sensational. Ideally we could watch an actor without knowing they were actually trans.”

The current visibility of the trans community in the media is in large part due to On Road Media, a not-for-profit organisation based in London that has worked closely with the trans community since 2011. Its All About Trans workshops for the media and trans people are designed to bring about better understanding and inspire new programming.

There has been a transgender character in soap before – Coronation Street’s Hayley – but a non-trans actress, Julie Hesmondhalgh, played her. Dominic Treadwell-Collins, executive producer of EastEnders, insists that his introduction of a transgender character was not “about tokenism”.

“Never have we been so moved by the incredible life stories and wealth of talent that we experienced over our several weeks of workshops with transgender actors.” he siad. “In Riley, we have found not just a talented actor but also an inspirational young man whose warmth comes through the screen.” Carter Millington is to be “thrown right into one of our biggest stories for the end of the year”.