Transgender teens: girls will be boys
The soap Hollyoaks is about to introduce a challenging new storyline about Jasmine, the girl who wants to be Jason. Can it help change attitudes to transgender teens?
o Viv Groskop
o The Guardian, Thursday 1 July 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/01/hollyoaks-transgender-teenagers'From the age of about eight I knew something wasn't right with me," says Benson, a 17-year-old from Cumbria. "But it was never an issue because I was just a kid having fun. When I hit puberty and started growing breasts, I looked at other boys and thought, No – that's the way I am supposed to be. I had no idea what transgender was. The internet helped a lot and I began to read blogs. I never came out to my family; they just guessed, really." At 16, he went to the doctor.
Benson Bell – or Ben to his friends – was born a girl. He is now hanging out on the set of Hollyoaks to swap tips with Victoria Atkin, the actor portraying a transgender boy as part of a controversial new storyline on the teen soap opera. He is one of a group of teenagers with gender identity disorder who have been working in secrecy with the show for the last few months.
