Half a century since the popularisation of the word transgender, some baby boomers come out of the closet
By Emma Norodom
Julia Grant, the first transgender activist in the UK to be filmed during her transition from male to female, died in January aged 64 following a short illness.
The 1979 BBC documentary A Change of Sex aired at a time when being trans was so rooted in ignorance and silence that vocabulary didn’t even exist to describe such people. For the first time, millions of viewers were exposed to the struggles of transitioning, including surgery and hormone therapy. Grant’s quest to become a woman, filmed over 20 years by mainstream media, laid the groundwork for many trans people to become their true selves.
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