My Son's A Girl

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From being involved in one of TV’s first lesbian kisses in Brookside, to playing a sex worker in The Street and a disturbed detective in Marcella, Anna Friel has never shied away from a tough role.

But now she’s facing one of the most emotional challenges of her career as she plays the mother of a ‘gender variant’ child in new ITV drama Butterfly.

The sensitively handled threepart series sees her play devoted mother-of-two and teaching assistant Vicky Duffy, whose 11-year-old-son, Max, reveals that he identifies as a girl.

UNDERSTANDING

Max has tried to suppress his feelings, particularly to please his father, Stephen (Emmett J Scanlan), but as he starts senior school and puberty beckons, the pain he feels at having to conform becomes too hard to bear and he announces that from now on he wants to live his life as a girl, Maxine.