Australia's very own teenage trans hero Evie Macdonald is heading for the small screen, with four-part TV series First Day getting green-lit for funding by Screen Australia.
The series, which follows 12-year-old transgender girl Hannah (Macdonald) as she navigates the challenges of starting high school, has been commissioned by ABC Children and financed with additional support from the South Australian Film Corporation and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.
Macdonald is no stranger to the public eye.
The 14-year-old has made headlines around the world, last year challenging Prime Minister Scott Morrison on The Project over one of his 'disrespectful' tweets.
In response to Morrison's tweet about 'gender whisperers', Macdonald said: "There are thousands of kids in Australia that are gender diverse. We don't deserve to be disrespected like that through tweets from our prime minister."
She added: "I went to a Christian school where I had to pretend to be a boy and spent weeks in conversion therapy. We get one childhood and mine was stolen from me by attitudes like this."
Now Macdonald will be taking her message of acceptance into the lounge rooms of everyday Australians once more.
Written and directed by Julie Kalceff, whose previous web series Starting From Now gained a huge online following, First Day was introduced to audiences with a stand-alone episode in 2017, which was funded through Screen Australia and ABC Children's Girls initiative. The episode went on to win the inaugural MIPCOM Diversify TV Excellence Award for Kids’ Programming and the Gender Equity Prize at the prestigious Prix Jeunesse International Children's Television Festival in 2018.
Production on the series begins on July 8th.
