When the news first broke in early June 2004 that the fifth series of “Big Brother” had a transsexual “housemate” there were many in the trans community with grave misgivings.
What was she going to be like? Would she be a PR disaster at the very time trans campaigners were desperately working to paint a more realistic impression of “real” trans people? Would she be roasted by the media? Hated by the viewers? Would she be gross? Would she be pathetic? Would she be tossed out on her ear at the end of the very first week? Or might the world learn something extremely valuable from such close scrutiny of a real trans woman day-in, day-out? Could she enter people’s hearts? Could she enable them to walk at least few yards in her shoes, if not the full mile? Bookmakers have a cold hard commercial reason for needing to predict how people in reality TV shows are going to fare. Profits depend on it. Their research and predictions need to be good. In the early days they, like the tabloids, reflected a view of Nadia’s prospects based on half a century of established opinion. Nadia betting started out on the unlikely side of 30 to 1.
It was a bad time for this kind of thing. Nadia’s entry to the Big Brother House practically coincided with Parliament’s final day of debate on the Gender Recognition Bill. Campaigners who had worked years to establish an understanding of the real “hidden majority” of trans people were understandably uneasy about the idea of a loose cannon coming along and maybe reinforcing the worst of old-fashioned stereotypes. But ambassadors don’t all live in embassies. Some can turn out to be more famous for smoking them! Nadia survived week after week. A few loved her from the start. Many were unutterably cruel .. in the way that many trans people could instantly identify and say, “Yep. Par for the course”.
Six weeks into her 10 week stay the fans congregating on one of the major web sites following the programme were still so violently torn (and often hostile) that I asked the site’s administrators to accept a lengthy article of mine about Nadia’s “Conundrum”. Why had she been so willing to let the general public know her history, and yet shown herself so concerned about the reactions of her housemates? Was she dishonest, as many observers declared, or was she merely illustrating one of the fundamental dilemmas that face every trans person dealing with people around them? http://bigbrother.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds6844.html
British public opinion is a strange animal. We love the underdog. And the more beastly some people were towards Nadia and her past, the more others began to vicariously understand the problem and start wanting to see her succeed. So it was that the public got what the public wanted .. a happy ending, with an unprecedented landslide of votes in favour of the chain smoking, pneumatically enhanced, stiletto-heeled underdog. Even the Sun .. never the most trans-friendly of tabloids got in on the act, with a tear-jerking piece about Nadia’s father and the daughter he had always wanted.
The euphoria was short-lived, of course. Within a few weeks normality was restored, starting with a cruel kiss and tell story in the “News of the World” from Nadia’s first boyfriend back in the real world. One year later, like the majority of reality show “stars” Nadia was more or less forgotten, except in the fan sites who continue to chart her life, and in the tabloids when another opportunity arises to treat her once more as an entertaining freak. So was Nadia an “important or inspiring trans person” ? Opinions may differ, though on balance we should respect her immense bravery for putting herself in the position she did and, in the most unlikely way imaginable, pull out something for the British public to love and admire. Some gay and lesbian people may loathe the examples of their kind who’ve graced our TV screens over the years. The loathing is generally for the reason that the person in question is not the picture of acceptable normality which many would like to associate with. The same could be said for trans people in the closet and the most gloriously “out” Nadia. You may not like it. But the only way to get an image more like yourself in people’s faces is to do what she did, your way. The tabloids may their own way of representing Nadia .. jus as they represent other queer people who make easy copy. Yet if the public remember her at all, then it is most likely for discovering a three dimensional person who undoubtedly had flaws, but could be loved and admired in spite of all the presumptions connected to her label. Nadia taught that most important of all lessons about being a member of a minority: be yourself; earn love and admiration for your personal qualities; and it really doesn’t matter what labels you carry as well.
Christine Burns