Full credit to the Australian TV Channel ABC ME for both their insight and judgement for producing this excellent children’s TV mini series FIRST DAY  about a transgender girl’s first year of high school.  

Originally an award winning short film,  it stars transgender actor Evie Macdonald as Hannah, who must face the challenges that come with starting  school, whilst being true to herself without alienating her new classmates/friends.

Written and directed by  Julie Kalceff (creator Australia’s award winning online drama series Starting From Now , First Day  seeks to educate and inform,  whilst also be entertaining at the same time.  Kudos for getting the balance right and avoiding resorting to be either preachy or patronising. We’re sure it will be far more effective getting through its ‘message’ to its target audience than any amount of classroom discussions of lectures.

If it has one fault, it’s the fact it plays too much attention to the whole bathroom issue, which sadly seems to unnecessarily preoccupy too much time in the whole transgender dialogue.

This is Macdonald’s first ever acting role and she gives a finely nuanced and authentic performance which really helps convey how tough her journey is at times..  Her character Hannah is easy to relate too and understand and will hopefully help more (young) people understand and accept the Hannah’s of the real world.

All four episodes of FIRST DAY are now available to view on HULU (and we believe also on the BBC in the UK)