First Day is an Australian drama series, which premiered in 2020, and centres on Hannah, a transgender teenager, as she navigates her first year of high school. The show features Evie Macdonald, a transgender actor in her debut role, and has received international acclaim. It has won several prestigious awards, including an International Children’s Emmy Award, a Rose d’Or, and a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids and Family Programming.
Despite its international success, First Day has not been available in the UK since CBBC made Season One unavailable to audiences during its initial license period.
After reviewing the latest Supreme Court ruling and the subsequent guidelines released by the EHRC, the creators of the show decided to make it available for free on YouTube. They hope that this will help address the significant gap in positive representation of transgender children and their experiences.
While older trans characters are increasingly visible in mainstream media through groundbreaking shows like Heartstopper, Sex Education, and more recently, What It Feels Like for a Girl, the experiences of younger children—which are just as real and equally important—are too often missing from the conversation.
Producer Kirsty Stark from Epic Films explained to QX: “Our goal in creating First Day was to enable transgender children to see themselves on screen, and to provide a positive representation of allyship and support from friends, family and the wider community. There is so much misinformation out there around what it means to be trans, and sadly, a lot of this misinformation has gained traction due to a lack of essential stories being widely available to counter these narratives.”
First Day consists of two seasons, each comprising four half-hour episodes. Season One is currently available to watch for free on YouTube, and new episodes are released weekly. If there is enough audience support for Season One, Season Two, which has never been shown in the UK before, will be made available later this year.
Writer/Director Julie Kalceff told QX, “In creating the series, we worked very closely with trans creatives and the wider transgender community. Central to this was the involvement of lead actor, Evie Macdonald. We wanted the series to accurately reflect the experiences of transgender children, but we also wanted to tell a universal story about hope, friendship, and overcoming adversity, a story that transgender and cisgender audiences all around the world could relate to.”
First Day has been broadcast in more than twenty one countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, South Africa, and Australia, its home country. The series has received over eight major international awards to date. First Day competed against Heartstopper at the Children’s and Family Emmy Awards, demonstrating that when transgender stories are told with care and authenticity, they can achieve both critical acclaim and popular success.
“Our hope is that First Day will provide comfort to those who may be navigating a similar journey to Hannah, as well as eliciting essential empathy – and sympathy – from the wider population, sentiments which are currently being actively eroded, but which are needed now, more than ever.”
Julie Kalceff (Writer/Director)
Research consistently shows that positive media representation is essential not only for LGBTQIA+ youth, helping them feel acknowledged, but also in promoting understanding and acceptance among the general public.
Website: https://www.firstdayseries.com/
Official YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@firstdaytvseries
Instagram: https://instagram.com/firstdayseries
