STEPHEN: Do you want me to come in?
NAOMI: I'll be fine.
Aren't you going to be late for work?
STEPHEN: Perks of being a freelancer.
NAOMI: More like freeloader.
Still living at home with mom and dad.
STEPHEN: I don't hear you complain
when you need my credit card.
NAOMI: Oh, that reminds me, you can
pay for my laser hair removal.
STEPHEN: Isn't that covered on the NHS?
NAOMI: You're a funny guy.
STEPHEN: How much is it?
NAOMI: Mmm... Just my face?
NAOMI: £600?
STEPHEN: [jokingly] Piss off!
NAOMI: Minimum.
STEPHEN: I'll see you after school?
NAOMI: Don't worry.
I'll walk back.
STEPHEN: You sure?
NAOMI: Yeah.
It'll be good to stretch my legs.
STEPHEN: All right.
Call if you need to.
NAOMI: I will.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CHATTER]
MS RIVERS: Guys--
RYAN: Miss Rivers?
MS RIVERS: Make sure you signed the bottom of the form please.
I'll come around and collect them in.
Thank you.
RYAN: Miss Rivers, what are you doing this weekend?
MS RIVERS: Ryan can you get back into your seat please?
RYAN: What are you doing this weekend?
MS RIVERS: Thank you so much.
[LAUGHTER]
[KNOCKING]
RYAN: Oh no.
Who is that?
MS RIVERS: Ah!
You must be our new student.
Naomi, formerly from Woodbridge?
I've got you down to buddy up with Hope, if that's OK?
RYAN: Miss?
Miss?
MS RIVERS: Yes?
What is it?
RYAN: [To Naomi] Are you single?
[LAUGHTER]
MS RIVERS: Thank you very much, Ryan.
Thank you.
How was your journey in today?
HOPE: Don't fancy your chances.
She was just with a guy who drives.
RYAN: So?
I've got mates at the Bridge who can confirm her status.
MS RIVERS: So in the meantime, you can sit--
RYAN: On my lap.
[LAUGHTER]
MS RIVERS Bear with me for a moment.
I'll just go and get you a seat.
RYAN: Is your name Nathan?
Are you a boy?
NAOMI: Do I look like a boy?
RYAN: You do here.
So what are you?
MS RIVERS: Right.
I don't suppose anyone would tell me
what that was all about.
Not a great start to your first day.
NAOMI: That guy was being a prick.
And no, I don't want to talk about it
MS RIVERS: Well, we don't use language
like that in this school, or stormed out of classrooms.
NAOMI: Oh, I bet it's fine for boys
to like offer up their laps yeah?!
MS RIVERS: OK I will talk to him about that later.
NAOMI: Why don't you talk to him now?
MS RIVERS: Because we're discussing your behavior now.
Was he being discriminating?
NAOMI: Yes.
MS RIVERS: OK.
Well, we take accusations of racism
very seriously at this school.
NAOMI: He wasn't being racist.
MS RIVERS: So what then.
NAOMI: He was being transphobic.
MS RIVERS: I'm sorry, what?
NAOMI: [huffs]
NAOMI: I'm trans.
MS RIVERS: Oh.
Well, I wasn't aware.
NAOMI: Well, I wanted to keep it that way.
MS RIVERS: And now it's public knowledge.
NAOMI: Yeah.
Because you told everyone what school I went to.
MS RIVERS: Apologies.
I've never encountered this problem before.
NAOMI: Problem?
MS RIVERS: Situation.
Sorry.
OK.
Going forward, would you like the school
to put something in place where everyone
recognizes your new identity?
NAOMI: Or maybe you could just see me
as a normal girl starting a new school.
How about that?
MS RIVERS: Yes.
Sure.
NAOMI: What if someone calls me by my dead name?
MS RIVERS: Your what?
NAOMI: My dead name.
What I was called before.
MS RIVERS: Unless it's inherently
offensive to the words that are being said--
NAOMI: Dead naming a trans person is offensive.
Look it up.
People only say that to hurt us.
Like, what if someone's racist to me because I'm Chinese,
what then?
MS RIVERS: Well, admittedly we do have more experience
when it comes to race.
Look, for now I advise you just to ignore them.
NAOMI: Ignore them?
You don't care, do you?
None of you do.
People always come at me of like these statistics.
Like, oh, one in every four trans people attempt suicide.
So that's like the reason where my existence is wrong.
But we're not killing ourselves because we're trans,
we're killing ourselves because of people like that boy
and because of people like you who let it happen.
CHARLOTTE: Are you supposed to be here?
These are the sixth form toilets.
What are you doing?
Oh, cat got your tongue?
Speak up.
NAOMI: Privacy--
CHARLOTTE: My God, your voice.
Are you a guy?
HOPE: She's trans.
Leave her alone.
CHARLOTTE: Freak.
HOPE: No need to thank me.
NAOMI: Thank you?
For what?
Telling more people that I'm trans.
Do you even realize what you--
no, of course you don't.
Cis girl I swear.
HOPE: I'm sorry.
Look, I just want to learn.
NAOMI: Why?
HOPE: Because I want to help, besides I'm
your official buddy.
I didn't get a chance to catch up with you yesterday,
but I wanted to say you're really pretty for a trans girl.
NAOMI: For a trans girl?
HOPE: Yeah.
I mean, you're like a real girl.
NAOMI: Yeah.
I'm a real girl.
It's kind of the point.
HOPE: No.
Sorry, I misspoke again.
But I mean, you were still born a boy, weren't you?
But even then, like nothing about gives it away.
NAOMI: Well, I did shave this morning.
HOPE: You shave?
NAOMI: Yeah.
Don't you?
HOPE: No.
NAOMI: You've never shaved your legs?
HOPE: Oh.
Yeah, I do that.
NAOMI: Yeah.
Me too.
I shaved my legs this morning.
I guess we've got that in common.
HOPE: That's not all.
I got bullied as well.
NAOMI: What, did people call you a boy too?
HOPE: No, but I got called a giraffe
at primary school, growth spurt.
It was so embarrassing.
I towered over everyone for years.
NAOMI: That must have been so hard for you.
HOPE: I mean, I'm not saying it's on the same level as what
you deal with.
But I guess, I know from experience
that it helps to have a friend to step in sometimes.
NAOMI: What, like when someone's giving me a hard time?
HOPE: Yeah.
Like with that sixth former just now.
NAOMI: Or, like with your mate, Ryan?
RYAN: Where were you?
I called.
And you're still joining us after school, yeah.
Gemma and Dean are in.
GEMMA: I can speak for myself.
RYAN: Shut up.
HOPE: Sorry.
I was with Naomi.
RYAN: Yeah.
He's not coming.
HOPE: Why not?
RYAN: I don't invite liars.
HOPE: What did she lie about exactly?
RYAN: He's trying to pass himself off as a girl.
That's lying.
Look.
HOPE: Delete.
RYAN: Oi.
HOPE: She's not obligated to share that information with everyone.
RYAN: He's obligated to because he looks like a girl.
HOPE: Why?
RYAN: What if someone gets with her?
HOPE: What if someone gets with her?
RYAN: He'd have to come clean, no?
HOPE: Why?
Do you want to get with her?
RYAN: No.
What?
No.
HOPE: Well, then, why do you care?
RYAN: I don't.
GEMMA: To be fair, Hope, I don't want him perving
on us in the changing room.
DEAN: I promise to look after you both with every inch
of my soul.
MR TAYLOR: Well done, you two.
That was very realistic.
So for the next scene, can we have--
Ryan, you can be the husband.
And Naomi, you can be the wife.
So you're five months pregnant, and you're
discussing your expectations of parenthood.
RYAN: I don't think so.
MR TAYLOR: You selected drama over geography.
RYAN: I'm just not that good of an actor.
MR TAYLOR: To convince us of what?
RYAN: That I'm married to him.
MR TAYLOR: Excuse me?
RYAN: I'm not acting with him.
MR TAYLOR: Naomi, what are your pronouns?
NAOMI: She, her.
MR TAYLOR: I think you mean, her.
RYAN: Oh.
OK.
How is she going to give birth?
You said five months pregnant.
MR TAYLOR: You're right.
I did, my bad.
Lots of mothers don't give birth themselves.
You could be doing IVF, using a surrogate,
you could be thinking about adopting.
There are plenty of options.
So you're a couple discussing having a child.
Go.
RYAN: Oh, man.
It's just not realistic.
MR TAYLOR: Ryan, you're acting.
Make it realistic.
RYAN: I'm not doing it.
MR TAYLOR: You're refusing to participate?
RYAN: Oh, looks like it.
MR TAYLOR: Well, your grades will reflect that decision.
Can we have another partner, please?
HOPE: I'll do it.
MR TAYLOR: Thank you, Hope.
RYAN: What, so now she's gay as well?
NAOMI: Trans people can be gay too.
RYAN: What?
So you pretend to be a girl to get with girls?
MR TAYLOR: Ryan.
That's enough.
NAOMI: No, no, no, no.
I was pretending to be a boy.
But you know what, yeah, even back when
I was pretending to be a boy, I still got more girls than you.
Everyone: Oooooh!
HOPE: Nice acting earlier.
NAOMI: Thanks.
You too.
You make a good wife.
HOPE: Good to know.
Not many boys worth dating in this school.
Are you with that guy who drops you off then?
NAOMI: Oh my God, yuck!
[LAUGHS]
That's my brother.
Oh my God.
HOPE: Oh...That's awkward.
NAOMI: Thing is that I'm not even like that into the guys, really.
HOPE: You know it's so dumb what Ryan said earlier
about you pretending to be a girl to get girls.
NAOMI: Why?
HOPE: Because you've made it so much harder for yourself.
I don't know any girls who would date a trans girl.
NAOMI: I don't know.
You seemed pretty into me earlier.
[LAUGHTER]
HOPE: Stop it.
So...You were straight before.
NAOMI: I don't know.
Not really.
I mean, I was never really a boy,
so I guess I was always gay.
HOPE: You were never a boy?
Weren't you born as one?
NAOMI: I mean, like I was assigned male at birth,
but I never identified with that.
My gender identity was always female.
HOPE: Sex and gender are different.
I thought everyone identified as one or the other.
[LAUGHS] NAOMI: [SIGHS] OK.
So most people like you are cisgender.
That means that you identify with the gender
that you were assigned at birth.
But some people are transgender, which
means that they identify as a different gender as the one
that they were assigned at birth.
And like me, I'm a binary trans man,
which means that I identify as female even though I
was assigned male at birth.
But there are some people who are non-binary,
which means that they don't identify
as either male or female.
HOPE: Oh.
OK.
So you identify as female and are attracted to females?
NAOMI: I don't know.
I'm still working on it.
Like I'm attracted to femininity,
but I don't know if that means that I'm just
attracted to females.
Like, I definitely like fem-boys too.
[LAUGHTER]
But I mean, with all this like, boys, girls, male, female,
gay, and straight.
It's way more fluid than that.
Like it's not just one or the other.
Like gender and sexuality, all of this,
it's all on a spectrum.
Right?
And you can identify anywhere on that spectrum.
HOPE: Ah.
[LAUGHS] That's so confusing.
[LAUGHTER]
NAOMI: It's fun though, isn't it?
RYAN: Hey.
You coming or what?
HOPE: Maybe later.
RYAN: Later when?
HOPE: I'm walking home with Naomi.
If I'm free later, I'll message.
RYAN: You what?
HOPE: Come on.
RYAN: You've changed.
[LAUGHTER]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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