Julia Grant

Grant survived bowel cancer, but suffered from multiple health problems, and died on 2 January 2019 following a short illness. She was survived by her sisters, Shirley, Jeanne, Lesley, Julie and Beverley, her brothers, Gary and Danny, and an aunt, Mary.

After being diagnosed with bowel cancer, Grant returned to the UK in 2015, and committed herself to helping other trans people. She encouraged improved trans care services, and took part in discussions at the NHS's Nye Bevan Academy, a facility which trains health service leaders.

As a precondition for receiving treatment at the Charing Cross Hospital unit – at the time, the main clinic in the UK dealing with transgender patients – Julia began living, working and dressing as a woman. She asked the BBC series director Pearson for name suggestions, and from this list, chose Julia Grant.

The week before the first programme in the series was shown, Sunday tabloids published hostile stories about Julia and the films. Despite this, she was determined to become the "woman I want to be". It was this, says Pearson, coupled with her "gritty humour while overcoming her setbacks" – such as the way she was treated by Randell – which "convinced many TV viewers that her cause was legitimate", and the BBC received a large amount of letters in support of Julia and the films.

Grant wrote two books about her experiences, George & Julia (1980) and Just Julia (1994). In the late 1990s, the final BBC film caught up with Grant living in Manchester and running the busy Hollywood Show Bar. She wanted to marry her new partner, Alan Sunderland, and her former surgeon Royle said that he could resolve her surgical problem. However, Grant, together with Sunderland, decided that she would not proceed with more surgery, and could instead "be happy as they were". The couple had a church blessing, and Grant thought of herself as married. She owned a number of cafes and bars in Manchester's Canal Street Gay Village, fought against redevelopment plans for the area, and was active in establishing local LGBTQ events.

In five hour-long film documentaries, directed by David Pearson for the BBC, her story attracted an audience of nearly nine million viewers for the first episode, George and Julia, in 1979. The series was transmitted on BBC2 as A Change of Sex, and described by Pearson as "intimate, frank and observational". Episodes were broadcast from that year until 1999, charting new stages in her life.

In 1974, after a failed marriage, she moved to London, and in 1978, when the BBC began filming, she was a catering manager who performed as a drag queen. However, it became apparent that drag did not feel right to her, and the BBC filmed her last programme. Julia had realized that she was not a male homosexual, and wanted to live as her true self.

Julia Grant (21 September 1954 – 2 January 2019) was the first transgender person to have her transition documented on a mainstream UK television documentary in A Change of Sex.