Consultant Makes Difference in ‘Different’

“It’s certainly not the script they first sent me,” says Adele Anderson of the film “Different for Girls.” “I felt [screenwriter] Tony Marchant had pulled his punches. He needed to go further, and I think I helped persuade him.”

To reveal more would spoil the film’s ending. Suffice it to say Anderson thinks “Different for Girls” offers a convincing portrait of a relationship between a man and a transsexual. It was precisely to make such judgments that she served as consultant on the film.

Anderson, 45, perhaps Britain’s best-known transsexual, underwent surgery to become a woman 20 years ago. Since 1984, she has been part of the female cabaret group Fascinating Aida. Recently, she was also acting in an Edinburgh Festival production of Steve Martin’s play “Wasp.”

“I think the film’s stylish, and I could relate to the story,” she said. “It mirrored things that have happened in my life. You must understand that if any man has a relationship with a transsexual, his own sexuality is called into question.”

When Anderson replaced a departing member of Fascinating Aida, neither their manager nor her two colleagues in the group realized she was transsexual. She was subsequently outed by a British tabloid newspaper.

“I hated that at the time,” she said. “I went through a stage where people only saw me as a transsexual, whereas I live and perform as a woman. But now it’s such an old story--and once people have said, ‘Oh, she’s had a sex change, what else is there for them to say?’ ”

Anderson does not reveal her original name or anything of her days as a young man. But it is known she was a radical gay in her student days, before deciding to change sex. “It was like being released from prison,” she said of the operation. “I knew once it was done, I’d have the inner strength I needed to go on living my life. I wasn’t living, I was existing.”

She estimates between 15,000 and 20,000 transsexuals live in Britain. “We can’t get health insurance. We’re deemed a poor health risk,” she said. “[The authorities] don’t want to pay for transsexual surgery. They see it as comparable to cosmetic surgery for women. And they say there’s too few of us to know the long-term effects of taking hormones.”

Anderson screen-tested for the role of Kim. “But when I saw Steven Mackintosh, I knew he was the right choice. In the end I did get a brief Hitchcockian appearance [as a club-goer]. But having had a hand in the script is a part I’ve been pleased to play.”