Transgender woman a British celebrity

The TV show "Big Brother" is a much bigger deal in the UK than in the US, where after the second summer the show's popularity faded drastically. In the UK, the winner is a major celebrity -- and a transgender woman who completed her surgery just a few months before going on the show.

Finally, among the endless catwalk of wannabes, here was someone with a real story to tell. Whereas the series has long abandoned any pretence at being a 'social experiment', she used her time in the house to conduct an experiment all of her own: that of being accepted as a woman in her own right. While the viewers knew about Nadia's past, her fellow housemates didn't, leading to scenes of almost unbearable pathos amid the mud, jam and rumpus: Nadia's confessionals in the diary room; the heartbreaking way she froze on the sofa when her housemates starting taking about transgender; those excited, terrified tears as she was dancing to 'La Isla Bonita' in the final week.