Charlie Craggs (born 1992) is a British

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

actress, activist, and author from

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Early and personal life

Craggs was born on a

council estate Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council housing or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011, when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in social housing. D ...

Ladbroke Grove Ladbroke Grove ( ) is a road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, which passes through Kensal Green and Notting Hill, running north–south between Harrow Road and Holland Park Avenue. It is also the name of the sur ...

West London West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary. The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: Central London, N ...

. She later attended the

London College of Fashion The London College of Fashion is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art university in London, England. The college offers undergraduate and postgraduate study, short courses, study-abroad courses and business t ...

. Growing up, Craggs struggled with

gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to inconsistency between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender i ...

, but seeing

Nadia Almada Nádia Conceição Almada (born 28 January 1977) is a Portuguese-born English television personality. She won the fifth series of '' Big Brother''. Career ''Big Brother'' Almada competed in the fifth series of '' Big Brother'' in 2004; ...

win the fifth series of '' Big Brother'' in 2004 helped her understand that it was possible to transition.

Career

In 2013, Craggs launched her "Nail Transphobia" campaign which provided free manicures to people, allowing them to chat with a trans person about their experiences, in an attempt to reduce

transphobia Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender or transsexual people, or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to socia ...

. The campaign began as a university project and grew to become a pop-up salon that appeared at different events and locations. The impact of the campaign was recognized in 2015 when Craggs was number 40 in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' newspaper's 2015 "Rainbow List" of the 101 most Influential LGBTI people in the UK and again in 2016 when she led the 2016 "New Radicals" list compiled by

Nesta Nesta (formerly NESTA, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) is a British foundation, registered as a charity, which supports innovation. Nesta was originally funded by a £250 million endowment from the UK National Lotter ...

and ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

'' newspaper. In 2017, Craggs published her first book, ''To My Trans Sisters'', a collection of letters by successful trans women. In 2018 the book was a finalist in the

30th Lambda Literary Awards The 30th Lambda Literary Awards were held on June 4, 2018, to honour works of LGBT literature published in 2017.emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis; , ) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from type ...

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

, which was subsequently included in 2020. In 2021, Craggs fronted the

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes for a 16 to 34-year-old target aud ...

documentary ''Transitioning Teens'' about transgender teenagers waiting to be seen by the NHS regarding their transitions. The doc was released on

BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available Over-the-top media service, over-the-top on a wide range of devices, including Mobile phone, mobile phones and Tablet computer ...

. In 2022, Craggs landed one of the leading roles in the ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

'' spin-off podcast ''Doctor Who: Redacted'', making her the second transgender companion in the show's history. The

BBC Sounds BBC Sounds is an Over-the-top media service, over-the-top audio streaming media, streaming and download service from the BBC that includes live radio broadcasts, Streaming media, audio on demand, and podcasts. The service is available on a wide ...

podcast was created and written by

Juno Dawson Juno Dawson (born 10 July 1981) is an English author of young adult fiction and non-fiction. Dawson's notable works include '' This Book Is Gay'', ''Mind Your Head'', ''Margot & Me'', ''The Gender Games'', ''Clean'', ''Meat Market'', and the ser ...

and its first season featured

Jodie Whittaker Jodie Auckland Whittaker (born 17 June 1982) is an English actress. She is best known for her roles on television as Beth Latimer in ''Broadchurch'' (2013–2017) and the Thirteenth Doctor in ''Doctor Who'' (2017–2022, 2025). She came to pro ...

in her role as the

Thirteenth Doctor The Thirteenth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. She is played by Jodie Whittaker, the first woman to portray the character, in three series, five specials and a ...

Filmography

Audio

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Craggs, Charlie Living people 1992 births 21st-century English LGBTQ people Actresses from London Alumni of the London College of Fashion British human rights activists English LGBTQ rights activists English transgender actors English transgender women English transgender writers LGBTQ people from London People from Ladbroke Grove Transgender actresses Transgender women writers Writers from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Actors from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea