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Queer Eye host 'proud' of first transgender makeover

Gavin Bond/Netflix Netflix Queer EyeGavin Bond/Netflix
Netflix's reboot of Queer Eye will return for a second series later this month

Queer Eye host Tan France has said he hopes the show's first transgender makeover will give viewers a better understanding of the trans community.

Tan, from Doncaster, said: "I have loved every episode we've done, but that's the episode I'm most proud of."

The second series of the Netflix reboot will also see a woman get a makeover, which is another show first.

Tan, who is the only British host, said he had been "ignorant" about the trans community before filming the episode.

Tan hosts Queer Eye alongside Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown and Jonathan Van Ness.

He told the Press Association: "I had never interacted with a trans person before, I'd never met a trans person before. And so it gave me an opportunity to ask questions that I have never been able to ask before.

Getty Images Left-right: Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk and Karamo BrownGetty Images
The Fab Five is made up of (left-right) Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk and Karamo Brown

"For example, what was it that when they realised they wanted to have top surgery [a procedure carried out on the breasts of transgender patients]? What made him decide that was the final thing that was going to change this process for him, that would really make him feel like a man?

"To things like, what is it that we can do to help? I'm ignorant, I don't know what I can do to support the trans community. What kind of questions do you never want to hear again? Those kinds of questions were really helpful, for me and the audience."

The show, which launched in 2003, was originally called was called Queer Eye For The Straight Guy - but producers dropped the second half of the title for the reboot.

Series two of the new version will again be set in the US state of Georgia, but Tan said the show could one day tour.

"I would love to see more diversity and that might be someone from another country. I would love to take this show on the road and go to another country and say, it's not just Americans who need this and who need a pick-me-up," he said.

"That's my dream. I'd love to go to England at least."

The new season of Queer Eye will arrive on Netflix on 15 June.

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