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How would you react if your 4 year old son told you he should be a girl? This week’s drama of the week tells the story of 11 year old Amy and her parents as they make the decision about  whether to give her the hormone blocking treatment that will stop puberty kicking in. And next month Lisa Williamson’s first novel – the Art of Being Normal, will focus on a transgender teenager.

Susie Green, who had to take her daughter Jackie to America to get hormone treatment, and Lisa Williamson join Andrea Catherwood.Ìý

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Before the 2010 general election just under a fifth of MPs were women, after the votes had been counted it went up to just over a fifth. As the political parties finish selecting the candidates who will stand for them in every seat across the country we look at how many women have been selected so far, how many could still be selected and how many more women we might realistically expect to see elected to parliament in May next year. Andrea talks to Rosie Campbell, Reader in Politics at Birkbeck, University of London and to Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender at the University of Bristol.

As we head into the 2015 General Election just under 23% of MPs are women. And the United Nations puts the UK in sixty-fourth place for gender equality in its index of national parliaments. We examine the challenges of getting more women elected, beginning, this week, with a look at the deliberate efforts of the main political parties represented at Westminster to tackle their own levels of representation. What are the experiences of the women who become prospective parliamentary candidates and what help and advice do they get? Today we hear about the efforts of the Liberal Democrats to get more women into parliament and hear the stories of two women who have been selected to fight for seats in May 2015.  Layla Moran, PPC for Oxford West and Abingdon and Lisa Smart, PPC for Hazel Grove, and we also speak to Baroness Sal Brinton, President-Elect of the Liberal Democrats and founder of their Leadership Programme.