Television

“Team Zelah!”: Big Brother UK fans rally behind trans housemate

By Sam Damshenas

29th September 2025

‘The winner of Big Brother 2025 is… Zelah!’ sounds about right, doesn’t it?

The iconic reality series has returned for its 22nd season — and third since the ITV reboot — with co-hosts AJ Odudu and Will Best introducing 12 new housemates to the nation.

Among them is Zelah Glasson, a 25-year-old personal trainer from South London who says he’s “constantly compared to a spaniel dog” and is “pretty unbearable if I don’t get my 12,000 steps a day.”

“I’m half-Indian, half-English, so my mum’s from Calcutta and my dad was from Cornwall,” he explained in his VT.

“The kind of people I don’t usually get along with are bro-y guys, which I know is ironic to say as I sit here in a wife pleaser with a mullet.”

Zelah went on to share that people are “usually pretty shocked” to learn he’s a trans man, having “lived as a woman for 23 years” of his life.

“I think I’m living proof that being transgender is not a choice, because why would I choose to go from the luxury, the sanctuary that is the women’s toilets to the horror that is the men’s?”

Zelah was immediately met with an overwhelmingly positive reaction from Big Brother UK viewers, who have already declared him the winner.

Many responded with thirst, while others praised the show for casting a trans man “in our current political climate.”

“I’ll start walking 12,000 steps a day for him,” one viewer wrote on X/Twitter, with another adding: “A trans man on BBUK in the big 2025 is a huge win for representation, team Zelah!”

A third said: “Call me old fashioned but yes, I was born to serve my husband. Cook for him. Do the laundry. Wake up at the crack of dawn to make his breakfast, prepare his clothes, clean the house, take care of him and run a bath after work.”

Check out the support for Zelah below.

https://twitter.com/Dutchbbfan/status/1972408129133682827/photo/1

Before entering the house, Zelah explained that he signed up for the series because he’s “in this weird in-between where I’ve recently left the corporate world into having a bit of a looser schedule while I get qualified and build my business.

“So it felt like a ‘why not’ situation. I’m someone who doesn’t have much of a social battery that runs out, so I’m very intrigued to see how far that goes in the house.”

He also addressed the onslaught of attacks in mainstream media aimed at the trans community, saying it “will be nice to re-centre that and retake control.”

With Big Brother UK having crowned two trans winners in prior seasons – Nadia Almada in 2004 and Luke Anderson in 2012 – Zelah praised the series for showing “the normality of people. You can’t get more personal than watching someone 24/7.”

The 11 additional contestants on the 22nd season of Big Brother UK are as follows: Cameron Kinch (22, Taunton), Caroline Monk (56, Canvey Island), Elsa Rae (21, Essex), Emily Hewertson (25, Northampton), Gani Khan (39, Bromley/India), Jenny Baird (20, Derry), Marcus John (22, Manchester), Nancy Nocerino (22, Glasgow/Italy), Sam Ashby (27, Skipton), Tate Reynolds (27, Falkirk) and Teja Dalphy (18, Bristol).

Big Brother UK airs Sunday to Friday on ITV2/ITVX.

The new issue of Gay Times, featuring King Princess, A Night Like This stars Alexander Lincoln and Jack Brett Anderson, NFL’s first trans cheerleader Justine Lindsay, and more, is out now – available exclusively to subscribers.