Georgina Lunn

An intimate conversation with the influencer-to-actress success story of 2024.

I sat down with Bel with the hopes to discuss her personal perception of time, how through the course of her twenty one years on Earth the internet only accolades her success to the past few years of her life, going off of numbers and events attended only. Whilst they are not wrong, gaining one million followers on TikTok in a year is remarkable, the past few years are a success story not because she’s dining with A-listers or partying with publishers, but because she is happy. Fundamentally happy. 

From coming out at 10 years old in a small town an hour from London, to coming out as transgender at a time when the term was unknown to more than just the ignorant – the traditional childhood cemented in the majority of our minds was swept from Bel’s feet. Divorces and eating disorders alongside prepubescent bullies didn’t stop her from scoring a role in Netflix’s hit TV show: ‘Heart Stopper’. 

Her confidence and charm propelled a whole host of similarly brave girls to champion their identities and come out as transgender. This interview’s purpose is to disprove the linear concept of time and age – childhood was not the peak of our lives, life does not end when you’re seventeen. 

Despite coming out at such a young age and having to deal with something your peers didn’t understand, would you say you still had a positive childhood?

I would. However, I do feel like after I came out as trans my childhood ended. I mean that in the least serious way. But you do mature a lot faster, and I think that’s why people think I’m a lot older than I am. I was such a feminine kid, but I played football, played rugby, did cricket. I was fucking great at cricket as well. My dad, bless him, kind of politely forced me into every sport, just to try and help me fit in, I guess. Then he realised it wasn’t really what I wanted, to play with makeup and wigs and dresses was what I wanted.  I was recently speaking with my best friend and how we both loved playing with our barbies and dressing them up. But it’s sad because I remember going to school and doing that and everyone being like ‘What the fuck are you doing?’, that was when I started to feel like I’m really not the same as everyone else. 

Did you have that sense of ‘when I’m older I can be anything in the world!’? 

Not really. Because my problems were so severe at the time, I could never see past school – and as a child, school is your whole world. Even when I did come out as trans, I was like, well, what the hell am I going to do for work? There were no future opportunities for me because at the time people weren’t really being hired. Now it’s obviously different, but I never looked forward to the future because it was so unknown – not because I was overwhelmed with choice, but the opposite really. I hoped that I would be happy which is why I’m always like pinch me now because I genuinely never thought this would happen.  

The passage of time is something we all experience differently. How do you think your perception of time has evolved as you’ve grown up? Many people feel like childhood lasts forever, but years fly by as adults. Why do you think we have this feeling that time is increasingly slipping away from us?

I actually think life’s quite long. To me 70 is young! I don’t have that weird angst about turning thirty (granted it’s in 10 years). I disagree with the concept that life flies by when you grow up because you have less freedom and more rules to follow. People forget the adulthood they craved when they were little, the freedom of eating midnight snacks without punishment and choosing what country you want to live in. At one point in time I certainly felt that childhood lasts forever, but not in the same way most children did. Mine wasn’t in a positive sense, I felt trapped for a while. For most people who are in their early 20s and don’t know what to do, except wishing they were a child without responsibilities, I almost want them to know there’s hope. Growing up and becoming an adult, becoming a woman, which I only really felt in 2021 when I was finally put on hormones, let me become my true self. I’m in no rush to do anything extraordinary. The most ordinary and blessed part about life is that we get to live it. Unless I really make it as an actress, then I will spend a lot of my time as someone else!

Do you think nostalgia can alter memory and cause us to look back at the past with rose-tinted glasses? 

Oh my god, I was saying to my friend the other day how much I’d love to go back to school! Then I was like ‘would I fuck?’. I couldn’t think of anything worse. You look back at the fond memories. I don’t think of the bullying anymore. However, different things happen to different people and different points in time. Someone could’ve lost a family member at Christmas time, so now the anticipation and build-up of the season isn’t magical, it’s sad. This can make people look back at all their past Christmases and feel this sense of longing. Anticipation excites humans more so than the actual thing happening because we’re always looking forward. My advice to people would be to remain in the present.

Have you ever felt like a disconnect between your past and present self?

My present self is far more robust than my past self. I would never take shit from anyone now, but when I was younger, I remember apologising to the person who shared private images of me. The disconnect from me then and me now is that I’m so cutthroat. I’ve had friends wrong me the past year and I’ve cut them off and never spoken to them again – which is down to confidence.  

So how does the concept of the arrow of time, the idea that time has a preferred direction, resonate with your sense of personal development?

I guess it links to the linear idea of these bullet points you’ve got to follow in life. In British culture, it’s such a thing of like, OK, you go to uni, you get a job, you get a house, get married, have kids… and I think I’ve kind of done things a different way around. I sort of did the whole career and house thing before working on myself and establishing who I am. So now I’m along this so called linear path but I’ve done the whole success thing at a young age, so now what? What do I do? I do feel this pressure to keep going. I saw Billie Eillish saying she’s 21, she’s got all these Grammy awards, so now what should she do? But I don’t think these awards and accolades from other people should be the goal in life. 

If time travel was possible, how would visiting past or future moments impact your sense of self? 

When I went back to my hometown everything felt so different, I couldn’t work out why the shops or the roads hadn’t changed at all – and I realised it was because I was the one who had changed. I walked past normal people doing normal things and realised how far I had come. No shame to them, but my dream was to leave. If I went back to see my younger self, my god would I reassure them.

I don’t think I’d want to look into the future, I don’t think your futures ever decided. Every little detail throughout the day alters your life completely. The sliding doors effect. I randomly decided to follow the casting director for Heart Stopper and now the course of my life is altered forever, I met these people and now I’m in this completely different world. 

So the concept of entropy suggests that systems move towards disorder over time, as if things will eventually go wrong. As you get older, everything gets bit distorted, and life gets more chaotic – do you agree with this idea?

I think it’s situational, but I do agree with that in some respects. I think you do get busier as you get older, you might have kids and other people to worry about. For every decade, apparently, you give less of a shit and you’re more happy. Obviously, you look back and might wish you were young again, to have better joints or to go feral in a club, but they’re not the things that really matter. We should use the idea of entropy as a driving force to make crazy decisions and jump into that personal project we’ve always wanted to do (wink wink).

Do you think it’s a good thing to romanticise your life at any age? 

It gives you more motivation. You want to go on a walk? OK, it’s a hot girl walk. Once I got into the gym, it was quite fun, but to get into the gym I had to be like, OK, I’m a sexy, smart businesswoman going to the gym to get my dream body to slay at the Christmas drinks party… In life we all play different characters constantly, you know, on the phone to the doctors I’m serious, when I’m with my friends, I’m laughing having fun like a little girl. But we should romanticise our lives because life is romantic. We should flirt with opportunities, ideas, and boys, let go of the rightful feelings we’re meant to associate with each chapter of our lives. Unlike most people who associate their sense of freedom exclusively with adolescence, I associate freedom with finally being me. I’m not going to rush into the next big thing in life, I’m just grateful I’m where I am right now, not just proud of my achievements but proud of the woman I’ve become. 

Growing up and getting older isn’t just about adding candles to a cake—aging provides perspective. What might once have been confusing or overwhelming can evolve once we accept that growing older offers the space to embrace authenticity, casting aside the masks we wear for others. This is particularly poignant for trans individuals. As we grow older, we collect memories. Moments of joy, pain, confusion, and clarity weave together to reveal who we are beneath society’s expectations. Time is often seen as a measure of aging, but it’s more accurately a teacher – a classroom of identity where each year becomes a lesson, a testament, to resilience and is marked by a deeper understanding of one’s true self.

Walking in the shoes of someone who is transgender emphasises the privilege to live long enough to know yourself. To thrive in your truth is an experience of profound significance. This journey underscores a universal truth: it highlights that self-acceptance isn’t just a milestone – it’s a continuous process that enriches the human experience.