A TRANSGENDER groom-to-be is appearing in a Channel 4 programme about relationships threatened by prejudice.

Jamie Raines was born into a female body but fully transitioned into a man by his early twenties.

He met fiancée Shaaba Lotun when the pair were teenagers at Colchester Sixth Form College.

The pair, both 23 and from Colchester, are now featuring in Channel 4’s Bride and Prejudice.

The prime-time documentary follows the graduates as they prepare for their engagement party -with tension running high between Jamie and Shaaba’s mum Fai.

Due to cultural and racial prejudices, Mauritian Fai doesn't think Jamie is a good match for her daughter.

On the programme, which aired the third episode in the series on Tuesday, she says: "obviously he's white, we're Asian."

Fai also finds it hard to accept her daughter is marrying someone transgender.

In an attempt to break the deadlock, she agrees to meet Jamie face-to-face to talk about it but the meeting doesn't go quite as planned.

Lucy Leveugle, acting head of Factual Entertainment at Channel 4, said: “Bride and Prejudice looks at issues ripe and relevant in Britain today through the prism of Romeo and Juliet stories of star-crossed lovers and their families. The series is as much about the underlying bonds within these families as the conflict that these issues raise.”

Jamie started taking testosterone tablets when he was 17.

He and Shaaba bonded over their love of photography when they met in a college art class.

Jamie, who studied for a Masters degree in Psychology at Essex University, has documented his transition on YouTube since he was 17.

Before college he attended St Mary's School in Colchester and has previously featured in a Channel 4 show about his transformation.

He had always felt he had been assigned the wrong gender, identifying as a male since the age of four.

As well as the testosterone he has had surgery – a mastectomy and chest remodelling procedure.

Bride and Prejudice is on Tuesdays at 9pm.