Sarah Keyworth is "scared" to write the second series of her Radio 4 show, she has revealed, because of the toxicity surrounding debate about transgender rights and the "pressure" the comic feels to represent non-binary people.

Are You A Boy Or A Girl? is returning for four more episodes in autumn next year, a spokesperson for the channel confirmed to British Comedy Guide.

And Keyworth, who uses the pronouns she/he/they, has spoken about how her own identity and trans rights issues have shifted since the show first broadcast in 2020.

"At the end of the first series, I said 'I'm a masculine woman, my pronouns are she/her but I also like to be called a boy'," Keyworth told fellow comic Stuart Goldsmith on his Comedian's Comedian's Podcast.

"Whereas now, I have said publicly that I identify as non-binary ... my understanding of gender identity has changed and my experiences have changed."

The first series, "I felt that I was sort of preaching to the congregation" Keyworth added. "It was a very personal show but it has some explanations about trans people, non-binary people, how we feel about the world, how my childhood was, where these gender stereotypes come from, why they're being unpicked and debunked.

"It very much felt that I was talking about a subject that was just progressively moving forward."

However, the stand-up, who wrote an open letter to author JK Rowling in 2020, asking the Harry Potter author to reflect on how her views, seen by many as anti-trans, were affecting children, continued:

"During the lockdowns was when JK Rowling first started relentlessly tweeting about gender, that was my first memory of her putting stuff out. And in the two years since then, there is just now this really unpleasant, inflammatory debate."

Writing further episodes, against "the backdrop of that, I feel a lot of responsibility and pressure to say the right things in this show.

"I'm not a battler. I'm a 'let's get on' kind of guy. But I have this lived experience where I know exactly what it's like. I don't think you can really understand it if you've not lived it ... You can't understand how strange this feels to not identify with the gender everybody is telling you you have, you're born with.

"If you live your entire life not really thinking about your gender ... you don't realise how many times your gender is affirmed to you ... if you don't care and don't notice it, that must be so peaceful. But if you do, if doesn't make sense to you, it's so exhausting. And it's just frustrating."

Reflecting upon the show's "tentative" episode outlines, Keyworth told Goldsmith: "I'm so scared. I want it to be just as funny as the first series. I want it to be as light-hearted as the first series but it's a bit weightier than it was."

Joking, the comic concluded: "There are probably going to be more moments that aren't particularly gag-heavy but just make some astute points that I'll get someone else to write!"