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I watched this against my better judgement - usually, I stay well away from cliche TV - and on the whole was pleasantly surprised. There were still cliches, Drew takes two and half hours each day to apply her makeup, and sadly looks like she should either be on the catwalk or stage - it's OTT big time. Presumably a case of overcompensation, sadly because both she and Donna - who is all tattoos and piercings could make quite attractive females in a more conventional way. All the new women had rather male voices which also shattered the illusion they were trying to create.
The boys were a scream, from Max's Jewish geek vegetarian and Fox's complaint that he didn't look male enough yet and still had to bind his breasts. The injections the boys gave each other - testosterone - which is given intramuscularly made me wince; I/M injections hurt and are given with telegraph pole gauge needles.
Okay, so it's trannie fare - tall women in sky scraper heels and short clingy dresses, towering over dumpy short men in plaid shirts but the individuals managed to tell some of their stories without sounding cheap or bizarre or victimised. I'll certainly watch the next part, even though I thought I was allergic to reality shows
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/my-transsexual-summer/4od
Angharad.
Comments
I was pleasantly surprised
I was pleasantly surprised that my parents wanted to watch it.
I liked the fact that there was (almost) gender balance, so often transmen are invisible.
Yes, they're pretty stereotyped, but at least there's a number of different stereotypes represented.
Thanks for posting this
I cut myself off from most things 'T' some years ago and have been slowly but surely withdrawing into the real world ever since.
I am happy to be me in a world which regards me as just an average 65 year old single woman. I'm by no means glamorous as I wasn't blessed with jaw-dropping beauty - certainly nothing that would attract in a relationship way. If my friends have worked out anything about my past, they don't mention it.
Before transition, not a day went by without my dreaming of my main ambition. Now I hardly think about it at all; if I do, it's mainly about the 60-odd wasted years trying to be what others wanted me to be.
Susie
Ordinary
It's a word I have used often in my stories, as I know it is all I have ever wanted and believe it is what most transgendered people realy want. Just to be normal, mundane, real. It is in the nature of things that programmes like this reach out for people who make 'good telly', so quite the opposite of normality. What is it with all these tattoos and bits of metal these days?
Sarah, and Karen (if I remember the names correctly) affected me most. The former because she is starting on a road that will/may involve losing her family, and the latter because she is me, in so many ways. She is real, the way so many transgenedered folk live, that delay, that struggle, before finally accepting what one has known all one's life. Interestingly, I note that on the website, they talk of gender affirmation surgery (a variant I hadn't heard of) while the chatty surgeon talks about reassignment.
One moment in there, possibly set up for the camera, was at the hotel desk: "What name was it, sir?"
The other thing that grated was the constant reference to 'becoming' men or women, which is rather why I prefer the word 'confirmation'. We don't chnage sex or gender to become men or women, it is what we are already, and THAT is the problem. The 'cosmetic' surgery that people decry doesn't just improve lives, it saves them.
Episode 2
What a change, I really, really identified with several of the subjects. You have to have penoplasty before mastectomy? WTF?
Above all was the tension in telling family and friends.
I wept.
Episode 3
Comment from Lewis' father:
"It's like having twins, and one of them dies"
The pronoun slippage may have been deliberate, but there were still real moments in there that got to me.
Episode 4
I may be the only person to have followed this, but the last episode had me weeping. Issues were covered that are real to me, such as the question from Sarah: Why do transwomen need their own clubs, shouldn't they be treated as just women?"
Other bits left me, as I said, weeping.
The moment when a transman's dad went to a mike and said to a pub full of people "This is my son, Lewis"
Max' grandmother turning up. "How could anyone not love him?"
Sarah's prospective landlady turning her down, apparently on 'safety' grounds. Her daughter staying out of contact.
Nothing magic happened. Two people got part of their family back. Prejudices were maintained for others. I cried.
So the world carried on as it normally does....
Revisiting this blog: Victory for a new woman.
I rode out to do some grocery shopping today, and had a snack and a cold drink in the supermarket. As is my wont, I looked around to see if anyone had left a paper to read as I grazed, and there was a copy of the Sunday Mirror. Not the best, but hey-ho.
It carried this article:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/transgender-former-poli...
For the benefit of those who can't read the link, it is about one of the subjects of 'My Transsexual Summer': Karen, the former police officer whose GCS was shown in part, with the quote from the surgeon "Well, if she wanted to keep her testicles, it's a bit late. They're in a jar over there".
She struck me as one of the most naturally feminine of the group, despite her genetic disadvantages, and her delight in her surgery shone through the rather patchy nature of the show. The news article tells how she has applied to work once more as a police officer.
Like my Annie, she went to a Police Inspector and came out as trans, and was ordered to resign, things being very different back then, 27 years ago. She hasn't seen her daughter for 22 years. I have a slight case of the weepies.
Edited to add: Just read the Hate Mail's coverage, and made the mistake of reading below the line (readers' comments)
Just FOAD, OK?