I haven't been stopping in much lately, as I've spent much of the last several months binge-watching online movies and videos (an activity which, sadly, has taken the place of writing). Ironically, the movie I was watching last night might very well summon the writing muse again.

I happened to be up late, watching Regarding Henry on Hulu. For those who don't know, the movie is about a corporate lawyer who at least initially acts...well, the way you'd expect a stereotypical corporate lawyer to act. In other words, like an insufferable ass. He at the beginning of the movie had just succeeded in dismissing an elderly couple's lawsuit against a company clearly in the wrong, and gloats over his win. He can't communicate with his daughter, and his relationship with his wife is strained at best.

Then everything changes when he's s the victim of a convenience-store robbery.

Two bullets entered his brain, one doing devastating damage. He can no longer remember anything about his life. He cannot move or speak, and has the mind and emotions of a child.

As he recovers, he starts to look at his old life from a new perspective, and realizes it's a world in which he no longer fits. The accident turns out in a twisted way to be the best thing to happen to him, as it puts him on the path to being a new (and better) person.

That immediately put my mental gears in motion..

Of all the TG fiction stories I've read, I've never seen one in which amnesia plays a part. I've been mulling over such a storyline for years, but could never find the right "hook."

Years ago, I came up with a story idea in which a male-to-female transperson who has already transitioned gets into an accident, and remembers nothing before the moment she wakes up in the hospital. The family takes her home--or rather him. To the clearly unscrupulous and spiteful relatives, this is the perfect opportunity to force the protagonist to return to living as male, all the while insisting that's the way "he" always was. The protagonist, however, has a nagging feeling something is wrong, but can't pinpoint precisely what.

It would have been a story which examined the question of identity, but I didn't relish the idea of writing about such a despicable, unsupportive family.

Regarding Henry, on the other hand, might have provided me with the hook I was looking for. Say a man (or even a young boy) with no previous indication of transgender behavior gets in an accident which causes brain damage, triggering impulsive behavior. Including the sudden desire to cross-dress.

My question to you all is, is this believable? One could, after all, make the argument that the desire was long suppressed, and the brain damage only released that desire by removing all the mental roadblocks. The more I think about it, the more fascinating it is to me.

It too could examine the question of identity, but in a far less cynical and mean-spirited way than the first idea. It's an idea, in short, that I could get really enthusiastic about.