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Transgeneration
Sep. 21st, 2005 12:02 pmSo we now have Transgeneration, which is a documentary about four college students who are "changing more than their major." For a change, this is not just some 930 on a wednesday documentary on Discovery Health, it's a multipart production and is Sundance's lead documentary for the fall season and had a lot of heavy promotion done for it including bus signs in NYC and a lot of sponsored public screenings. I guess it's worked for them. We resubscribed to the appropriate package with DirecTV to get it.
And it's good. I've heard nothing but whining from the transcommunity over it. And really, I think of it as whining, not real complaints.
It has four students who are all very different types in a sort of transgendered Breakfast Club. Gabby is the nerd, with a minor in surgical obsession. Raci is the hottie with minors in disabilities, race, and poverty. Lucas is the dood and minors in doubt and pot. And TJ is the politico with a minor in deep thought.
The first episode is sort of a meet and greet. It fills us in on the basics of what these people are doing and gives us the quick version of who they are. And yes, you can shoehorn them into stereotypes if you'd like. And I joke a bit about the breakfast club. But in my opinoin, this is a well done documentary with a lot more diversity than I've seen before. And it can't be said enough. No one person or small group is ever going to properly represent ALL transpeople. You are just going to have to cope. Publicity is important. There will be kids who see this and decide to transition based on it or who do so far earlier than they would have otherwise and drastically improve their lives.
Of course that doesn't mean we can't dissect their lives completely!
Of all of them, I probably like and identify with Gabby the most. I always knew I was a minority. She's already been picked as the most hated by a lot of message boards because she's very socially awkward. The funny part is everyone seems to put this on her gender issues, but I think it's just a general awkwardness. She looks and acts like SO many people I knew frosh year in the SF/computer world when I was in school and as far as I know, none of them were trans. God knows, if one of them had been, my life today would be so different! And I think that's why I feel the identification and why it also makes me squirm so much when she is socially awkward. And I suspect that's why people take a sort of emotional position on her because there's some resonances there that most of us would prefer didn't exist. She also needs to stop walking slumped over *bonk* are you reading this? You are cute, act like it! Yes I do sound like your mother :) Other than that she is quite nerdly, into anime, ddr, and she's an RA. Two checks out of three and I applied for an RA position, just didn't get picked. She's also lesbian identified and played WOW though she claims to have quit. It's easy to quit WOW really, I've quit four times.
TJ is the one I probably identify the least with. He's into deep political thoughts. A bit above the standard idiot activist, though the street theater thing made me crack up, remembering similar events in my past. He does have a friend who's a pure idiot anarchist activist type. Oh and TJ is Armenian, which since I grew up in an Armenian neigborhood I think is cool though they seem to not be playing that up. So far I haven't heard anyone who hates him. But then, of all four, he's the one that I feel I understand the least about.
Raci is the hottie. And she is and at times seems totally oblivious to this. No the guys aren't watching you because they think you're trans, they're watching you because you're stunningly sexy. She's Phillipina and on a scholarship with a ludicrously high GPA requirement (3.5?!?!) and very marginal economically. I find it somewhat terrifying to watch. One of the things that makes her interesting is her perspective on being trans, which is very different from the standard politically correct trans narrative. I put this down to her background and that there are a lot of transpeople, particularly lower income POCs, who come into transness through an entirely different route from the SOC based upper middle class thing. But anyway, she is quite willing to refer to herself as a man or comment that someone isn't homosexual and wouldn't be interested in her. To my ears at least, it's very blunt and negative. It's also very honest in some ways. Ironically, she is the one most comfortable with her gender I think. She's stealth in the series and tells people who notice the cameras that it's a documentary on college women. So while she's very insecure, it feels to me very much like normal female insecurity and not at all like the usual trans insecurities I come across in most of my friends. Having said all of this, she is under criticism for feeding white liberals curiosity about POCs and for being a stereotype poor "street tranny" made good again for the care and feeding of white liberals (and lets face it, that IS Sundance's target audience).
And there's Lucas. He's the one that actually annoys me. Though I think somewhat less so than when I first saw the episode. But first he goes to Smith. And frankly, I have a really large problem with this. Men don't belong at Smith. Period. And I will freely admit that the acceptance of transmen as women within women's space bothers me on a personal basis because I see that acceptance as corresponding to the rejection of transwomen in women's space. He's basically a straight white male. And a dood, complete with a "hey I"m cool, I smoke pot" scene. There are ways in which I worry about him though. He comes across to me as uncomfortably close to BUG status (boy until graduation, a takeoff on the old smithie plague of LUGs lesbian until graduation). Particularly as he's coming up with silly excuses not to take T. It will reduce his lifespan. Well. Whatever. From my point of view, I have doubts about anyone who would postpone transition because of this. I assumed that my life would be significantly shortened by transition and getting over that thought took all of 2 to 3 seconds and I can't help but think "if you were really trans, would you be thinking of this?" That combination of women's college, ambivilent about permanent changes, and his discovery that he was trans after entering college just make me think BUG. And he's spent almost four years involved in this transgroup on campus and I think there's a lot of peer pressure going on there. On the other hand, I'm not a big believer in the usual trans theories and I think people who are very marginal might very well be happier after they transition, even if the classic SOC solution would be to weed them out. And it's very clear that he and his roommate (also FTM) are coming to the conclusion that they have gone beyond the little collection of bugs at Smith and openly question whether or not they belong there. I hope more of that comes out.
If there's a major flaw in the documentary so far, it's that it's very sterile. The technique is hands off, with the participants speaking for themselves. I think that gets strained at times because they are so young and going through so much. I think Gabby produced the most genuine and amusing moment in the first episode, thugh it was inadvertent. Some guy in an engineering computer lab uses the camera as an excuse to chat her up and asked if she knows what the camera is for. I'm not sure she realized that his motivations were probably not purely curiosity, but she replies they're making a documentary on transexuals in college. He looks at her puzzled and asked if that's what they're doing, why are they filming the two of them and she explains they're following her around for the entire year. It takes him a second, long enough that I wonder how he got into engineering, but suddenly he gets it, says "oh", and starts mentally reevaluating his plans for the weekend. I was highly amused. Actually he seemed to be cool with it when the filmmakers cornered him afterwards.
So I guess that's my evaluation of the whole thing. I like it. I think it presents a lot of things that most information about transpeople don't. Different narratives from the standard. And it's far less of a "shock value" thing. And it's reaching a far larger audience.
And it's good. I've heard nothing but whining from the transcommunity over it. And really, I think of it as whining, not real complaints.
It has four students who are all very different types in a sort of transgendered Breakfast Club. Gabby is the nerd, with a minor in surgical obsession. Raci is the hottie with minors in disabilities, race, and poverty. Lucas is the dood and minors in doubt and pot. And TJ is the politico with a minor in deep thought.
The first episode is sort of a meet and greet. It fills us in on the basics of what these people are doing and gives us the quick version of who they are. And yes, you can shoehorn them into stereotypes if you'd like. And I joke a bit about the breakfast club. But in my opinoin, this is a well done documentary with a lot more diversity than I've seen before. And it can't be said enough. No one person or small group is ever going to properly represent ALL transpeople. You are just going to have to cope. Publicity is important. There will be kids who see this and decide to transition based on it or who do so far earlier than they would have otherwise and drastically improve their lives.
Of course that doesn't mean we can't dissect their lives completely!
Of all of them, I probably like and identify with Gabby the most. I always knew I was a minority. She's already been picked as the most hated by a lot of message boards because she's very socially awkward. The funny part is everyone seems to put this on her gender issues, but I think it's just a general awkwardness. She looks and acts like SO many people I knew frosh year in the SF/computer world when I was in school and as far as I know, none of them were trans. God knows, if one of them had been, my life today would be so different! And I think that's why I feel the identification and why it also makes me squirm so much when she is socially awkward. And I suspect that's why people take a sort of emotional position on her because there's some resonances there that most of us would prefer didn't exist. She also needs to stop walking slumped over *bonk* are you reading this? You are cute, act like it! Yes I do sound like your mother :) Other than that she is quite nerdly, into anime, ddr, and she's an RA. Two checks out of three and I applied for an RA position, just didn't get picked. She's also lesbian identified and played WOW though she claims to have quit. It's easy to quit WOW really, I've quit four times.
TJ is the one I probably identify the least with. He's into deep political thoughts. A bit above the standard idiot activist, though the street theater thing made me crack up, remembering similar events in my past. He does have a friend who's a pure idiot anarchist activist type. Oh and TJ is Armenian, which since I grew up in an Armenian neigborhood I think is cool though they seem to not be playing that up. So far I haven't heard anyone who hates him. But then, of all four, he's the one that I feel I understand the least about.
Raci is the hottie. And she is and at times seems totally oblivious to this. No the guys aren't watching you because they think you're trans, they're watching you because you're stunningly sexy. She's Phillipina and on a scholarship with a ludicrously high GPA requirement (3.5?!?!) and very marginal economically. I find it somewhat terrifying to watch. One of the things that makes her interesting is her perspective on being trans, which is very different from the standard politically correct trans narrative. I put this down to her background and that there are a lot of transpeople, particularly lower income POCs, who come into transness through an entirely different route from the SOC based upper middle class thing. But anyway, she is quite willing to refer to herself as a man or comment that someone isn't homosexual and wouldn't be interested in her. To my ears at least, it's very blunt and negative. It's also very honest in some ways. Ironically, she is the one most comfortable with her gender I think. She's stealth in the series and tells people who notice the cameras that it's a documentary on college women. So while she's very insecure, it feels to me very much like normal female insecurity and not at all like the usual trans insecurities I come across in most of my friends. Having said all of this, she is under criticism for feeding white liberals curiosity about POCs and for being a stereotype poor "street tranny" made good again for the care and feeding of white liberals (and lets face it, that IS Sundance's target audience).
And there's Lucas. He's the one that actually annoys me. Though I think somewhat less so than when I first saw the episode. But first he goes to Smith. And frankly, I have a really large problem with this. Men don't belong at Smith. Period. And I will freely admit that the acceptance of transmen as women within women's space bothers me on a personal basis because I see that acceptance as corresponding to the rejection of transwomen in women's space. He's basically a straight white male. And a dood, complete with a "hey I"m cool, I smoke pot" scene. There are ways in which I worry about him though. He comes across to me as uncomfortably close to BUG status (boy until graduation, a takeoff on the old smithie plague of LUGs lesbian until graduation). Particularly as he's coming up with silly excuses not to take T. It will reduce his lifespan. Well. Whatever. From my point of view, I have doubts about anyone who would postpone transition because of this. I assumed that my life would be significantly shortened by transition and getting over that thought took all of 2 to 3 seconds and I can't help but think "if you were really trans, would you be thinking of this?" That combination of women's college, ambivilent about permanent changes, and his discovery that he was trans after entering college just make me think BUG. And he's spent almost four years involved in this transgroup on campus and I think there's a lot of peer pressure going on there. On the other hand, I'm not a big believer in the usual trans theories and I think people who are very marginal might very well be happier after they transition, even if the classic SOC solution would be to weed them out. And it's very clear that he and his roommate (also FTM) are coming to the conclusion that they have gone beyond the little collection of bugs at Smith and openly question whether or not they belong there. I hope more of that comes out.
If there's a major flaw in the documentary so far, it's that it's very sterile. The technique is hands off, with the participants speaking for themselves. I think that gets strained at times because they are so young and going through so much. I think Gabby produced the most genuine and amusing moment in the first episode, thugh it was inadvertent. Some guy in an engineering computer lab uses the camera as an excuse to chat her up and asked if she knows what the camera is for. I'm not sure she realized that his motivations were probably not purely curiosity, but she replies they're making a documentary on transexuals in college. He looks at her puzzled and asked if that's what they're doing, why are they filming the two of them and she explains they're following her around for the entire year. It takes him a second, long enough that I wonder how he got into engineering, but suddenly he gets it, says "oh", and starts mentally reevaluating his plans for the weekend. I was highly amused. Actually he seemed to be cool with it when the filmmakers cornered him afterwards.
So I guess that's my evaluation of the whole thing. I like it. I think it presents a lot of things that most information about transpeople don't. Different narratives from the standard. And it's far less of a "shock value" thing. And it's reaching a far larger audience.
