Transgeneration
Sep. 21st, 2005 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathygnomeSo 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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 04:44 pm (UTC)And like we discussed, I totally agree with your assessments of all of them.
It's a bit disappointing for me, well, more disconcerting, as as usual, when it comes to transpeople my age, I ID far more with some FTMs (i.e. TJ) then I do with MTFs - I've never really met an MTF my own age that I really felt I had a shared experience with - and FTMs similar to TJ I seem to have a ton in common with - maybe it is because of how much older TJ comes across as then his chronological age, because as we all know, I'm preternaturally old.
Or it could be that in general, sub-30 FTMs tend to be much more likely to be genderqueer and/or not buying into the gender binary, and far more politically active, whereas I've gotten the harshest rejections of my identity from young MTFs - I've even had one switch to masculine pronouns for me, and tell me I'm a man.
A lot of this is brainstorming that should (and will) go in my normal journal...but I am so glad that this is something that people get to see that isn't the usual, because I really think one could do the transdocumentary drinking game with this and come out of it sober.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 04:44 pm (UTC)#1 for me I like Shows like this to begin with. Whether they are about Transpeople, The boy with no skin, or the Typical rocker. I tend to like shows that show you into people lives. Real Lives, There homes etc.
#2 I agree with your points on the show, particularly your Breakfast club idea of them.
Now for not being trans and watching this, and only knowing of 2 trans in my life, it was interesting for me. I will say this about Raci, She is hot. But I didn't like the way she acted with Apple. I understand her insequrities but It is a personality thing That iritated me about her. That is your friend, you should love them for who they are and Not be afraid to go out into public with her. But as not being trans I can't Relate to her feelings. So really who am I to talk lol?
I think I like Gabbie the best out of the 4 (Aside from the touchie business I am not a touchie person). She seems to be the most "real" (as well as Raci). In their Transition. She is ok with who she is. And her dorkiness, is quite endearing to me :)
Anywho. Thanks for your Commentary on it :D
I hope you'll continue to post about it through the broadcasts of the show.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 04:47 pm (UTC)I have to admit, I didn't really identify with any of them. I see bits of my awkward phase in Gabby, but not enough to feel anything. Amber and I will be watching next week though :-P
And men at Smith annoy me too.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-22 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 05:04 pm (UTC)I can see why people might choose an all women's school if they are viewing themselves as having gender issues, particularly if at the time they are living as a lesbian. That makes perfect sense to me. And it's probably valuable. I can't see why they would see it appropriate to stay there for years after they decided they were transexual and have started injecting testosterone and living full time as a guy. That's the part I view as disrespecting the space.
As another of my friends noted, they are also depriving a woman of the spot in the college.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 08:08 pm (UTC)Not being a trans myself, I can honestly say I agree with you completely in this statement. It isn't just a nutty reason, it's completely unnatural. We are a social species, and we are communal. If we were not social creatures, maybe it wouldn't bother me, but then we wouldn't be giong anyplace in groups under that posit, would we?
The only things I can understand being sex segregated are places like bathrooms and locker rooms. My husband once refused to attend a party because they flat out said "no females allowed" (it was supposed to be an all-guy gaming day. I told my husband they were just afraid to be beaten at slot car racing by a girl. nod.). At first he was going to go, then I asked him how he would feel if I was to attend a party where no Asians were allowed, simply because they were Asian. That was when he declined and told them that I would refuse to go to a racist party and he was not going to attend a sexist party.
It IS stupid to segregate based on sex. We otherwise live side by side, work side by side, and get along with our lives side by side. Why the need to make all-female schools or all-male schools? It is completely against what our species is all about.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-22 09:18 pm (UTC)In 11th and 12th grades, I had boys in my classes. It was a coordinate school, after all. I found the presense of the boys limited us severely in our ability to stretch academically (although not our desire). They couldn't keep up with us, and that infuriated them. It wasn't a lack of smarts, either. Women just learn differently and have different in-class goals. At least, they do coming out of an all-women's enviroment, where teachers have taught in the way girls learn best.
After that experience, I COULD NOT WAIT to get back to an all-female environment for academics. It limited me socially at first, as I get along better with men, but I met some other goths and got past that. I loved my all-women environment in my classes, and I had plenty of friends of both sexes outside school.
The undergrad portion of my grad school is all-women, too. I figured that while I would have guys in my classes, my professors would have a fair idea of how to educate women the best. And for the most part, they seem to.
The fact is, study after study proves that girls and women flourish in an all-female learning environment, whereas they wither in a co-ed one.
~kit~
no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 08:44 pm (UTC)Whether or not we need women's colleges as safe space is, I think, at this point quite moot. I would say it is still useful, but how much longer that will be the case is I think questionable. I think the largest indictment of their necessity is the fact that so many women's colleges are going co-ed because they can't attract enough women.
In any case, Smith IS a women's college. And people that object to single sex colleges, probably shouldn't be going there to start.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-22 09:21 pm (UTC)~kit~
no subject
Date: 2005-09-22 09:07 pm (UTC)I believe that would be me. I have very strong feelings about men attending women's colleges -- particularly Smith, as I am a Smith graduate. And it bothers me that these men are denying women (natal or MtF) the chance to attend Smith. There are 3 co-ed colleges minutes away from SMith -- transfer, for Pete's sake! Amherst is just as good a school as Smith, and the Hampshire lot is doutful to care that you are transgendered.
I have a further concern, too. Not only are men at Smith denying a woman a place at my alma mater, they are keeping themselves dangerously naieve. Once they are out of the generally liberal and nurturing Smith environment, life is going to be very hard on them. It is for many trangendered. In my experience, the women at Smith tried to be accepting of the FtMs there. The Real World is not as accepting. I think that Smithie FtMs could get a better sense of what they will face in the Real World by switching to a co-educational school once they determine they are males, not just butch. (We had tons of butch lesbians who were very secure in their femaleness while I was there.)
On an unrelated note, there is a woman who looks just like Gabbie at the local community college, where I'm taking a math class. It's uncanny! Also, on the bus I take home, there is a young man who looks like TJ. (At least, I think he's male -- there are some very feminine things about him -- I have to wonder if he's transitioning one way or the other.)
~kit~
no subject
Date: 2005-09-22 03:44 am (UTC)"Gender issues" could have maybe played some part, but I read that the same way you did. It definitely was one of those things that made me uncomfortable to watch though, since it's something I'm intensely wary of doing. (I sincerely hope) I'm not as bad as Gabby about invading other people's personal spaces when they don't want it, but I do know that one of the primary ways I show affection and closeness for friends is through touch.
> And there's Lucas. He's the one that actually annoys me.
I know you feel strongly about this (as I've seen you post about it several times), but I think I would feel more annoyed if he had started transitioning or knew very strongly he was going to transition before he got there. It's tough to switch colleges (especially if you are hard pressed financially already) and I think Smith realizes that, since I'm pretty sure their policy on trans folks has changed in the past. I read his acceptance in that space by Smith not as a general "transmen belong in women's spaces" but "we are a women's school, but we care about our students (even if they are not women anymore) and are willing to accomodate a little for those who need to finish their education." That's just my take...
> If there's a major flaw in the documentary so far, it's that it's very sterile.
I felt like there was more than enough editing going on to not need some explicitly inserted 3rd person narrative. The people who were documenting clearly had their own story to tell about each person from the story each individual was telling.
> I think Gabby produced the most genuine and amusing moment in the first episode, though it was inadvertent.
Actually, I thought the guy in question was quite flustered and I was laughing at how many times he uncomfortably coughed right after asking her. That whole sequence was by far the best part of the whole episode for me.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 01:35 pm (UTC)The show really brings out class issues for me. All of them, even Raci, have far more resources than I ever had and they seem largely oblivious to how much they have and how it affects them. I know that tv always focuses on the lives of the wealthy so I'm not surprised that this documentary is the same.
I agree with you about Men at woman only schools. I can understand someone who identifies as a genderqueer woman going to such a school even if she wants to transition in some ways. I can understand someone who isn't sure about their gender or who is in denial going to such a school. But if you *know* you are a man, then transfer dangit. Especially someone with all the resources that guy has would have no problem transferring to a different school. Men should stay out of woman only space. Failure to do so is disrespectful. And the acceptance of trans men in women only space only makes it harder for trans women to win acceptance in such spaces. They only accept trans men because they don't see them as men. By staying in such spaces trans men give support to that disrespect. And they also support the corollary mistake that trans women aren't women. Most people have to work to do that much damage. Grrrr.
I actually kind of like Gabby & Raci. Even with all the resources they have being a trans woman isn't easy. Both have rough edges that they'll probably grow out of.
I got to meet TJ when they showed the preview and he seems like a nice guy.
Thanks,
Lorrraine
no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 04:02 pm (UTC)Please unfriend my LJ.
Thanks,
Lorrraine
no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 04:19 pm (UTC)Thank you for unfriending my LJ.
Goodbye,
Lorrraine
no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 08:45 pm (UTC)