Two films to see

When I received a phone call from Rene, an editor in our Calendar section, to write a commentary on two transgender-themed films showing at the Outfest film festival, I was thrilled. Movies and pop music are such passions that numerous friends over the years had told me, “You missed your calling. You ought to be writing for Calendar.”

Yeah, I had the same thought for much of my Times career. Before announcing my transition as a sportswriter in late April, I inquired about transferring to other departments, fearing the fallout in our testosterone-driven sports culture would be too harsh for me to handle. Calendar was one of them. It never happened, and good thing it didn’t. When it came time for me to push the “Send” button on my April 26 coming-out column, the Times sports department wrapped me up in a combination flak jacket / security blanket. My sports department colleagues have protected and supported me in ways that have set a new template for corporations wanting to help an transsexual employee transition with dignity. I will be forever and staggeringly grateful for the way Sports Editor Randy Harvey and the rest of our staff rallied around and for me.

Still, the chance to write for Calendar this week was a nice opportunity. The two films I reviewed, “Another Woman” and “Red Without Blue,” are among the best transgender-related films I have ever seen. And I have seen many. “Red Without Blue” debuted at Outfest last Friday but will have a second run this coming Friday at the Barnsdall Theater at 5 p.m. “Another Woman” will be shown Sunday at Directors Guild of America Theater 2 at 8 p.m.

If you don’t have access to these SoCal theaters or times, lobby your local art-house theater. These films are extraordinary examinations of everything transition can mean to a transsexual’s family, from hostile rejection to heart-warming acceptance.

This is my essay, which was published in Friday’s Times:

COMMENTARY
All in this together
Two Outfest films see gender reassignment as a group transition.

By Christine Daniels
Times Staff Writer

July 13, 2007

WHEN ANNE MET LEA — a very different proposition from "When Harry Met Sally" on virtually every conceivable level — the occasion seemed ordinary enough. Anne was the mother of a teenage musical prodigy. Lea was a journalist researching a profile on the girl.

Or that was the facade, not the first Lea had shown to Anne, as we quickly discover in the film "Another Woman." Anne senses something familiar about Lea and wonders if the two had previously met, perhaps at a museum.

Facing this line of questioning, Lea appears as if she is about to jump out of her skin. "Maybe I have a double," Lea says as she abruptly bolts from the table, nervously jams her fists into the pockets of her stylish trench coat and leaves Anne sitting behind, just as she had done a decade before.

Ten years earlier, Lea was Anne's husband, Nicholas.

This 2002 French film, featuring Nathalie Mann as Lea/Nicholas and Micky Sebastian as Anne, is one of eight transgender-themed films showing at this year's Outfest. "Another Woman" debuts at 8 p.m. Sunday at the Directors Guild of America Theater 2 and, along with the new U.S. documentary "Red Without Blue" (debuting at 8 tonight, same theater), keenly captures the inherent contradiction of transsexual transition: a journey that is usually begun in isolation — both physical and spiritual — despite the inescapable reality that no one ever transitions alone.

As a transsexual woman, I realize I watch trans-themed movies through a different filter. Minor details that clank off-key can ruin an entire production for me. In both of these films, there is dialogue that rings so laser-beam true to what I have experienced and what my friends have experienced that it made me squirm with discomfort.

At the heart of both films is the very real struggle over language after a transsexual comes to terms with the truth and works up the courage to announce it. Those closest to the transsexual will often exclaim, "How can you do this to us?" The transsexual will often respond, "How can you not understand that I have no choice? I was born with this."

There is always someone collaterally affected by this profound life change, which is not readily understood, even by the person being prodded down the trans-journey path. What do you do when a force more powerful than anything you ever could have imagined grabs hold of you in midlife and shakes you and rattles your inner core and demands you step up to the trade table — leaving you no option other than sacrificing your past and present in exchange for a future? Not necessarily a future of self-actualization or inner peace, although transition often brings that. At some point, the gender dysphoria reaches a pitch so excruciating, the transsexual will barter anything and risk everything just to have a chance at a future, any kind of future.

In "Another Woman," Nicholas/Lea abandons her family and her career because she can no longer abandon herself. But at what a cost! Lea initially overcharges herself, fearing she will never be able to explain her condition to Anne, to their children Emma and Lucas, to her mother, Rose. In her mind, the best thing she can do for her family is to stay away. So in solitude, she changes her body, changes her name, changes her residence, changes her profession.

However, Lea can never change her past. Reaching back to reconnect, however traumatic and painful, becomes essential to Lea's transition, because her family, friends and colleagues must psychologically and emotionally transition as well — an impossibility in the absence of the truth.

"Red Without Blue" examines the same notion — when a family member transitions, the entire family transitions — by studying the lives of identical twins Mark and Alexander Farley, who were born minutes apart in 1983 in Missoula, Mont. It is a harsh and rugged landscape for Mark, who is homosexual, and his twin, Alex, who begins in her late teens her transition into Clair.

When the initial revelation is made, the inner-circle reaction is just as harsh and rugged.

Clair's Christian Scientist grandmother lovingly taps Mark on the cheek as she glares at Clair. "I learned very young that you make your own hell," she says sternly, informing Clair that her transgender angst is merely a sin of the child's own commission.

Clair's mother, Jenny, initially doubts Clair's sincerity about transition, treating it almost as just another phase teenage kids go through. "I am not convinced," Jenny says with a dismissive air, "that at 40, Clair will be Clair."

In "Another Woman," Anne is horrified when Lea, during their third visit, breaks down and finally tells her the truth. "I'm begging you," Lea pleads as she approaches her ex-wife, "don't reject me." At that moment, Anne can do nothing but order Lea to "go away" and "never come back."

Later, Anne confides to her current boyfriend, "I can't believe he [Nicolas] left me so he could do that." She is appalled by the notion of Lea reconnecting with Emma and Lucas, so she contacts an attorney for the purpose of obtaining an injunction.

Both films show, however, that time and communication remain great healers. And in both films, it is a child who turns the key to acceptance.

"He didn't kill anyone," Emma tells her younger brother, Lucas, still balking at his father's revelation. "He's different, that's all."

Mark's unconditional love and support for Clair is so fierce that anyone wishing to have a relationship with the twins eventually is moved to accept Clair. In one scene, Jenny tells the interviewer, " I don't really think of [Mark and Clair] as my children. They are young people that I know." Some time passes, and Jenny is interviewed again and she says, "When all is said and done, it's your child, regardless of gender…. And I want to have a relationship with my child."

"Another Woman" and "Red Without Blue" take on the topics of transsexualism and transition unflinchingly and without sentimentality. If anything, the towering emotional peaks that come with a transition fully realized have been sanded down, blunted. The focus is on the deep pits of despair and misunderstanding and on how a divide that once looked as massive as the Grand Canyon can be bridged if minds open enough to allow an opening of arms to follow.

As Anne eventually comes to acknowledge, "We're not like other families. But we are a real family."

Comments

[Mary Beth Cooper]

That's great news about "Red Without Blue" finally getting some play. I read a review of it in Variety about six months ago and have been anxiously awaiting it to either come to the East Coast or get a DVD release.

[Michelle]

I am so glad to hear of these films and will be looking forward to seeing them. I am especially interested in the families and their reactions. Over a year ago, I told my mother, thinking that we were pretty close and that she would understand more than my father (they are long divorced). She has instead had a very rough time, and usually comes up with the headache excuse when I try to raise the subject.

Especially based on her reaction, I was very hesitant to ever tell my father. I was told by everyone close to me, including my therapist, that I probably should not do it as it would be too painful to be rejected right now. Ignoring everyone's advise, I told him anyway, just a few weeks ago. His acceptance has been nothing more than amazing, and absolutely unexpected. It shows how you never know where the real support will come from. We've spent more time talking in the last few weeks than we have for the last decade.

The moment I really lost it was when he called me back soon after this all started, and said that it had dawned on him that I hadn't mentioned what name should now be used. The fact that he asked just truly blew me away. My mother, on the other hand, avoids that subject absolutely.

In addition, my step-mother has also fully accepted this, and is very proud of what I've been going through. My favorite thing she said to me recently was that she had also talked with her sisters, and that they also give me unconditional support. Then she went on to tell me how if my mother is still having a hard time, that maybe my step-mom and her sisters should all go over and have a talk with her! They are about 800 miles apart, so that makes it a bit difficult, but nonetheless a very satisfying thing to have offered.

What a wonderful trip this is. Take care, and keep up the great work on behalf of the community.

Michelle

[vanessa]

you mentioned you've seen many transgendered themed movies, perhaps you can give us a list of the good and bad some day.

i really enjoy your blog, by the way. i check it often for updates and i'm always excited to see a new post. the only way it could be better is if you covered the l.a. kings as well. :)

keep up the good work!

[Ashley]

Film reviewer, sportswriter, blogger... Christine, you have a gift: You're a wonderful writer. God bless.

[Ned Raggett]

Hey, nice -- now we can talk movies as well. (And you were wondering what to do for a podcast...)

I'm honestly thinking of what movies I've seen that address TG subjects directly as opposed to characters who are 'simply' transvestites, either by intent or due to casting (Divine's work for John Waters comes to mind). Hmm...

[Mary Beth Cooper]

Ned:

The greatest transgender-themed film ever made (IMHO) is a 1997 French film called "Ma Vie en Rose" (not to be confused with the current Edith Piaf biography "La Vie en Rose"). Ma Vie is about a 7-year old boy who is convinced he is really a girl, and has whimsical flights of fancy of how his life will be when he finally does "turn into" a girl (which includes marrying the boy the door). It is a wonderful film, and I highly recommend it.

[MaggieL]

"Ma Vie En Rose" is pretty darned good, but for an accurate rendering of what later-life MtF transition can be like in America, it's hard to beat "Transamerica".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407265/

It's damned funny at times too...just like real life.

[Robin Ellen]

As a TS twin, I wish this stuff was around when I was growing up. Childen these days have a huge wealth of knowledge available to them, knowledge I never had access to. My best girlfriend (from Denmark) is also a gorgeous TS twiin and we see ourselves as rare even in the TG/TS community.