Oaklanders School "Real World" Cast on Transgender Identity

[DriftingCrow]

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/CultureSpyBlog/archives/2014/02/27/oaklanders-school-real-world-cast-on-transgender-identity
East Bay Express; Elliot Owen

. . . last night, almost 2 million viewers watched as five queer people of color from the Town schooled the cast of MTV's Real World: Ex-Plosion on a topic that's been steadily garnering more media attention: transgender identity.

The resulting discussion between Fitz, her friends, and her roommates about gender identity and expression gets distilled into a brief five-minute segment, even though Fitz said that the actual encounter lasted nearly four hours. Nonetheless, "it's the start needed to get people asking questions," Farady [a black queer transman] said in a recent interview.

"This idea of passing, or qualifying someone's authenticity is objectifying," Farady said. "It's again making it about your body when there are so many more aspects to a person."