Leela Ginelle & Nick Mattos, PQ Monthly
July 1, 2014
We recently sat down to watch the new documentary "What's the 'T'?" – a seemingly well-intentioned, would be Trans 101 film gone very wrong, which is now streaming on Hulu. What follows are our takes on why this is an LGBTQ movie you might want to avoid.
A buxom blonde woman sashays around an immense San Francisco apartment with a lap dog under her arm, looking every bit the playboy bunny-turned-housewife-of-leisure. She turns toward the camera, gesticulating across her space, and exclaims joyously into the camera "This is where a tr-nny lives, America!"
No, really.
More: http://www.pqmonthly.com/whats-t-problematic-time/20020 (http://www.pqmonthly.com/whats-t-problematic-time/20020)
From the article:
Quotethe documentary's subjects "were carefully handpicked to become a part of this documentary because of their fascinating, intriguing stories that speak volumes on how transwomen are going to take over the world."
I wish someone would point out that our stories are, by and large, NOT intriguing or fascinating. We are, by and large, ordinary people, living ordinary lives who happened to have been born with a brain whose gender ID is at odds with our body sex.
Every time the media paint us as "extraordinary" in some way, they do us a disservice, because viewers never get to understand that in so many ways, we are just like them.