'Gender Revolution' Review: Katie Couric Means Well, But Her Transgender Doc Is Pure Befuddled Mom

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/02/gender-revolution-review-katie-couric-documentary-national-geographic-1201778561/

IndieWire
Jude Dry
Feb 7, 2017 9:12 am

Couric's intended audience is clear: She made this movie for other nice white ladies like herself, who don't really get what's going on with all this gender stuff. Her naive-mom persona is grating at best, disrespectful and dangerous at worst. Though it tries to dress itself up with scientific studies and high production values, "The Gender Revolution" treats trans people the same way tabloid talk shows have for years: As an oddity, a confusion, a phenomenon to be explained. It may be a useful educational tool for kids in red states to show their parents, but it certainly missed the revolution.

Well now, with a few million viewers it seems we should expect some knockdown feedback and that's ok too.  I am not sure the descriptors of white lady, mom and fool are reasonable criticisms so much as just true?  I would also suggest that yes Katie is likely representative of many less informed people trying to make sense of what they may see as an odd and confusing phenomena.  IMO this is a helpful and much needed mainstream documentary.

There really are many many more of us that are out, visible and talking about living and being a transgender person as compared to when I was a kid in the 50s or even 10 years ago.  This is a cultural sea change for some and we get to ride this wave to the beach.  Grab you boards, surfs up!

  You think this is bad! 1977 was the first time I tried to transition. Even though such questions of anatomy was verboten back then, the press was nastier to the known transitioners at the time. Renee Richards was a subject of backward jokes with some of the late-night comedians back then. It was that time that Johns Hopkins Hospital psychiatrist Paul McHugh made his infamous and flawed 'study' of transgender people who were getting the surgery there. Both incidents were a main cause for a diagnoses from my first shrink of not transitioning at the time. I finally found the January 1977 cover of Esquire Magazine. The innuendo is there!

http://takemeback.to/media/cover/cover-Esquire-19770101-79902.jpg

Joelene

I am not sure but is that Idi Amin Dada being awarded the man of the year award on the cover?

You should check out the Frontline documentary:

Growing Up Trans

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/growing-up-trans/

It details how back in my day (baby boom generation) the face of trangenderism was of drag queens who lived in the shadows, in urban poverty, not very attractive, associated with criminality and just general freakshow time.  Now the face of ->-bleeped-<- is kids like the little girl staring out from the cover of the National Geographic magazine.   Our parents generation instilled us with a deeply embedded transphobia, beatings and sense of shame. We were isolated and alone with our gender non-conformity.  Today most grade school kids know another trans kid.  And trans kids are watching transition videos on Youtube and telling their parents they're trans.  And their parents are listening too and also becoming the new face of ->-bleeped-<-.  Turns out it's really hard to hate on kids.

Quote from: Dena on February 08, 2017, 08:54:06 PM
I am not sure but is that Idi Amin Dada being awarded the man of the year award on the cover?

He was a nutcase in a slow news year for personalities. The same day in 1976 the US celebrated its bicentennial, the Israelis raided Entebbe Airport in Uganda to free the hijacked hostages. Remember he is the cover boy for the Dubious Achievements of 1976 edition.

Joelene

1976.
Transexuals are equated on the same level with Idi Amin. Yep.  That's the way it was back then. Is it any wonder so many of us retreated to the closet?

Katie Couric Interviews First Openly Transgender Boy Scout

http://www.advocate.com/transgender/2017/2/10/katie-couric-interviews-first-openly-transgender-boy-scout

The Advocate/By Allison Tate
February 10 2017 5:55 PM EST