TV review: My Transsexual Summer; Sorority Girls; and Imagine ... Simon and Garfunkel: the Harmony Game

Funny, warm and thought-provoking – is this the reality show of the year?

        Lucy Mangan
        guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 November 2011 18.54 EST
       
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/nov/08/my-transsexual-summer-review?mid=5243

The first conclusion to be drawn from My Transsexual Summer (Channel 4) is that some of the men have the best legs in the business. Doubtless this says something profound and terrifying about the unrealistic aesthetic ideals imposed on women in this benighted modern age, but that's a discussion for another day. In the meantime, look upon the pins of 22-year-old Drew (who has been living as a woman for five years), ye not-so-mighty XX chromosomes, and despair.

The second is that this, the first (I believe) reality show to concentrate solely on transgender people, is certainly one of the funniest, warmest and thought-provoking reality shows you'll see this year, and depending on whether it maintains its refreshing mix of breezy honesty, compassion and humour or descends into the traditional reality show morass of engineered feuding and all the submoronic rest of it, I might even go to bat for it being one of the year's gems in general.

I wrtien another review, after reading these. Since the bulk of replies in in another section, I posted it there.

Hope that's OK.

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,109565.msg829320.html#msg829320

Sarah Dean
'My Transsexual Summer' Review: Educational Documentary Or Gratuitous Reality Show?
First Posted: 8/11/11 23:32 GMT Updated: 9/11/11 08:02 GMT

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/11/08/my-transsexual-summer-review_n_1082726.html

Channel 4's latest docu-reality show tells the story of seven Brits who have decided to change gender. The programme follows them as they 'transition' and sees the group come together every weekend at a country retreat to share their experiences.

It has a sensationalist title, just like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, which was a huge hit for Channel 4, but will it help bring awareness of this minority's everyday struggle against social prejudices? Or is it just shock TV to pull in viewers?

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My Transexual Summer: Britain's First Transgender Rabbi

By Sharon Green | November 8, 2011 5:04 PM GMT

http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/245506/20111108/transexual-summer-britain-s-transgender-rabbi.htm

A 25-year-old peace worker who wants to become Britain's first transgender rabbi is set to feature in a new television documentary show on Channel 4.

Born female, Maxwell Zachs began his physical transformation to becoming male three years ago. Of the three men in the group in the documentary, My Transsexual Summer, Maxwell has been transitioning the longest and has been taking male hormone testosterone since April 2009.

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My Transsexual Summer is a tongue-in-cheek look into sex change
TV review: My Transsexual Summer takes a look at the lives of seven transsexuals on the verge of changing their lives from the inside out - literally. But this documentary is less about the serious science and more from the heart.

http://www.metro.co.uk/tv/reviews/881103-my-transsexual-summer-is-a-tongue-in-cheek-look-into-sex-change

It was just as well Sarah said it for me, because I can't have been the only one thinking it. 'I think I look like a really bad ->-bleeped-<-,' confessed the gawky 29-year-old as she fetched up, dodgy wig and all, at the house she was to share with six strangers. But she wasn't the only one in a pickle: Fox thought he looked like a butch woman; Karen didn't like looking at her penis in the bath. On the gender confused face of it, My Transsexual Summer (C4) looked sure to end in tears.

Not a bit of it. Playing to the hit formula that made Seven Dwarves such a giggle, here we had seven individuals whose only link was a quirk of biological fate – they'd been born the wrong sex – getting on like a house on fire and giving each other the strength to face the world. In Sarah's case, quite literally: a make over from leggy blonde Drew and the shrinking Victor/violet bloomed into an almost woman before our eyes.

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My Transsexual Summer

http://www.complicity.co.uk/blog/2011/11/my-transsexual-summer/

Cleaning up from yesterday's internet meltdown has meant that I've not had the chance to write about this at length, but last night I went to a preview of the first episode of Channel 4′s new documentary, "My Transsexual Summer", which airs tonight (Tuesday 8th November) at 10pm.

First off, it's not perfect. But then, nothing ever will be – we can be an argumentative community at the best of times and even if this was produced by Trans folk, either everyone would still object or it would be terribly, terribly dull. (Follow my life with a camera and unless I happened to be on holiday, you'd mostly just get shots of me sitting in meeting rooms and typing on computers – not exactly blockbuster stuff.)

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Trans summer comes to autumn

http://janefae.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/trans-summer-comes-to-autumn/

November 9, 2011

OK. It was funny, moving, affectionate and a whole host of other positive things. I very much warmed to the seven men and women who populated last night's first installment of C4′s "Transsexual Summer" and suspect that by and large it can only do good for the trans community.

(I also have personal reasons for watching: a compare and contrast between this effort...bouncy, high-spirited, full of life...and the much more sober documentary i took part in earlier this year. Due to air some time soon, but not exactly sure when).

Eye-watering ops and bad wigs on rather sweet transsexual series

Nov 13 2011 by Roz Laws, Sunday Mercury

http://www.sundaymercury.net/entertainment-news/tv-news/2011/11/13/eye-watering-ops-and-bad-wigs-on-rather-sweet-transsexual-series-66331-29761763/

HCOME on, we were all thinking it. I'm glad that Sarah (pictured) was the one who said: "I look like a c--- ->-bleeped-<- in a bad wig."

To be fair, she had only been living as a woman for a few weeks and hadn't got the hang of it yet. She's not on any hormones, buys dresses from charity shops and looks a lot older than 29.

But she looked so much better after only a day taking part in My Transsexual Summer, a fascinating new Channel 4 series in which seven transgender men and women come together for support over a series of weekends.

My Transsexual Summer - C4, 10pm
by Jane Simon, Daily Mirror 15/11/2011

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/columnists/todays-tv/2011/11/15/my-transsexual-summer-c4-10pm-115875-23562265/

It's the second week of the retreat for our new transsexual chums and some are curious to see what a surgically constructed male organ looks like.

You might be, too, in which case stick around.

The group gets a visit from a bloke who has already had the full works done downstairs and, in the middle of the living room, he drops his jeans to admiring gasps all round.

The group is even more impressed when he demonstrates how he can inflate it on demand. I was half hoping that it would come with a little foot pump like the kind you get with an air bed but, at £50,000, the mechanics are a tad more ­sophisticated than that.