Marlo Mack’s podcast How To Be a Girl is a sensitive and honest exploration of the joys, fears, and struggles of raising of a transgender child. Earlier this year, Marlo and her seven-year-old daughter M (both pseudonyms) met transgender actress Laverne Cox (“Orange Is the New Black”). The story and photos of that meeting had a brief flare of online virality. In a recent episode of the podcast, Marlo (who also blogs at gendermom) talked about what happened after that meeting, as M began to understand that the world can be a difficult, even dangerous, place for transgender people like her. Below is a transcribed excerpt of that podcast. (A note about formatting: In her podcast, Marlo frequently edits two pieces of audio together contrapuntally. …show more content…
But I stepped forward and I think I said, “I’m her mom,” and thanked her for being a role model or something. And then Laverne bent down and gave my child a hug, and I heard her say, “Remember, honey: transgender is beautiful.” Marlo: “What was the coolest thing about meeting Laverne Cox?” M: “Well, the most exciting thing was that I actually got to hug her, and she didn’t want to do hugs because she didn’t want to get sick, but I was just like, ‘Laverne, I love you!’, and she was just like ‘How could I say no? You’re so cute!’, and then she hugged me, and I was really excited. Super, super, really excited!” I wrote all this down and posted it on my blog, along with photos of my daughter with Laverne. A few days later, the story blew up. I heard from People magazine and the Today Show, and the photos of my daughter with Laverne Cox were suddenly everywhere—even on the home page for Time magazine. Friends from all over the country saw the photos and recognized my child and wrote to me. I had made sure that none of the photos showed her face since I didn’t want her to be identified, but my friends who already knew she was trans could tell that it was …show more content…
I don’t really know.” It felt great to know that people were supporting us and wanted to hear our story. I felt really hopeful and so proud of my daughter. Mama, what’s a coma? Alicia interviewed me, too. But there’s a part of the story that I left out when I talked with her. It didn’t make it on my blog, either, or the Time magazine website. It’s what happened right after my daughter met Laverne Cox, when we were driving home through the dark and rainy night and I heard a question come from the back seat. It was “Mama, what’s a coma?” Marlo: “So, what kind of a story do you want?” M: “Something with no problem – with nothing going missing, no one being sad or left out, just like, just like a happy life.” Before I bought tickets to the event, I emailed the event organizers to ask if it was going to be appropriate for a 7-year-old child. They said, “Yes, definitely!” M: “Let’s say, Miss, Miss, Miss … But there were parts of the talk that were definitely not appropriate for a young child. M: “Mrs. Squeak!” I tried to distract her and cover her ears during those parts. Marlo: “Who’s Mrs.
Also in the interview, Cholodenko talks about her personal experience with coming out and how she dealt with that part of her life. She explains how in 11th grade ( 17 years old) she came out; the culture and environment was different back when she was young, so she was alone because she did not know anyone else who was say so she felt different and confused. Cholodenko came from a liberal Jewish family in a liberal place, her mother was supportive and recommended that her daughter seek help and guidance through her difficult time.
Many transgender people lived in dysfunctional families when they were young. The support becomes vital for the wellbeing of kids. In her book Redefining Realness by Janet Mock, recaps the importance of support from Michelle his cousin, who kept in secrets of gender dysphoria of Charles (Keisha) by saying “‘Pinkie –swear you won’t tell your mom’… She’d keep the secret my secret because I was her favorite cousin” (Mook 76). Michelle, kept Keisha’s secret by allowing her to use her swimming clothes.
Laverne Cox is a prominent actress and advocate for trans rights, most recently gaining attention for her role in the Netflix original show “Orange is the New Black”. Cox plays a transgender prisoner named Sofie, who throughout the course of the show faces bigotry and cissexism from her peers as well as the prison staff. The role gained attention for being one of the first prominent trans characters to be played by a trans actress in a way that accurately demonstrates the difficulties trans individuals face. Though recent years have seen an increase in trans awareness, there is still a distinct disconnect in the communicative cultures between trans and cis speakers when it comes to the subject
Barbie is tall, thin, has large hips and a large chest; she is beautiful, blonde, and she loves to shop; overall, Barbie is the feminine ideal. As researchers Jacqueline Urla and Alan Swedlund acknowledge, “little girls learn, among other things, about the crucial importance of their appearance to their personal happiness and to their ability to gain in favor with their friends” (1995:281). Gender roles are both centered around behavior as well as around bodies; this poses huge problems for transgender people, as well as explanations for transphobia; society has, for so long, accepted gender and sex to be synonymous. Because of this, a person whose gender is female and whose body is (rhetorically) male is a frightening and concerning deviant to most people’s understanding of the way in which gender exists. Everything that has to do with ideals for bodies leads to problems for transgender people; whether it is, as Urla and Swedlund also commented, that “...woman’s body was understood through the lens of her reproductive functions” (1995:287), or the general idea of “norms” for body proportions. When considering women’s bodies’ main purpose to be that of reproduction, it is apparent why the concept of transgender people may be concerning; transgender women -- that is, people, assigned male at birth but who live as women -- are women whose bodies cannot reproduce in the way that women are expected to; transgender men -- people assigned female at birth but who live as men -- may still have bodies which are viewed as useful mainly for their reproductive capabilities, but which they do not intend to acknowledge or use as such. When things stray so drastically from a norm which has long been accepted with minimal thought, onlookers panic that other norms will start to change as well. Straying from this norm also
With the “Orange Is the New Black” star, Laverne Cox being transgender and permitted to play a vivid character as “Sophia”, Caitlyn Jenner’s announcement on the Diane Sawyer interview in 2015, and the arsenal of social media, being non-cisgender (not the gender assigned at birth) in general, has been discussed more than ever. Due to the Internet’s broadness, people who met this classification are unraveling new identities such as non-binary and genderqueer (only people who are this can say this word as “queer” is a slur). Being cisgender is the norm in society. I am also non-cisgender and this is an unique thing that possessed many scars.
Mental health professional have tried to correct their ‘‘gender identity disorder’’ with brutal aversion therapies. Tran’s youth who came out often faced crises throughout their family and social systems. Once out, developing a sense of realness about their new gender became extremely important. An urgent need develops ‘‘to match one’s exterior with one’s interior’’ In ad...
Puberty is a difficult time for any child, but for transgender teens, it can be the difference between becoming who they want to be or remaining in the wrong body. In June of this year, PBS Frontline released a documentary, entitled Growing Up Trans, which chronicled the lives of eight transgender and nonbinary children, from the ages of 9 to 19, as they navigated through the process of transitioning to their prefered genders. Some of the kids took hormone blockers to slow down their puberty, others were going through puberty at the time and wanted to transition before it was complete, and one had already gone through puberty and was still taking hormones to transition. The controversy revolving around the documentary focused on whether or
Walking down the street, Skylar seems like an ordinary man going about his daily business, but looks can be deceiving. Skylar was originally born as a female, and feeling he was supposed to be a male, started transitioning to male at the age of 16. “He’d just been burdened with a body that needed medical and surgical adjustments so that it could reflect the gender he knew himself to be,” writes Margaret Talbot (2013). Skylar’s family was very accepting, as they had already expected this from the time he was quite young. They gave Skylar time to think over whether he really wanted to transition or not, and when he decided he did, they were extremely happy for him and helped him through the transition. Skylar’s testimony shows the positive influence that having a transsexual family member can have on a family. Having a transsexual person in a family will positively influence that family and educate them on more conservative issues dealing with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community.
When two people are in love and plan on having a family, they look to the future and look at all the wonderful events to come. Yet, they do not think of any negative outcome that may lie in the future. No one likes to think that something different or unexpected can happen to his or her family, but rather image and focus on the great future that is yet to come. However, It seems that people are encountering more conflict with their gender identity and not only the individual but the families as well. This paper will point out how having a child who is gender confused suffers as much as the parents. It is hypothesized that parents who have a transgender child have a hard time accepting the child for who they are because of the negativity that
Each day, a new abundance of transgenders are finally identifying as their true self. Even though nothing can stop this flow of transgenders, an accepting, loving, and safe society can encourage more of these individuals to be who they truly are. Instead of shaming these human beings for who they are, our generation needs to worry about our own decisions, and learn to embrace and accept others’ decisions. Truly, this is a problem. Just as anyone else, transgenders deserve to feel safe, accepted, and comfortable at home, school, work, and where they choose to go. After all, we are all human beings,
She then insisted that the trans woman "stay in her lane", when in fact, as a cis woman, she was outside of her lane by attempting to define what is or is not transphobic. Her first reaction was to defend her ego.
Living life as a transgendered person is not easy. There are very few times when someone comes out as transgender and their lives are still relatively easy to manage. There are a copious...
Nicole begins by quoting Ms. Jenner’s speech about respecting transgender individuals, including herself that she gave while receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. She then proceeds to talk about how uncomfortable the presence of transgender people, both inside and outside the bathroom,
For most people, the idea of Transgenders is new and complicated. Because the idea is so fresh, many adults struggle with how to address this topic to the children because they lack knowledge
“You’re not your gender. You’re not your sexuality. You are a human being above all else. In the end you aren’t known for your gender, you 're known for who you are.”(Anonymous). Maybe if ideas and people 's mindsets would have been like this in the early 1920’s than Lili Elbe would not have had such a hard time transitioning from a male to female. The Danish Girl tells a story based on the true life of Lili Elbe, a transgendered woman, and her wife Gerda Wegener. Throughout the movie we get to see the turmoil that transgender people felt during this period of time because of things like sexoligists, who misdiagnosed people, mental institutions, and so called “treatments” to help cure the disease of being transgender. This movie also explores