- While Hollywood brings tales such as Duncan Tucker’s TRANSAMERICA to the screen, in real life transgender people from both sexes struggle to find their place in society. TRANSGENERATION is an eight-part TV series that follows four college students as they try to alter their natural gender, while musing on how they’ve managed it, and the various problems they all face. Format: DVD MOVIE
What is it like to be a man trapped in a woman’s body? How does a woman become a man? TRANSGENERATION, a dramatic and mesmerizing eight-part series, is a year-in-the-life look at four college students–Gabbie, Lucas, Raci, and T.S.–who are juggling the challenges of academia with their commitment to transition from their birth sex.
Faced with life-altering choices–about how to deal with parents and society, whether or not to take hormone therapy and undergo sex re-assignment surgery–these four remarkable individuals deal with their deeply misunderstood identities in starkly unique ways. In every moment of this radical, paradigm-busting film, these collegiate transgendered students blow up stereotypes while coming to terms with how to change their bodies to fit their minds.
DISC 1:
EPISODE 1: Meet Raci, Gabbie, Lucas, & T.J.
EPISODE 2: Lucas visits family & Raci seeks illegal hormones.
EPISODE 3: T.J. & Lucas write home to explain their decisions
EPISODE 4: Gabbie visits her grandparents & T.J. plans a trip home to Cyprus.
EPISODE 5: Raci’s class attendance drops while Lucas takes on campus politics.
EPISODE 6: Raci openly attends a LGBT meeting as Lucas celebrates a turning point.
DISC 2:
EPISODE 7: Gabbie gets a pre-op dinner party and T.J. prepares to return home.
EPISODE 8: One last visit with Raci, Gabbie, Lucas, & T.J.
BONUS FEATURES Told with compassion and insight, the fascinating eight-episode documentary TransGeneration focuses on the lives of four college students struggling to fit into a society that doesn’t understand why they are the way they are–that is, transgendered young adults trapped in bodies that belie their true selves. Gabbie and Raci deal with their issues in vastly different ways. Sex-reassignment surgery is expensive, and is a procedure many transgendered folks can’t afford. But money is no object for Gabbie–the first-born son of an affluent family–and she literally counts the days until her scheduled treatment.She has no problem telling her classmates she’s transgendered and believes surgically ridding herself of her penis will complete her life. Raci, also 19, is deaf and poor. An immigrant from the Philippines, she resorts to purchasing female hormone shots off the street because that’s all she can afford. Though she’s hopeful at the start of the school year that the kids are “tranny friendly,” Raci lives in constant fear that she will be ostracized if her true identity is found out. When people ask her about the camera crew following her around, she mumbles that she’s part of a documentary about women in college.
The two female-to-male subjects are no less complicated. Lucas is tired of being asked about transsexuals and transgendered people, but he’s also aware that as one of the few males at an all-female school (Smith College), people are curious about his beginning college as a woman and graduating as a man. A neuroscience major, he’s worried about hormones potentially shaving years off his life. TJ, an Armenian grad student, is self-assured and a leader on campus. But when he calls his mother back home, he’s reduced to an unsure child who doesn’t want to disappoint his family. In Cyprus, where he grew up, TJ was known as Tamar, a gorgeous gamine of a girl. He wants to return home as TJ, but is worried about the ramifications against his mother in their tight knit community.
Transitioning into adulthood is an awkward and painful phase for many teens, who’re unsure of who they are and what they want to be. The four subjects of TransGeneration know they don’t want to be what they were born as. The documentarians are careful not to present them as martyrs or perverts, but rather as full-dimensional people who’re scared, curious, and hopeful about what the future holds in store for them. –Jae-Ha Kim
Buy “TransGeneration” For Only $11.93
March 5, 2010
#1
Gabbie and Raci are so different. Raci is a girl, mostly. Gabbie is a boy who wants to be a girl. It is as if Michael Bailey wrote the script for this. It would be awesome if Gabbie would reveal her innermost desires. But she probably won’t.
March 5, 2010
#2
I viewed this film after reading a favorable review in the magazine Transformation: A Magazine for Men Who Enjoy Being Women. There were stills from the film, including pictures of the main characters. The magazine itself is chock full of pictures of nude transsexuals, in various states of transition–most often, with voluptuous breasts and a penis–and lots of “how to” information.
I liked the film but wanted to hear more about sex–in particular, the sexual motivations of Gabbie and Raci. I wanted to know why, from a sexual standpoint, they wanted to have sex reassignment surgery and become women. The magazine gave me some clues, but I wanted to hear it from them.
March 5, 2010
#3
The most interesting aspect of this documentary is the contrast between Gabbie and Raci. Although both are male-to-female transsexuals, they are utterly different. Gabbie is a computer geek, who is not very convincing as a woman. She likes girls. She may have fetishistic interests (in masochism). It does not seem as if she is a woman trapped in a man’s body.
In contrast, Raci is both a very attractive woman (for a genetic male) and naturally feminine. She likes guys.
They seem like different species, because they are. No one can understand this phenomenon without knowing about Blanchard’s theory of two types of male-to-female transsexualism. And autogynephilia. A good place to start is Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen. Lots of people who are trying to hide these facts from you. Thwart them.
March 5, 2010
#4
This is an interesting documentary about several college-age transsexuals. Unfortunately, it lacks a conceptual framework. The film does not delve into the underlying sexual motivations of the main characters, i.e. are Gabbie and Raci autogynephilic or homosexual transsexuals? What are their motivations for pursuing sex reassignment procedures? Autogynephilia has been defined as a weird, autosexual exhibitionistic fetish in which an otherwise unremarkably masculine heterosexual male is attracted to the fantasy of being a sexually seductive woman. Homosexual transsexuals are feminine gay men who undergo sex reassignment to be more attractive to straight men.
Based on this film, I would urge Gabbie and Raci, to reconsider the irrevocable decision to have irreversible transsexual surgery. It is irreversible, I repeat, it cannot be reversed! I wonder if they should pursue their sexual proclivities without resorting to surgery and spend the money on graduate school or a downpayment on a house. The film does not explore this non-sexual option.
March 5, 2010
#5
This film depicts transsexuality through the lives of several college-age transsexuals, including Gabbie and Raci. Gabbie is not particularly feminine and is attracted to women. She is majoring in computer science. Raci on the other hand is strikingly feminine and a liberal arts (non science major). They are two transsexuals.
What do I mean? Before viewing this film, I would encourage viewers to read a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen by renowned psycholigist J. Michael Bailey. Bailey’s typology has direct relevance to this film. Read his book, and compare Bailey’s typology to what you see in this film.