Orange is The New Black Opened My Narrow Mind on Transgendered People

laverne-cox-640x366

When I heard about Orange is the New Black, I had a strong feeling that I was going to like it and that it was going to be a great show. I was right on both counts. I even wrote a review on Netflix to offset all the negative ones that gave it a low score simply because of the lesbianism and nudity. Please, it’s nowhere near Spartacus people. I love how the show surprises me with it’s tone. In one scene I’m laughing out loud, then next thing you know I’m either tearing up or thinking in silence. One of the surprises I had with this show was how much I cared for all the other characters in addition to the protagonist. Their back stories acted more than just a filler, each of the character’s stories became an integral part of the experience watching Orange is The New Black. Perhaps, one of my favorites would have to be the transgender Sophia Burset portrayed by Laverne Cox who is a transgender in real life too. Her story line gave me a lot of food for thought and some tears as well.

Word of caution, there will be spoilers here but only for Sophia’s story line. I also hope that no one is offended by this article. I urge you to read the entire thing to get the whole context of what I am trying to say.

tumblr_mpszjmyhkI1rct5zqo1_500

I grew up studying in Catholic school and was raised in a moderately conservative family. I was more open-minded than the rest of my family and friends, but some of the conservative principles still stuck on me. I believed that you should accept your body the way it is and as they say in church: “the body is your temple.” When my best friend told me that she wanted my support for her gender reassignment surgery, I was uneasy with it at first. I did say yes, but it felt very awkward and my heart was not in it. There were even times when I tried to talk her out of it. This is the time I’ll fully accept everyone’s decision to throw digital tomatoes at me because I’m such an awful best friend. However, one moment I just stopped being so selfish and I decided that I had no right to dictate what she wanted to do with her body. If that makes her happy and it doesn’t harm anyone, then why not? I also found it hypocritical of my peers when they approved of cosmetic surgery while they abhorred gender reassignment surgery.

One scene in Orange is the New Black helped me find more understanding and acceptance. There was a scene where Sophia’s wife was helping her dress up as a woman. At one point, Sophia told her wife that she doesn’t have to stay and put up with her transformation into being a woman. Her wife refused and I felt that was one powerful scene that truly defined what love really is. Even if she lost her husband and the ability to be intimate in their marriage, it didn’t matter because she still loved Sophia even if he was not Marcus anymore. It reminds me of those lines couples say during weddings: “in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health and so on.” It makes me wonder if “as man or woman” should count as well. I mean if they both still love each other, then why not? I remembered my best friend and all the other girls I knew in high school who decided to become a man. They were my friends and I loved them all. Why would their decision to appear in a way that makes them feel comfortable hinder me from being their friend?

4d95bcf6e4dbb4b6ab330bfbaf92d5f8

On another note, there was another thing that always perplexed me about transgenders. I once saw something on television show where a man who had gender reassignment surgery still liked women. Same thing for a woman who became a man. I thought it was ridiculous, because I felt that it defeated the whole purpose of changing your private parts. However, it turns out to be so much more than what my narrow mind could possibly understand. Changing your gender isn’t always about who your attracted to, another huge aspect is being comfortable in your own body. One reason why I was iffy about the whole process was because I thought that it was all about lust or carnal reasons. Sophia’s story line made me understand this in a whole different level. I was thinking that Sophia was going to go out and flirt with lots of men while her wife suffers through it. That was the stereotype I was always exposed to. I was genuinely surprised Sophia didn’t and she was still in love with her wife even if she was now a woman. As the series progressed, I began to understand that it was more about her acceptance of herself.

In the end, Orange is the New Black offers some thought provoking questions that will often surprise you. It may not have been the sole or major reason why I changed my narrow view on transgenders, but it certainly helped me be more sensitive and understanding towards the transgender community.

Similar Posts

11 Comments

  1. Strongly analogous, especially considering what one has to do to one’s healthy genitals in gender reassignment surgery. In both cases you have someone who is uncomfortable in their body and desires to change it via medical means. Obviously, not 100% the same but strongly analogous.

  2. A strong analogy wouldn’t state that making one’s self look like 50% of the population is similar to altering one’s self to a non-standard form.

  3. @Lol-
    The analagous part of that comparison still seems worth considering, though.

    Anyways, strong and thought-provoking content here. Regardless of whether or not everybody’s on the same page, a degree of understanding is always a good thing.

    As long as I’m here, this is an actual question for anybody who’s got the answer: Are the people who support gender-altering surgeries the same people who think the concept of gender is more or less a social construct? They’ve seemed to be the same group to me in the past and I’ve always thought the two attitudes seemed incompatible. Genuinely curious.

  4. Well, shoot. Here it goes again:

    @Lol –
    I still the analogous part of the comparison is worth considering, though.

    Anyways, some strong and thought-provoking content here. Regardless of whether or not everybody’s on the same page, a degree of understanding is always a good thing.

    Genuine question for anyone who has an answer: Are those in favor of gender reassignment surgery the same people who view gender as a malleable social construct? Because the two attitudes would seem to be incompatible to me.

  5. You know me, I’m always going on about the power of fiction and how “art is the lie that helps us to realize the truth” and all that. It takes a real woman/man to admit they’ve been wrongheaded, Benny, and it’s really cool that a well-told story has the power to show us that sometimes.

    I’m not 100% comfortable with gender reassignment myself, but it’s nothing at all against people who are different or any such bigotry. It’s just that a big part of my life philosophy is loving yourself and accepting who and what you are. But having never experienced the sensation that transgenders say is the root of their discomfort with their own bodies, I can’t pretend I have any right to judge.

    I’m looking forward to watching this show soon. Looks great. There’s a story from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman that really struck me as amazing and before its time in that it featured a transgender character whose friends were accepting of her lifestyle, but her family disowned her. After her death, the family essentially whitewash the entire thing and just act like she was a normal man and the friend is appalled that they can’t even respect her at her own funeral. It’s a really powerful story about how your true family is the one that accepts you for who you are.

  6. I know a handful of transgendered people, personally. It was a shock at first, especially since I saw one as a man and then a few months later as a woman, not knowing what had transpired in between. At the core, they are the same person, just happier and more comfortable with themselves, which I think is something we all want. I’m glad this topic has been integrated into tv, even if not “mainstream” yet.

    @David – To answer your question, in my opinion there are certain confines of “gender” that are social constructs – boys in blue, girls in pink, boys work, girls stay home, etc. These are learned behaviors, not limitations based on physical attributes. I don’t understand gender reassignment, because I’ve never been faced with that dilemma myself. But, like gay marriage and so many other issues, I’m not going to rally against something simply because I don’t understand it, and especially if it doesn’t affect me personally.

    That being said, I’m loving OITNB. It’s like Weeds before the fires forced the Botwins to leave Agrestic and things started going downhill. Jenji Kohan is knocking this one out of the park – I wonder if that’s because they really CAN’T change the location? Guest directors like Jodie Foster can’t hurt. Already picked up for a second season, and I’m super excited. It’s a great show.

  7. @Benny – Just FYI, the word “transgender” is an adjective, not a noun, so the correct usage would be to refer to someone as “a transgender person”. Calling someone “a transgender” is not only bad grammar, but can infer the subtle implication (one that you probably don’t mean to inject) that transgender people are not people, which furthers the dehumanization of transgender people as an already widely oppressed minority.

    “Should we support such a thing or should we counsel the person that what is wrong is not with their body, but with their mind?”

    @J. Morales – I don’t have an issue with your classification of transgenderism as a mental issue having to do with the brain, but I do have an issue your implication that this quality somehow makes it “wrong”. Transgenderism or transsexualism is a condition, not a disorder. The word “disorder” implies that the condition necessarily causes harm to the person affected, but outside of social stigma, simply being transgender or transsexual does not actually cause a person harm. What many people don’t understand is that it is gender dysphoria (the anxiety and depression caused by the mismatch between the gender of the brain and sex of the body) that is what actually causes people harm, and the process of transition is what transgender people do to alleviate that suffering.

    Yes, transgenderism is a condition that affects the brain that often necessitates changing the body to match what the brain expects it to be, but using the word “wrong” is a moral judgment that YOU have applied to the idea of changing what YOU perceive to be “healthy” and “functional” body parts. To a transgender person though, these body parts are NOT healthy and functional. Those body parts are the biggest reasons that people don’t perceive them to be the women (or men) that they feel they should be. Transgender people have no choice but to change their bodies because it is not possible to change their brain’s gender, and it is not possible to change how other people perceive your gender. The only effective way to enable people to see trans people for who they really are is through transition.

    Think of it this way – take two people who are the same exact height, same weight, same hair color, same clothing, same hair cut, etc. Yet when you look at them standing next to each other, you will instantly be able to tell that one of them is a man and one of them is a woman. If the concept of gender was truly only just a social construct, a concept defined solely by our culture, then how are we still able to determine their gender? How do we tell the difference between a woman wearing a dress and a man wearing an identical dress? Because every time we meet someone new, we all have a subconscious brain process that will observe a series of subtle visual and auditory (and sometimes olfactory) cues that enable us to match that person with what we’ve learned to come to expect from a man or a woman.

    Some of these cues are defined by society (e.g., clothing, haircut, make-up, etc.), and some of these cues are morphological sex traits (e.g., voice pitch, facial hair, breasts, shoulder-to-waist-to-hip ratio, etc.). We can affect change to the ones that are culturally defined, and they are referred to as “Gender Expression”, but the biological ones we can’t change. At least, not without help from a doctor.

    Is it “wrong” to change your body? Well, as a cisgender (not transgender) person, it is obviously wrong *for you*. I am transgender though, so it was not “wrong” for me. I also grew up being told that I should love myself and my body, and that beauty is only skin deep. And you know what? I grew up despising myself because nothing ever made me feel better about who I was. People would keep telling me that same thing over and over, as if it were some kind of sage advice, but I don’t think most people truly understand the implications. Being transgender is not rooted in a vain desire to be beautiful or handsome or sexy. It’s about being able to present yourself as a person who makes you feel good about just being yourself. Transition is not like cosmetic nose-job surgery because having a brain-body gender mismatch is not like having an ugly nose. It’s actually more like not having a nose at all, and I don’t know anyone who would tell someone who didn’t have a nose that desiring reconstructive surgery to acquire a new nose was “cosmetic” and therefore “wrong” and “unnecessary”.

  8. I sincerely apologize for that mistake. It was not my intent to insult anyone. I lazily assumed that I knew the correct terminology. I also understand that some people got the vibe that I was implying an “oh, so they are human after all” but that is not the case.

    I don’t want to lie that I was very hostile to the idea, but I think if you are honest with people about switching from hate to understanding… it can encourage people to do same.

    I’ve got nothing but love for everyone!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.