Trans Parent, Trans Kid Come to Our Screens

Transparent, a new half-hour drama from Jill Soloway (United States of Tara, Six Feet Under), centers around a transgender parent who is just beginning to transition and come out to family members. But an even more impressive portrayal of a trans character right now may be that of trans teen Cole on The Fosters.

Amazon Studios released the Transparent pilot with the intent to use viewer feedback to determine if they will run the whole series. The story centers around a Los Angeles Jewish family:  Jeffrey Tambor and Judith Light as the divorced parents of grown children played by Jay Duplass, Gaby Hoffman, and Amy Landecker. (Bonus fun fact: Judith Light also played one of the lesbian moms of Dr. Coop (Peter Facinelli) on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie.)

Like the families in Soloway’s earlier two series, this one is dysfunctional and often hilariously so. To my eye, Tambor’s character coming out as trans is the only non-dysfunctional thing about the group — she is moving closer to her real self, rather than avoiding looking inward at herself and her life, as the other characters seem to be doing.

Tambor is excellent as Maura (Mort), even if criticisms that the role should have gone to a trans actor (historically underrepresented in trans roles) are understandable. Soloway told TransHollywood, however, that she is consulting with trans women, including trans parent Jennifer Finney Boylan, on the show, and intends to use trans actors “both in front of and behind the camera.” (Thanks to John Becker at Bilerico, whose own review of Transparent is a good read.)

It’s tempting to think that Amazon Studios said, “Hey, that hit series Orange Is the New Black over at our competitor Netflix has a trans character, so let’s start a series with a trans character ourselves” — but I don’t know the timing of each show’s development, so I can’t say if that was the case. Besides, a drama centering on a White, upper-class family and a prison drama with multi-racial, socioeconomically diverse characters, including a Black trans person, are each different enough that Transparent doesn’t feel like duplication. Is there room for more than one television show with a trans character, especially if each show depicts a different aspect of transgender lives? Absolutely — in fact, there should be.

Transparent also seems to have another LGBT parent in the mix. Landecker’s character Sarah, who has young children, had been in a fairly serious relationship with a woman in college. She’s now married to a man, but when her erstwhile girlfriend shows up in town. . . . Okay, no spoilers. It remains to be seen just how the character identifies, but let’s just say she’s pinging my radar.

Over at ABC Family’s The Fosters, best known for centering around a two-mom household, a new transgender character hit the screen a few weeks ago. Cole, a trans boy (played by an actual trans actor, Tom Phelan), is a resident of the group home for teen girls shared by the moms’ foster daughter Callie. The show depicts some of the challenges for many young trans people — being kicked out of his home when his parents found out he was trans, housed with those of the opposite gender identity, harassed for being in the “wrong” bathroom, and having a medical crisis from illegal hormones.

Ultimately, though, we see Cole not only as a victim, but also a caring person, who tries to help Callie end her relationship with her foster brother Brandon. He does so in a duplicitous way, but Phelan seems to convey that Cole was doing it because he genuinely cares about Callie’s friendship — she was one of the few peers who tried to respect his trans identity. In a subsequent episode, Callie refers to Cole — with no fanfare or commentary — using male pronouns. It’s a wonderful moment of “this is how things should be,” and I hope many of the show’s fans, teens and adults alike, take the message to heart. Cole isn’t a central character, but perhaps he will be a recurring one. He could develop into an important role model for young trans people, and Callie into a model for how to be a trans ally.

Have you seen Transparent or Cole’s episodes of The Fosters? What do you think?

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