TRANSGENERATION {SERIES FINALE} (TV)
Summary
The finale of this documentary miniseries about the lives of four transgender college students.
Raci’s grades continue to drop, taking her dangerously close to being ineligible for her scholarship. She studies hard for her final exams, hoping to avoid this outcome. For her drama class final she performs a monologue, but after she finishes she feels that she didn’t do her best because she was nervous. After the finals she decides to come out to Scott, her scene partner in drama class. She feels guilty that he kissed her during a scene without knowledge of her gender identity, and doesn’t want it to be shown on television without his knowledge. She calls Apple and asks her for advice on how to tell him. She and Scott meet in an empty classroom and she haltingly and with visible anxiety tries to tell him that she is a male-to-female transgender. However, before she can finish, Chris tells her that he already knows, having asked Junue about her in order to dispel the rumors circulating about her amongst the students. He thanks her for taking the time to tell him and says that he has no issues with their scene in drama class. Later she visits a clinic to see if she qualifies to receive free legal hormones. She is scared about going, since during her last visit she was given an HIV test and she hopes that she does not have it. She has a consultation with a doctor, who calls up her blood test results. While waiting, Raci becomes more agitated, literally praying that she is not HIV-positive. The doctor returns and tells her that her tests indicate that she does not have HIV, much to her immense relief. She immediately calls her mother to tell her the news, and that she will be receiving her hormones. The doctor also discusses her hormone levels; her various levels of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone indicate that she is female chemically, if not entirely physically. She is ecstatic at the news, and takes the opportunity to take her first shot of her newest hormone treatment. She checks her final grades for the semester and finds she has gotten straight A’s. She attends Apple’s graduation ceremony and participates in the Los Angeles Pride Parade, representing her school. An epilogue notes that she continues to attend classes and has recently moved in to her own apartment.
T.J. flies back to Cyprus to see his family, still anxious about confronting his mother. His scholarship requires that he return home for two years after graduation, and he wants to determine what he will face once he moves back there. He remarks that even though many people think of him as being independent and driven, he cannot muster these traits when dealing with his family. T.J. requests that the documentary cameras be shut off just before meeting his mother at the airport. Later he walks around his hometown of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, explaining that it is divided between Turkish Cypriots in the north and Greek Cypriots in the south, and that Armenians comprise a small minority in the country and tend to be extremely close-knit. He reports that he did not argue with his mother upon returning home, but that she did not want to bring up his transition and is in complete denial about it. He visits Melkonian, a well-regarded Armenian boarding school that he used to attend; T.J. was the valedictorian of his class. There he says hello to several of his old teachers, who are happy to see him. He laments that in Cyprus he must be more careful about who does and does not know about his gender transition. Eventually T.J.’s mother agrees to be filmed, recounting memories of T.J.’s excellent academic performance at Melkonian. She remarks that she and T.J. have grown apart “mentality-wise,” and complains that T.J. does not have proper regard for his community. T.J. disagrees with her, and this leads into a discussion about him being “gay” and dressing as a man, which his mother believes is unacceptable in Cyprus. She feels that T.J. is making a mistake in the way he conducts himself and no longer knows what to do with him. She proposes that they live separately from each other in order to avoid “tragedy;” she no longer wishes to discuss it despite noting that it is on her mind constantly. T.J. prepares to leave Cyprus but on the way stops by his family’s church. He is frustrated that his mother seems to love the person she wants him to be rather than the person that he is. He struggles to find out where he feels “at home” and what that means for him. He returns to the United States and finds Staci waiting for him at the airport. She informs him that she revealed to her parents that they are dating, and indicates that they didn’t seem to have a problem with it. T.J. is happy at this news and is proud of Staci. An epilogue notes that he broke up with Staci over the summer and will return to Cyprus as “Tamar” the following summer.
Lucas greets his father, who has not seen him since he began his hormone treatments. They are relatively civil around each other, but Lucas notes that he seems uneasy about bringing up the subject of Lucas’s gender transition. The next day, Lucas plans to confront his father about the subject as he finally reads the letter Lucas sent to him months ago. He believes that Lucas is nervous about talking to him about it. They meet in a coffee shop, and his father tries to articulate his feelings about Lucas’s transition. He admits that he at first considered Lucas’s feelings to be the result of a “birth defect,” and that he felt Lucas was essentially dead to him. Both of them become increasingly emotional as the discussion progresses. Lucas’s father explains that he conducted research about transgender people and their parents on his own, and that he is coming to terms with the fact that his “daughter grew up to be a man.” He now believes that Lucas’s identity “fit[s]” him perfectly and that he is beginning to understand Lucas’s feelings about himself. The two of them embrace and say that they love each other. Lucas moves out of his apartment and says goodbye to his roommates. He shares a private farewell with Kasey out in the woods, and recount how close they became over the past year. They become emotional as they talk about how much they value each other’s friendship, and hope that they will always be in touch. Lucas’s family attends his graduation ceremony, where he graduates with high honors. His father is especially proud of his accomplishments and hopes that he can become closer with his son in the coming years. An epilogue notes that Lucas goes on to get a job at a research facility in Boston, and that he quits smoking.
Gabbie makes final preparations to undergo her sex change surgery, attempting to remain calm. She is wheeled into the operating room and given anesthetic gas, soon causing her to pass out. The surgeon performing the operation, Dr. Marci Bowers, describes the procedure as footage of it being carried out on Gabbie is shown. The procedure takes two hours, after which Gabbie is visited by her parents while she recovers. Her sisters Caroline and Audrey visit her the day after her surgery, recounting how they always looked up to “Andrew” as kids. Caroline is reluctant to go, as she feels that Gabbie has been getting an inordinate amount of sympathy and attention ever since she started her gender transition. They speak with Gabbie, who feels excited that she is truly “female” now; privately they are somewhat resentful that Gabbie has been too wrapped up in her own life to have asked about them. They hope that she will “settle down” some time after the surgery. Three weeks later, Gabbie returns to her dorm and reconnects with her friends. She discusses the process of dilation, involving sticking a stent into her new vagina to maintain its shape; she will need to continue to do this periodically for the rest of her life. She is not doing it as much as the doctor told her to, and her friends are concerned, although Gabbie insists that she will be fine and says that the process is “an annoyance.” Gabbie has a party for her twentieth birthday and her family attends. Caroline and Audrey note that their family tends to be “secretive” around each other, but that Gabbie’s transition has opened them up to each other. Her father remarks that it is only very recently that they were able to refer to Gabbie with feminine pronouns, and that her transition has been a challenge for the entire family. Two months after her surgery she moves out of her dorm. She reflects on her experiences over the past year and thanks her friends and family for all of their support. She also notes that she has been “self-involved” to a great extent and wants to move ahead with her new identity. An epilogue notes that she spends the summer at an internship promoting women in engineering and still has faith that her surgery was the right decision.
Details
- NETWORK: Sundance Channel
- DATE: November 30, 1999 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:55:33
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 116783
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: LGBT Collection; Public affairs/Documentaries
- SERIES RUN: Sundance Channel - TV miniseries, 2005
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Fenton Bailey … Executive Producer
- Randy Barbato … Executive Producer
- Lauren Lazin … Executive Producer
- Eileen Opatut … Executive Producer
- Adam Pincus … Executive Producer
- Laura Michalchyshyn … Executive Producer
- Jeremy Simmons … Supervising Producer, Director
- Ann Rose … Supervising Producer
- Thairin Smothers … Producer
- Ashley York … Segment Producer
- Joshua Lyon … Field Producer
- Julia Yezbick … Field Producer
- Mathilde Bittner … Writer
- David Benjamin Steinberg … Music by
- Mark Schulz … Music by
- Andrea "Gabbie" Gibson … Interviewee
- Lucas Cheadle … Interviewee
- Raci Ignacio … Interviewee
- T.J. Jourian … Interviewee
- Tanya Kane-Parry … Interviewee
- Jordan Furrow … Interviewee
- Cheryl Cheadle … Interviewee
- Donald Gibson … Interviewee
- Cynthia Gibson … Interviewee
- Marci Bowers … Interviewee
- Robert Cheadle … Interviewee
- Caroline Gibson … Interviewee
- Audrey Gibson … Interviewee
- Katherine Baker … Interviewee
- Kasey Erickson … Interviewee