A disgruntled playboy becomes a female fashion magazine editor. A rock star born biologically male finds her true self. A boy is scripted freely adding a pair of girl’s shoes to accessorize his outfit. Transgender people have become the new go-to characters on television shows including Ugly Betty, All My Children and the The Riches. They also have become the topic of more news reports in recent months. A Florida city manager is fired seemingly for disclosing his plans to have a sex-change operation. A male sports reporter in Los Angeles decides it’s time everyone learns who she really is. A sibling in the famous acting Arquette family has brought the struggles that a transgender person faces to the big screen in the documentary ‘Alexis Arquette: She’s My Brother’. The documentary follows other indie favorites, such as Boys Don’t Cry and Transamerica, to bring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender stories to the forefront. Fiction and reality have mixed to bring an increasing presence in the media of transgender people in the past six months. This is all positive for transgender individuals and society, say those who are active in the transgender community. Mara Keisling, executive director of National Center for Transgender Equality, partially credits the Internet and medical advancements with allowing people to express themselves physically. “There are so many trans people out that more and more people do have trans people in their lives, and that’s going to cause more trans people in the media,’’ she says. “.When the entertainment media stories happen, they really have a dramatic impact. When they’re done sympathetically, they make people feel safe and more willing to come out. ‘’When they’re done maliciously, that has a chilling effect, makes people feel less willing. It’s really that simple.” When Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mike Penner wrote a first-person story in April, formally coming out to readers and co-workers about what his life had been like and what it would turn into by becoming Christine Daniels, the reaction was mostly favorable. “For some reason, there’s an acceptance or openness right now that wasn’t there a year ago,” Daniels says. Damon Romine, the entertainment media director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, agrees that increased visibility creates an increased acceptance, he said, of “a community which has been misunderstood and misrepresented for far too long”. Ryan Murphy, the creator of FX’s ‘Nip/Tuck’, is developing a new series for that cable network that will follow a male sportscaster and father’s transition into a woman. “Americans have had to relearn this human-rights thing and this diversity and acceptance thing over and over as a society,” Keisling says. “People start understanding not only are they here to stay, but they’re us. We’re all in this together.” Regine Labossiere(LAT-WP)
