ABC focuses on an "atypical lesbian couple" tonight

If I was in his shoes, I wouldn't go through the surgery. How can you stand a person cutting you up on purpose. My fear of the knife would overcome my need to be another gender. Crazy what some people would do though.

www.cheebras.com, Nice things for Naughty Kitties

Hm, well im definitely going to check how this goes. I am watching clips of this on Good Morning America and the boys are so sweet.

From what I understand, the transitioning process can become quite expensive, so my guess that is the reason they let a film crew into their home...

I'm curious to find out if Rene was bisexual prior to Chloe's transition because I find it hard to believe they could have much success as a couple afterward.  I hope Rene is not staying just for the kids. :/

Guess I'll have to watch and see!

this looks really interesting. granted, it may not be perfect, but the fact is, trans issues get very little visibility and it's important that the public learn more about them.  television - and reality especially - will never be the perfect medium, but i think this does seem like a step in the right direction.  for every person who may be turned off or confused by Chloe's actions, there's another out there realizing that they arent alone -- and that's incredibly important.

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http://rightmindleftcoast.wordpress.com

...freaking out because René is a man's name?  At first I assumed that René was going to become Renée and was confused to find out that Chloe had once been Ted.

If I weren't working tonight I would definitely watch it.  There are definitely questions-all of which, I'm sure, will not be answered tonight.

 

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I'm so watching tonight : D

I don't see it as typical well typical for those in the LGBT community but a lot of my friends do not understand how a MTF can be a lesbian after transitioning. They are all like how does that happen why did she stay a he. It will definitely be an educational experience. I tried introducing them to some of my MTF and FTM friends that are homosexual and it just blew over their heads. 

As much as it seems like transfolk are treated like freak shows on some of these shows, I think this one might be different. I love that it's dealing with transitioning after having kids and staying in the same relationship (which has now become same sex) after the transition.

It's always important to me to watch shows where different parts of the LGBT community are getting visability. I'll have to see it to know what I think.  I will mention that I have a friend who transitioned FTM with a kid (a 5 year old).  The friend was seriously depressed for years prior to transition, and afterward became a much happier person and therefore capable and supportive parent.  It's been maybe ten years and her kid has turned out super.  A happy parent that can give their child the attention they need is way better than a miserably depressed disfunctional parent who remains the same gender.  I wonder if this will come up in the show?

Ill watch the show.  I underwent M2F SRS in 1997 and lost not only my marriage but also my career as a tenured associate professor of English.  I wonder how Chloe's transition will affect her career.

I was interested to know what tonight's Family Secrets is about before seeing this. Now I'm happy to see it's about an aspect in the LGBT community. I think it's even better that it's about a trans person because it's such a understood part of the community to a lot of people. Now I'm just interested to see how they portray her.

im always intriqued by this especially when it comes on National Geographic, TLC, Discovery, and even the History channel. i'll see if i can catch it if i dont forget. i seen enough of these specials but they dont ever bore me. lately, ive been watching a lot of stuff that had to do with female to male stuff but im more intrigued by the male to female transition. thailand has a big trans community that is often spoke about but once again, it would be nice to see it from an american male to female view.

 du du du-interesting.

but are they really lesbians or are they just with one another for the sake of the marriage....dun dun dun-ill find out tonight if i watch it. (^  ^)

 

I can't believe they promoted it the way they did - Chloe is intersex, XXY. She actually naturally became feminine, unlike most transwomen - her breasts grew on their own, she became more feminine, etc. I'm still in the middle of it but it seems the SRS was only for genital surgery (which was obviously not going to change itself).

This also should make it somewhat more understandable to even homophobes/transphobes - she wasn't either anyway, so she had to make a choice, and she chose the gender she'd felt more like all her life. If she'd chosen male it seems she still would have had to have medical intervention to put her hormones back in check.

Also, by portraying her as "trans" I think it makes it seem like all trans people must have some sort of medical issue like she does, which is obviously not true.

I think it would be totally reasonable for Rene to leave Chloe, and if she is that upset maybe she should do that.  Kids deal with divorce all the time.

They seem intent on saying that the kids are tramautized but that is clearly not the case. The kids are totally cute about it and tell the little story about what they think happened. Yet they kept asking them leading questions and bringing up bad memories about people who are mean to them.

The only slight problem they have is bigotry. Why is it Chloe's fault that some of her sons' friends or her relatives are bigots or tease them? For that matter, it's exactly the same argument people give for why gay people shouldn't have kids.

I didn't like the way they portrayed Chloe to be selfish. I don't know i just got a weird vibe from the way they explained everything. I can understand how hard it must be for her wife also. i'm glad that she seems to be trying, but it's probably best that they split. make them both happier. Chloe seems to want to find a man now.

I think this just confirms 2 things:

Gender is fluid but love transcends gender. 

It was ok in more ways than I expected after the above preview... still, they never seemed to go as deeply into the emotional trauma that Chloe had gone through as Ted while Rene was comfortable, as they did with Rene's discomfort with Chloe.  I found that annoying.  Also, they didn't even ask what kind of trauma it would be for the kids to lose their dad to say suicide, as opposed to have him in a new gender but still there for them.  It became clear to me that the relationship between the parents was what needed most help for the kids. Also, Chloe's lucky she has such a great dad!  I will say it was pretty amazing to show how Rene has/ thinks of herself in very conventional straight sexuality terms, but has now more clearly had to deal with at least the concept of gender not being firmly rooted the way Chloe felt as Ted.  You could say that, in a totally different way, Rene is now going through something about Chloe that Chloe had gone through about herself.  It may be too much for her, somepeople have an easier time accepting different sexuality and genders, but I'm glad that at least she finally was coming out with it to coworkers and friends, I think it will help her and by extension the family to progress.  It's too bad we as a culture are so rigid about gender, if we could find gender variations and straddling normal and sexy (and in non pervy fetishy ways), maybe it wouldn't be so hard for people like Chloe and Rene.....  but life is filled with struggles, so something else would be the issue, lol.....

as being the "selfish one" and say that she truamatised her kids with the SRS. That is one of the main reasons that I didn't want to watch it. I wouldn't wish being trans... on my worst enemy! Even though I am much better off since the surgery, there are still issues that I will never be happy with. Maybe they can solve some of my issues medically now with increases in the medical knowledge, but I don't really think that they can solve them all yet. And they will never solve them for me.