On Abc Tuesday Night - Mtf Story

[Guest Justme]

For anyone interested, at 10pm July 21 on ABC - a special titled Family Secrets....deals with a family and mtf transition.

[Sally]

I think that this is the TV portion of the news story that Donna Jean posted a link to.

We should all try to watch because I believe that ABC will take a positive and correct approach - they did about the parents who were helping their child identify as her true gender and the fight to let her attend Elementry School as her feminine self.

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest Eth]

I wish I could watch these things... doubt I can with my parents. They're TV and dinner cup cakes.

愛 Eth

[Guest Heather DL]

Thanks, I don't watch a lot of TV and had no idea about this. I still haven't came out to my family, and I think o am going to get them to watch, see how they respond.

I do hope that ABC keep up their tradition of potraying others in a positive light.

[Guest Elizabeth K]

Thank you for the notification! I hope it is a positive presentation.

Lizzy

[Guest NatalieRene]

Well one thing going for us is that it isn't on Fox.

[Guest NicolaiAE]

Thanks for the reminder!

I'll watch it in my room since my dad and his gf go to sleep at 9.

Hope ABC is giving a positive presentation.

-Nicolai

[Paula ult]

They live in north east Ohio not too far from me, i never had the pleasure of meeting them, i hope enough people watch it so more understand why we need to transition. From the preview on ABC's website it looks like it will be a good show.

Paula

[Guest Alyssa Leigh]

Thank you for letting me know. I am watching it with my mom so she can get a better understanding since this is all new to her.

Alyssa

[Guest Amy_rosalina]

I actually had to take my dad to the doctor today and saw an ad for it out in the waiting room. I am so recording this, which is good timing because my television will be turned off soon >_>

[Guest Jackson]

Great. Just one more reason I'm annoyed at myself for putting my satellite on hold for the summer. Maybe I can find it online.

[Guest (Lightsider)]

I wish I could watch these things... doubt I can with my parents. They're TV and dinner cup cakes.

愛 Eth

Chloe the girl they are doing the piece on...is going to put it up on Youtube. Might be up tomorrow.

[Guest Jean Davis]

You can catch about 5 minutes of the show on hppt://abcnews.go.com/primetime . I just got done watching it . Her two boys are sooo adorable.

Jean Davis

[Guest Eth]

Chloe the girl they are doing the piece on...is going to put it up on Youtube. Might be up tomorrow.

Thanks!!

Annoying short story... I saw an ad for this on TV today while eating dinner, and my parents made comments and laughed. It was like "um, hello, I'm right here?"....

Yeah...

愛 Eth

[Guest My_Genesis]

I wish I could watch these things... doubt I can with my parents. They're TV and dinner cup cakes.

愛 Eth

sounds like my mom

what's worse, my mom hogs the TV and ABC is on like ALL FREAKIN DAY, but every time it's on I just hear a bunch of annoying voices raised to unreasonable volume levels..or my mom comes in my room to tell me about something that's on she thinks ill find interesting but i totally won't...but i heard absolutely nothing about this. whatever, ill use the internet...like everything else i watch on "TV" then get accused of having a sickness that makes me obsessed with the internet.

sorry about the ranting lol. kind of have a bad temper sometimes.

so yeah thanks to anyone who posted links.

[Guest Leah1026]

At this risk of sounding shallow:

I thought she looked and sounded (voice) good.

But the story editors still pushed a lot of stereotypes. You can find a list of what I mean here:

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/12128/...he-closet-again

By my count they hit 13 or 14 on the list.

Despite that, it was still a good watch.

[Guest NicolaiAE]

I agree with Leah,

And I couldn't help but get the vibe that although they were trying to make it look like a normal family (which it is in my standards), there were things that they included that could have been left out. It's probably just me though...

I thought Chloe's interaction with her sons was adorable.

-Nicolai

[Guest]

While it was pretty good I was a bit disturbed that the reporter seemed to paint the family as victims. After the reporter mentioned to Chloe that it was selfish she said if she hadn't done the surgery there would have been a gravestone with her name on it. The reporter should have followed up on that statement. She didn't. The one thing I notice with cis-gendered people is they always seen to play down our suicide rate. Chloe though did the community proud.

Laura

[Guest Elizabeth K]

I agree on the downplaying on the suicide thing. Chloe's wife was really portrayed as a victim. I wanted to know the correlation between the XXY discovery and the bee sting treatment. It wasn't clear or did I just miss it? It seemed odd they would do a DNA search on a treatment for an allergic reaction - something about hormones in treating the sting? Suddenly there was feminization results? Not clear.

And the children's reaction was interesting. But it appeared they had a sort of warped understanding - their father suddenly waking up as a girl?

Also, I had a question on the work descriptions. They asked the children who did the cooking, the cleaning etc. Which parent were they saying? The commentator said something about a pattern there - I didn't understand that point.

And I saw Chloe as a person VERY gender dysphoric - and a PERFECT candidate for transition physically. As a male her appearance was very neutral - probably because of her XXY condition. To call her a transsexual was technically correct, but she is really intersexed. The non-community won't know the difference.

I was also fascinated over the sexual orientation shift - as I experience that too. My therapist and I talk about it - and apparently the brain chemistry change on HRT is gaining some credibility as a possibility. It will doom Chloe's marriage if it happens. I am married and want my wife to continue as my life partner, so I worry about my long tern results. That was something I would like to see as a follow up.

All in all - the program was better than I expected. It seems the research was superficial, and as Leah said, it still had stereotypes. We are getting there I suppose. At least it didn't exactly show Chloe as a man in a dress - she presented well. There were too many establishing shots of the two putting on makeup in the same room. It made a statement that 'here are two women.' Well - I also thought is was better to show the nurturing of the children Chloe performed. It was funny to see how her wife made her do all the 'husband' chores.

When I am presenting female, it's a really strange when my wife wants me to continue opening the door to the car for her. Also - keeping the lawn mower operating has destroyed my pretty nails!

We live a strange life! I wonder what the opinions of the 'real world' are on the show.

Lizzy

[Guest Joanna Phipps]

Thank you for the notification! I hope it is a positive presentation.

Lizzy

the comments on the show are about evenly split. From the writeup on the site it seems to have been reported fairly, there are a few transfolk in the comments (yours truly included), but as you would expect there is more than an article's fair share of naysayers, bigots, religious folk and the like slamming Chloe for what she did. IMHO I think some more of us need to go there and put the trans side of things out in the open for others to read.

[Guest Leah1026]

I was also fascinated over the sexual orientation shift - as I experience that too. My therapist and I talk about it - and apparently the brain chemistry change on HRT is gaining some credibility as a possibility. It will doom Chloe's marriage if it happens. I am married and want my wife to continue as my life partner, so I worry about my long tern results. That was something I would like to see as a follow up.

Off Topic: It is a myth. Most people who transition do NOT experience a shift. The ones that do are only discovering their true orientation, the one that had been buried down deep under their gender issues.

And another thing, of the people who do experience it:

Sometimes it starts before hormones (me).

And sometimes it happens much later, even years later, even after SRS.

The "hormones cause your orientation to change" theory is full of BIG holes. But that doesn't stop the media! They love to play up the sex angle. After all it's much more interesting than a boring discussion of about how we become whole. Cis-folks can't relate to that, but they sure can relate to SEX! And the whole orientation thing also plays into the fear many of us have.

[Guest Elizabeth K]

Off Topic: It is a myth. Most people who transition do NOT experience a shift. The ones that do are only discovering their true orientation, the one that had been buried down deep under their gender issues.

And another thing, of the people who do experience it:

Sometimes it starts before hormones (me).

And sometimes it happens much later, even years later, even after SRS.

The "hormones cause your orientation to change" theory is full of BIG holes. But that doesn't stop the media! They love to play up the sex angle. After all it's much more interesting than a boring discussion of about how we become whole. Cis-folks can't relate to that, but they sure can relate to SEX! And the whole orientation thing also plays into the fear many of us have.

Leah - donno.

On the sexual shift, its more complicated I think. I was homophobic (and transphobic i guess) before I was diagnosed... I mean I was tolerant but hated seeing obvious displays of homosexuality (excessive making-out stuff - you know how some people go for the shock value) I lived in an area in Dallas that was a half gay -community (Oaklawn) and knew many gay couples. We would talk about the gay counter-culture (these people were pretty open) and most disliked public display, but felt it was just like heterosexual couples being too demonstrative - I agreed.

BUT the point? I finally understood the gay man homosexual relationships and how they sometimes felt such strong attreactions to men, but unlike women, had no biological disadvantages (pregnancy) and a male libido. It explained a lot. I asked why I had never been approached - and was told I had the wrong 'aura' (which was true as I really am a woman). I was not really interested in relationships with men at that time, hetherosexual or homosexual. It was a time when I wished I was female - actually I was desparate to be a woman, but would never be - so I thought. I DID fantsize what it would be like to be penetrated in a way a women has sex - wishing I could experience love in that manner.

My transition started about eight months ago. In therapy I was asked from the beginning about my sexual orientation - therapist seem to have to note that in your file. After a long discussion I was marked down as hetherosexual, but she told me she would cover that later.

Well - about two months into HRT we talked again. Psychologically I was integrating into myself -no more dual nature - I was becoming me. And that me had always been female and always will be, regardless of what the body looked like. So my therapist asked me again about sexual preferrence and I still said I loved making my wife happy, but it had changed as I had not been able to perform as a male - actually had not for five years before (diabetic complications) We determined that the pleasure I gave her was real, but not exactly a male-female thing. I empathised with my wife so much I could please her four and five times in a short time. I was really using her as my own sexual experience.

More importantly, this was exaggerated by my transitioning, the realization of where I was going. Then the million dollar question. "Do you ever want a man?"

Yes.

I said it without hesitation - didn't even think. I want sex as a woman experiences it. My therapist says that make me bisexual, a technicality, I guess, so she noted it. I have never had man on man sex and don't want it. But I do want woman to man sex as the woman. I also want to continue to pleasure a woman - my wife.

The hormones had really not taken that much effect at that time.

NOW after 8 months (this August 10th) I have begun to go to the next phase. Psychologically I think I was changing back then - but now I just naturally am thinking about how nice it is to be cared for, cherished and loved by a man who would think I am desirable and pretty. Siggggghhhhh - and I would probably just love to give myself to someone like that. So I seem to be slipping over the edge in sexual preference. I don't remember being like that before HRT. It was pure ideas of raw sex, before. Now it's an idea of a romantic situation - a woman (me) with a real man.

That's how it happened with me - and I don't know what to do with it. I really want to be true to my life partner. And I will do so because I love her. But our love is pleasing each other and is no longer wild monkey sex. We are two gentle creatures - oh I forgot to say - she pleasures me too - its just a different way. So technically? Lesbians? NO - in my state I stay married no matter what my gender.

I blame this all on TRANSITIONING.

We are such complicated creatures, we transsexual!

Elizabeth Anne

[Guest]

My mail seems to bear out part of what you say Leah, that the majority doesn't change orientation. However some do. After hormones some not only notice men for the first time but also change life long interests as well. To prove this some in that group due to medical reasons had to stop hormones and the effects reversed. So it is possible. I'm only talking a very small handful here that actually stopped hormones. This is a guess mostly but roughly 80% didn't change. That leaves 20% who did. Maybe i'll do a poll here on it or anyone else can. I thought we had one on here somewhere. When in doubt do a poll.

Laura

[Guest NatalieRene]

My mail seems to bear out part of what you say Leah, that the majority doesn't change orientation. However some do. After hormones some not only notice men for the first time but also change life long interests as well. To prove this some in that group due to medical reasons had to stop hormones and the effects reversed. So it is possible. I'm only talking a very small handful here that actually stopped hormones. This is a guess mostly but roughly 80% didn't change. That leaves 20% who did. Maybe i'll do a poll here on it or anyone else can. I thought we had one on here somewhere. When in doubt do a poll.

Laura

That's got me thinking, it would be interesting is the hormone levels in a individual with gid compared to someone without gid. I know this is slightly off topic, but I wonder if there is a chemical tell.

[Guest April63]

My mom and I watched it last night. I forgot about it, but we were sitting there wondering if anything good was on TV. My mom wanted to see what was on Family Secrets and so we watched it. But we missed the first 15 minutes..