Movies about transsexuals.

[budgie]

Recently a friend told me about someone she knows who had a sex change (f to m) and now I can't stop thinking about the idea of my body transforming into a male one. I've also got a bad case of wanting to know how it feels to have a penis. Actually, I really want to have a penis, and to be able to do all the things you can with one. I'm really jealous of that ex-woman.

If anyone feels they can treat this seriously, I'm really curious, though I don't know whether you can explain it, as to what the pros and cons are of having a male body. I don't know that I'm talking so much about the way it makes you feel in a social situation, but just how the body feels.

Anyway, also, has anyone got any films to suggest (or books, novels preferably): I haven't seen Boys Don't Cry, though that is about a transvestite not a transsexual isn't it?

[phil marlowe]

to wong fu, thanks for everything. julie newmar.

duh.

[©brad]

Well, Being John Malckovich kind of deals with that with the Cameron Diaz character. god i love that movie.

As to your other question, I really don't think I could answer it in one post. I can say that the biggest con is getting hit in the nuts, which are super sensitive. There is no pain in this world that compares. I remember playing baseball as a kid, the one day you didn't wear a cup.... EEEK! The pain doesn't come right away- at first you are just stunned that some asshole just hit you right in the balls, then after a couple of minutes the pain comes, and it travels up into your stomach. oh man...

The Pros, well too many to name, but think I should take this conversation to a pm.

[MacGuffin]

Great Photographic Documentation.
Dean changed from Female to Male:

The author tells us the story of when he was a Girl. And how the little girl had day dreams and reveries of having a penis and being the owner of a male sexual organ, not in the body of a boyfriend to touch and see, but in her own body. At the same time she didn't feel any pride of her menstruation and her Breasts and Nipples, but saw with anguish and suffering her maturation into a Woman.

The Phallus Palace also has personal testaments from FTMs (Female to Males Transsexuals) and contributions from a host of others. The historical, medical, psychological and cultural context. Captivating photographs guide the reader from the FTMs female personae, through surgical operations, to portraits of the men whose self and public identities are finally revealed as one.

Dean Kotula has worked as a documentary photographer for twenty years. Dean changed his sex from female to male under the scrutinizing eyes of 2,000 predominantly male shipyard workers while working as a machinist. The ensuing ordeal prompted him to create this book with the hope that educating the public about transsexualism would reduce the animosity and fear surrounding the issue.


I also remember another book (I think) about a woman who actually dressed a man for a day to get the "feel" of it. If I remember correctly, she placed a dildo in his pants, learned a more masculine walk, etc. and wrote about it. I see if I can find it for you.

A few movies I can think of with females to males:

The Ballad Of Little Jo (based on a true story)
Homicidal (a different take on Psycho)
Just One Of The Guys (played for comedy though)
Shakespeare In Love

[Duck Sauce]

The Crying Game

[RegularKarate]

to wong fu, thanks for everything. julie newmar.

duh.

The Crying Game

These are both about Transvestites... she said Transexuals... DUH

and Budgie, I know it's the other direction, but there's a new HBO movie called Normal.  It's about a father who decides to get a sex change and his family's reaction.  I watched it, it's not fantastic, but it was interesting for that sort.  Kinda bland

[MacGuffin]

Cromwell provides an interesting ethnography of female men from a FTM perspective in a time when the transgender community is calling for scholarship about transpeople by transcholars. He gives an insider's perspective of a fairly homogenous type of group of transmen that capably provides a few new glimpses into female men's stories.

It's a much understudied population, no matter which discipline is framing the work. Also interesting to consider is how US anthropology is more well versed in gender studies of other cultures, so this ethnography provides stories from home that resist being ethnocentric. Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of the text is that it is not theoretically framed by the toxic God-like oppression of the psycho-medicalizing discourse that makes everyday transgender experiences fit into a disease model of gender identity disorder, body dysphoria, social deviancy, and personal deficiency.


Below is the book that Peter Jackson may adapt for his next film:



Once you begin reading As Nature Made Him, a mesmerizing story of a medical tragedy and its traumatic results, you absolutely won't want to put it down. Following a botched circumcision, a family is convinced to raise their infant son, Bruce, as a girl. They rename the child Brenda and spend the next 14 years trying to transform him into a her. Brenda's childhood reads as one filled with anxiety and loneliness, and her fear and confusion are present on nearly every page concerning her early childhood. Much of her pain is caused by Dr. Money, who is presented as a villainous medical man attempting to coerce an unwilling child to submit to numerous unpleasant treatments.

Reading over interviews and reports of decisions made by this doctor, it's difficult to contain anger at the widespread results of his insistence that natural-born gender can be altered with little more than willpower and hormone treatments. The attempts of his parents, twin brother, and extended family to assist Brenda to be happily female are touching--the sense is overwhelmingly of a family wanting to do "right" while being terribly mislead as to what "right" is for her. As Brenda makes the decision to live life as a male (at age 14), she takes the name David and begins the process of reversing the effects of estrogen treatments. David's ultimately successful life--a solid marriage, honest and close family relationships, and his bravery in making his childhood public--bring an uplifting end to his story. Equally fascinating is the latest segment of the longtime nature/nurture controversy, and the interviews of various psychological researchers and practitioners form a larger framework around David's struggle to live as the gender he was meant to be.


Also, after reading about the above book, I remember an excellent  film, "Mi Vie En Rose."

[Cecil]

im actually inteersted in knowing what it feels like to be a girl.

"desperate living" has a scene with a woman getting a penis but its not very serious. although on the commentary track waters says that the penis in the movie looks very much like a "real" penis one would get with a sex change. and it looks incredibly ugly. i wonder if medicine has improved the appearance of the sex change penises.

[Victor]

i wouldnt give up my penis for anything. i can see where youre coming from budg, if i had a vagina i think id want a dick too. i could never just have a vagina, if anything, i would have both. i was actually thinking of this movie title i heard, though i doubt the film is real...Mighty Hermaphroditey.

Also Flawless...didnt PSH have a vagina? Or was he just a drag queen? Maybe it was sposed to be ambiguous.

[Gold Trumpet]

Assumptions here, but everything here is assumptions. I really can't imagine having the other sex's sex parts to be really that exciting. There aren't any guys running screaming of how great it is to have a penis and such and if you asked any guy what they think about sharing space with a little one down there, they'd prolly be like: "Who cares? It's just there and that's it." I think outside the 3 minute excitement of having the other sex's sex parts, the hoopla will fade fucking fast. It's just something not very important where anyone really thinks about what it is like to have it and such. Sometimes it gets in the way. That's about it.

~rougerum

[BonBon85]

You don't see too many female to male transvestites in movies. The only films I can think of are male to female: Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Terrence Stamp's character), Todo Sobre Mi Madre, and Hedwig.

[Jeremy Blackman]

You don't see too many female to male transvestites in movies.

Boys Don't Cry

[BonBon85]

oops, I meant transexuals... I'm tired.

[MacGuffin]

Also Flawless...didnt PSH have a vagina? Or was he just a drag queen? Maybe it was sposed to be ambiguous.

He was a drag queen.

Boys Don't Cry

Actually, budgie, you should also watch the documentary The Brandon Teena Story to get a better understanding. There are interviews with all those involved, including his/her killer and lover. Hope that wasn't a spoiler.

I never believed Hilary Swank as a guy. Annette Bening was robbed that year for the Oscar.




As Robert Eads puts it in one of the first scenes of this remarkable documentary, he lives in "Bubba-land"--which wouldn't be unusual if Robert weren't a female-to-male transsexual. Southern Comfort chronicles the last year of Robert's life, as he succumbed to, ironically, cervical cancer; over that year, documentarian Kate Davis developed an amazing intimacy with Robert and his adopted family of other transsexuals living in the depths of Georgia, including his vivacious male-to-female transsexual girlfriend Lola. The film's title comes from an annual gathering that Robert describes as "the cotillion of the trans community, the coming-out party"--an event part convention, part high school prom. Every scene testifies to both the enormous difficulties they face and the grace, humor, and sheer will with which they take it all on. It's not surprising Southern Comfort has won numerous awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

I also remembered Tilda Swinton in "Orlando" plays both genders.

[Pubrick]

mac knows way too much about this.