Teenager’s turn to tell the evolving transgender story
Television’s fascination with the “transgender” identity trend began many years ago with the Christine Jorgensen phenomenon—a former GI who changed gender from male to female, and became a pioneering celebrity in her own right.
More recently, it heated up even more when sports hero Bruce Jenner retroactively revealed on the Jenner-Kardashian family’s hit reality TV show that, for more than a decade, he had not just had doubts about his own sexuality, but had actually been taking steps to “transition” from male to female!
The fact that Jenner was a much bigger celebrity than Jorgensen made this “coming-out” process the stuff of which “breaking news” headlines are made.
For months on end, every detail of her transition was minutely documented and opined about by millions of onlookers and eavesdroppers.
Beyond the gossip value, TV’s firm focus on Jenner’s retroactive efforts to resolve her identity crisis resulted in the viewing public’s getting a crash course in transgender choices, issues and processes.
The avid attention culminated in Jenner’s officially changing her name to Caitlyn—and getting her own reality TV show, “I Am Cait,” which detailed what happened after her “coming-out” party.
Instructively, the show concluded its run after only two seasons. While it was on TV, however, it further “educated” the viewing public by focusing not just on Jenner, but also on other transgender pioneers and their own experiences while they transitioned.
Why did “I Am Cait” abruptly end its run? Some TV observers attribute its brief stint on the tube to the fact that Jenner was already in her 60s when she made her transition.
Television has a predominantly youthful viewership, so it could have lacked accessibility and connectivity with the viewing “masses.”
Perhaps learning from the Jenner experience, another TV show about the “trans” trend and syndrome, “I Am Jazz,” has started telecasting on TLC, with a decidedly young protagonist family in its cameras’ focus.
The hope is that it will connect much better with TV’s youthful viewership, and thus keep the transgender topic a part of the “mainstream” society’s conversation.
Jazz Jennings was brought up as a boy, but by age 4, she felt so “different” that she was tested, and results identified her as “gender dysphoric,” meaning someone experiencing a “persistent unease with the characteristics of one’s gender, accompanied by a strong identification with the opposite gender.”
As a result, her enlightened parents decided to shift gears and bring her up as a girl, and she felt much better.
As she continued to grow up, she decided to share her story via social media, and she acquired a huge following.
In time, she was identified as “the new face of transgender youth,” and got her own reality TV show.
“I Am Jazz” details Jazz’s unfolding life and “trans” issues so well that it’s been cited by TV awards groups—and Jazz herself was named as one of Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Teens of 2014.”
We caught the show recently and agree that it deserves to be seen, because it cogently sheds light on its potentially combustible subject matter, and avoids exploiting it, as some other, more “explosive” shows have done.
