Loving a Man Who Wants to Be a Woman

by Diane Werts, Staff Writer, Newsday

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... transgender characters are primarily ... the "tragic tranny" - homeless, murder victim, killer - or, when there's a sort of liberal paternalism: "Oh, these poor sick people" ...

America loves a love story. Romantic films where boy meets girl. Or even, in recent years, girl meets girl or boy meets boy. But what about beyond that, where gender roles get yet more fluid?

We're about to find out. Television today is stretching those boundaries in the same way medical science has in the 50 years since Christine Jorgensen went to Sweden as a man anatomically and returned as a woman with an extraordinary story. Transgender love is the focus of two upcoming cable movies - H.B.O.s "Normal," premiering Sunday at 10:00pm, and Showtime's fact-based "A Soldier's Girl," screened at January's Sundance Film Festival in advance of its May 31 television debut.

Romance remains at the films' core, even as one partner in each smitten couple aspires to sexual reassignment surgery. In "A Soldier's Girl," a male Army recruit falls for a transgender nightclub performer who's living as a woman. In the fictional "Normal," Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson ("In the Bedroom") plays a middle-age Midwest factory foreman who's celebrating his 25th anniversary with wife Jessica Lange when he blurts that he can only continue living if he can live as a woman. Sound tragic? Far from it. The television credits of "Normal" writer-director Jane Anderson include "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom" and "When Billie Beat Bobby," both of which eyed factual events through a comic prism depicting how wackily weird this modern life can get. There's humor throughout "Normal" - Lange insists Wilkinson is fully a man, because "only a man could be this selfish" - and it parallels the pain, confusion and cultural discomfort of these still-unusual circumstances.

"I don't want anybody to approach this too earnestly," Anderson said when her film was screened at television critics' mid-season press tour. "It is a strange situation." It's one that Anderson first approached 15 years ago as "the adventures of a transsexual" in starting to write her stage play "Looking for Normal." But over the years, the story evolved into "adventures of a couple who are soul mates," she says. "The movie is about a marriage. I'm using this situation as a metaphor for the ultimate challenge - what it takes to stay together with someone you love."

After Lange's character initially kicks Wilkinson out of the house - "I want my husband back!" she screams, to his anguished response, "I'm still here" - the film takes shape around their enduring connection. "To me, the essence of the piece really was the definition of love," Lange says. "Can you look beyond the external and actually see into the heart of another human being? What happens when you have the external suddenly going through this extraordinary and kind of unnatural transformation?"

Television hasn't always answered that question with sensitivity.

"Transgender characters are usually there more as a plot device than as real people," says Nick Adams, entertainment media manager for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (G.L.A.A.D.).

In series especially, "their appearance is usually about the reactions of others, about the surprise, shock, horror and confusion of the regular characters." The only transgender series regular Adams has found was Helen Shaver's on the C.B.S. 2001 drama "The Education of Max Bickford," an Erica who used to be star Richard Dreyfuss' best friend, Steve. "That was groundbreaking," says Adams, who is transgender female-to-male himself. "She was a college professor, she was totally open about her transition, she was accepted and well-respected."

Otherwise, transgender characters "are primarily brought in during sweeps," laments Adams, "where they're either the "tragic tranny" - homeless, murder victim, killer - or, when there's a sort of liberal paternalism: "Oh, these poor sick people, we really need to help them." He notes that a recent episode of the C.B.S. top-rated "C.S.I." centered on "an elusive criminal mastermind, a serial killer, where it's revealed that he had a sex-change operation from female to male, with creepy flashbacks and horror music behind it."

Male-to-female transition has inspired many more television depictions, including a landmark two-part episode of the C.B.S. "Medical Center" in 1975. Robert Reed of "Brady Bunch" fame earned an Emmy nomination as a distinguished doctor seeking transgender surgery, battling the resistance of his wife and son, along with the ignorance of hospital officials, who think he's gay or might change his mind. Subdued, compassionate direction from Hollywood veteran Vincent Sherman ("The Hasty Heart") kept all the characters sympathetic and all the plot twists rooted in reality. Such heartfelt humanity has been denied most transgender characters, even three decades later in an era of better psychological understanding. G.L.A.A.D. has recently found "offensive" characterizations in "Law & Order," "N.Y.P.D. Blue" and "Ally McBeal," where Lisa Edelstein's recurring male-to-female role had "Ally freaking out and making faces just because she has to be in the elevator with her."

That conforms to the sitcom mold Adams describes as "Isn't this hilarious, X doesn't know this woman is really a man." Archie Bunker got "tricked" on "All in the Family" in the 1970s, and John Larroquette's 1980s "Night Court" character recoiled when a beautiful woman turns out to have been his old fraternity brother.

Television movies and miniseries at least have more "time to explore the complexity of transgender lives," says Adams, citing the P.B.S. "Tales of the City" and C.B.S. "Second Serve," starring Vanessa Redgrave as real-life tennis pro Renee Richards.

The story of "A Soldier's Girl" hit the headlines in 1999, when P.f.c. Barry Winchell was beaten to death by a fellow soldier while dating a transgender club performer. Because his lover, Calpernia Addams, was undergoing hormonal transition at the time (she had sexual reassignment surgery last year), the film, directed by Frank Pierson ("Citizen Cohn"), illustrates the personal difficulties and rewards of already living as a woman - and loving a man who considers himself "straight." "I think it's sort of irrelevant to put any definition on it," says Troy Garity, who portrays Winchell. "The film, as life, has a lot of ambiguity. Barry Winchell, to me, is a hero, because he was able to recognize a truth inside of him that to many is taboo and, in his environment, possibly dangerous. He embraced it and walked with a high head about it." The real-life Calpernia Addams admitted at Showtime's press tour presentation, "I exist somewhat differently on the gender continuum than a lot of people." So she's pleased with Pierson's dramatization, written by "Philadelphia" script writer Ron Nyswaner. "They really got the spirit of this story right. And that was just a kind and gentle man loving someone." Asked about such "feminine" hurdles as walking in high heels, both films' stars responded less about surface performance than intrinsic personality. "Normal" star Wilkinson said, "I've played people who were princes of Denmark who went off to kill people, I've played crazy kings who've thrown away their entire kingdom. I can certainly act somebody who wants to change his body. I trusted the story, and I trusted my instincts." Young Juilliard graduate Lee Pace, who portrays Addams in "A Soldier's Girl," faced not only playing a woman but playing his first film role and a living person he'd met. "You just play your moments, you try to fall in love," he said, "and you hope for the best."

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