Welcome to #TransTuesday! Tillyvision rockets through the sky with THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 3! Exploring our transness has… made things super complicated!
Be sure you’ve read all the establishing stuff in PART 1 first!
And of course, the continuation in PART 2!
21:49 – It’s two years later and we see high school Owen, now in 9th grade and the beginning of his journey… and there’s green next to him, he has a blue shirt on and holds blue cotton candy in his hand. And he’s trapped between green carnival games and blue benches. He hasn’t been able to transition, and it’s made things even harder on him, it feels like the despair and dysphoria have grown.
22:15 – Owen’s mom bathed in greens and blues with the scarf on her head indicating possible hair loss from chemotherapy (she mentions health problems in just a second). If she’s Owen’s access to femininity, what’s this telling us? What does her potentially losing her hair signify?
This is NOT to say women, cis or trans, cannot be bald or have short hair, there is NOTHING wrong with that. But long hair is (stereotypically) associated with femininity, and so for the purposes of metaphor, this shows you that Owen is LOSING his access to it.
For that matter, you can see how important my own HAIR was to finding my true self (also see HAIR 2, when I got my first haircut and the world seemed to change).
This fear of Owen’s is confirmed when…
22:33 – Mom: “So, how you feeling about my little health scare, buddy?” She is in blue, the bench is blue. He’s so sad. Owen: “I’m fine.” There’s a flashing red light behind them. Danger. Losing access to your true gender makes you despair and panic.
Mom: “It’s just… it seems like you’re always somewhere else lately. I don’t know, I’m not sure if it’s ‘cause of me or… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just making it up. Just want to know that you’re on the right path, you know?”
Are you on the path to embracing your femininity like you want to, Owen? Isn’t this the wrong direction?
23:23 – Owen spits into the cotton candy and watches it melt. Ooh, look at this fun distraction from feelings I want to ignore, la la la.
23:30 – Teen Owen is lying in the back seat just like when he was a kid, but his head is in his mom’s lap. Clinging to what femininity he has left, he asks: “Can I stay up late to watch The Pink Opaque tonight?”
Mom: “You know your bedtime is at 10:15 pm.” It used to be 10, his parents have given him a tiny bit more “freedom” but still don’t let him access his transness (The Pink Opaque is on at 10:30). Green and yellow lights abound, the roof of the car is blue.
24:13 – Owen’s dad, his masculinity, with his ONLY line in the entire movie: “Isn’t that a show for girls?” Red light flashes outside the window. Danger.
How could you want to explore girly things. For children. You’re a BOY you know. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
Mom: “Not tonight, honey.”
24:39 – Owen in bed, all in blue. “After that first sleepover, I couldn’t work up the courage to say more than three words to Maddy Wilson at a time.” Why? Embarrassment. Shame. Fear. “But when I told her I still wasn’t allowed to watch the show, she started leaving tapes for me.”
24:54 – As Owen walks through the school, we hear Starburned and Unkissed by Caroline Polache. Remember that one of the meanings for “Tara” was “star,” which means this song is maybe about Owen feeling like seeing another trans person, and exploring his transness, has burned him and left him alone. The lyrics do nothing to dispel this notion.
Wake up
Distorted to the bone
Salt on demand
Say you miss it
But, oh, I know you don’t
How many plans
With girls with makeup
Hey, you Casanova
Hey, you supernova
Come home
The kettle’s whistling
My heart’s a ghost limb reaching
Starburned and unkissed
As he walks through the school, we (and he) can finally see the signs on the wall. They’re all RED and YELLOW, danger and fear. You betcha. But they’re overlaid with pink drawings about The Pink Opaque, showing you that transness can overcome both.
The signs on the wall read:
“Carpe diem,” “to thine own self be true,” “winners never quit,” “excellence,” “semper fidelis,” “and I took the road less traveled by,” leadership valor service,” “character, scholarship,” “the only easy day was yesterday,” “honor duty country,” “commitment,” “veni vidi vici,” “knowledge is power,” “carpe diem” (again), “courage, without courage all other virtues are meaningless,” “success,” “pain is weakness leaving the body,” “to thine own self be true” (again), “reach for the stars”
Every single one of those can be read as motivation for following your truth, embracing your true self, becoming who you really are, valuing community.
He can see the signs more clearly now, even though they’ve always been there! This is a literal interpretation of THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE (that we’re trans), because we know those signs were there when he was a kid, even though we couldn’t read them.
One realllllllly important thing I want to say here, though.
All of the motivational sayings on those signs? Society throws those at all of us all the time. And they’re exactly what trans people need to transition in this highly transphobic society.
But when we DO that, society says no! Bad! Eww! Wrong! How dare you!
Do what we say and be your true self but not like that.
Imagine how that would feel for you, cis friends. You’ve heard all of those sayings your whole life, too. Maybe they even motivated you to do something, to be true to yourself. And you were congratulated and rewarded for it.
But when we trans people do it, we’re often shunned and mocked for it.
Sit with that for a bit.
26:23 – Look at Owen walking down this hallway, transness on one side and despair on the other. He’s trying to find his way, trapped in this liminal space.
26:54 – He turns before the blue lockers overtake the hall (he’s decided to turn from the despair), into the red darkroom to pick up The Pink Opaque pilot episode on tape (we want this, but danger! What does it mean? What might happen?! What would people say?)
27:17 – He puts the pilot tape into the VCR, the screen in front of him goes blue. He’s accessing his transness, alone. Away from Maddy, away from everyone. And it makes him sad, because he can’t just BE that, he has to hide it from the world.
27:20 – Owen’s face, still bathed in blue. Owen: “I watched these tapes over and over again. But they never got old.” He explored his gender feelings time and time again, and it never became something he didn’t want to do anymore. FOR A REASON, bub.
But why is his face blue? Well. Okay. Listen…
27:34 – Marco and Polo, the moon people, with breasts and beards, in white dresses that look blue, doing their weird dance in the green forest.
This is why his face is blue. This is why he’s still full of despair. Not just because he can’t live his truth, because he’s afraid that if he did… societal transphobia, internalized transphobia, ALL transphobia… has told him this is all he’ll ever be.
Society makes us think, as trans women, we’ll only be seen as “men with breasts.” Makes us think, as trans men, we’ll only be seen as “women with beards.” You could never look like a “real” person of that gender.
NOW HOLD UP.
I don’t want your angry comments. Neither I nor Jane are saying there is anything wrong with having a beard and breasts, don’t get it twisted. I know some people who have both, they’re lovely and wonderful! Be whoever you truly are.
But also our highly transmedicalist society tells us that PASSING AS CISGENDER IS THE GOAL (it is ABSOLUTELY not, but that’s what we’re told). See the Trans Tuesday on MISGENDERING AND PASSING for more.
Our horribly transphobic society implants into all of us thoughts about what being trans “really” is, what it “really” means, the “only right way to do it.” It’s bullshit. IT’S ALL BULLSHIT.
But one bit of common internalized transphobia (and one I certainly had to deal with) was “I could never look like THAT cis woman, so why would I ever transition, I am clearly not trans.”
Society WANTS us thinking that so that we either don’t transition, or if we do we pass and cis and still uphold the false cis binary matrix. It is INSIDIOUS. Even within the trans community, this bullshit idea persists. And it all stems from cis doctors who gatekept medical transition and, for example, used to only “let” trans women access it if we could pass as cis women and were attracted to men.
See the trans tuesday on TRANSMEDICALISM (and WPATH version 1) for the roots of his horrific evil.
And once again, see the trans tuesday on INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA for all the ways society worms these awful thoughts about ourselves INTO ourselves without our consent.
And Marco and Polo’s hair and facial hair are shaped to look like crescent moons, so we know they work for the man in the moon, Mr. Melancholy (transphobia). This is what Owen’s own internalized transphobia is telling him is all he could ever be.
And the last thing a trans woman wants to be seen as is a “man with breasts.” (Transphobes like to call us that, btw, if you’re wondering just how real that is).
Isabel: “What’s happening to me? How do I know these things? Am I going crazy?” This is sure what it feels like when your egg cracks and you’re like, wait… how could the entire world have been lying to me? And yet it was. And does. And is.
Tara: “No. Never let anyone convince you of that. You’re like me. You’re special.” YOU’RE TRANS.
28:40 – Owen is bathed in blue, but LOOK HOW PINK HIS LIPS ARE.
Tara: “We are the pink opaque. It’s our destiny.”
The Matrix talks a lot about this too, the difference between fate or destiny and choice. And what I want you to remember is that in terms of being trans, it’s both. We don’t choose to be trans, that’s the part that’s fate or destiny. We just are. But we choose to transition (or not).
Tara: ”I knew it from the moment I saw your tattoo in the dining hall. Heck, I knew it before I even met you. Can you feel it?” Again, sometimes we can kinda just recognize each other. Something about those of us who exist outside the false binary, I dunno. But it’s there.
And since we’re talking about connection and community, we get this shot again…
29:10 – Isabel: “I don’t even have my learner’s permit yet!” This is about driving on the surface, sure, but it also means, like… this is the first time I’ve ever thought about or explored my own transness. And then, ECHOED BY OWEN AS ISABEL SAYS IT: “How can I have a destiny?”
Right? We didn’t ask for this! We didn’t want it! We can choose what to do with our own lives! Why is this happening to me?
29:17 – Owen’s dad comes in and he speeds to shut the tv off so he isn’t caught. Let me tell you, I lived that moment.
When I was a kid, I don’t know how old, maybe 9 or 10, I was watching this movie on tv that was about lesbians. It wasn’t porn or even R-rated, it was just like… a drama about two women who were in love with each other.
I can’t remember much of anything about it at all (thanks, dissociation! We’ll talk more about that later), other than I was intensely intrigued by it for reasons I couldn’t tell you (not remotely sexual).
Hi, it’s me, I’m a lesbian.
But I didn’t know that at a time, because I had no idea that the feelings I had that made me feel like a girl meant that I was a girl, or that I could BE the girl I really am. And I already knew I liked girls, but I was a boy… right? (no) But that’s what my family and friends and all of society told me! They couldn’t all be wrong, could they? (yes)
Anyway, my mom was virulently homophobic and transphobic and I guess she heard something that made her panic and she came tearing into the room at a run, but I heard her coming and changed the channel really quick.
Because even then, at that age, when nobody in my family had so much said a word EVER acknowledging that anything other than heterosexuality and cisgender people existed, I knew, I Knew, I KNEW they would freak the fuck out and punish me for watching it.
Kids pick up on these things.
29:20 – There’s static all around Owen’s head, his truth is again obscured.
30:09 – Owen is now in pink. All the connection to the show has made him get closer to his own transness. He hasn’t accepted it yet, but he’s closer than he’s ever been. But he still can’t get too close to Maddy or people might talk, might suspect.
He asks if Maddy and Amanda still watch The Pink Opaque together every week. Did you notice Maddie is now in blue, and her hair and clothes have a much more femme presentation than before? She’s pulled back from the more gender-neutral presentation that she was more comfortable in.
Why would she present more femme now? Why is she in despair?
Maddy says she hasn’t talked to “that asshole” in a year. Amanda told the entire school that Maddy “tried to touch her tit,” which is a lie.
Amanda (a fellow trans person, mind you) painted Maddy as a sexual predator. Well… that never ever happens to trans people, nope. (this is sarcasm, if you missed it)
Like, I’m not even going to link you to the million articles calling us sexual predators. It’s just standard bigoted operating procedure now.
But Amanda did that? Yep. And then joined the cheer squad.
Cheerleading is super athletic and great, but allllso cheerleaders generally conform to rigid gender stereotypes… skirts, makeup, long hair. We all know what cheerleaders look like.
So what we have here is that Amanda rejected her transness and dove into pretending to be as cis as she could. Remember how she dressed way more femme, and could not escape all the dysphoria that was around her when we saw her before? And I said it’d be relevant later? Later is now!
She couldn’t escape her dysphoria, so she gave up on her transness and dove head-first into conforming to compulsory cishet life because that’s what others expected to see from her. Including perpetuating dangerous transphobic lies about Maddy, to help distance herself from her (see? I’m not trans like her! She was just assaulting me, the creep!).
Amanda’s a pick-me. A Caitlyn Jenner. A Buck Angel. From The Matrix (Reloaded, most all), the Merovingian. A trans person who sold out the rest of us, due to the way society rewards you for conforming to that compulsory cishetness they force on all of us.
And this was telegraphed from earlier, with her Black & Milds. She cared about “appearing cool,” because the way she appeared to others was more important than how she appeared to herself. And so of course she conformed to what society told her was the “right” way to be.
Ugh. Screw you AND your Black & Milds, Amanda.
And I think Maddy is more femme-presenting here than she’s been so far… longer hair, a femme tank, a long skirt, more makeup on… because she liked Amanda (not romantically, I don’t think, just as another trans person). But she got caught up in Amanda’s regression and thought if she did it, too, maybe Amanda would still like her. But no, that’s not how it works, is it?
Or, perhaps, Maddy tried to give up her transness too, but discovered she couldn’t, or didn’t want to. Because being your true self was more important.
Maybe it’s both of those things. And she’s mad at herself for letting someone push her to be less like her true self.
31:17 – Owen: “If you wanted, I could come over again.” Remember when WE explored our transness together? We could maybe do that some more! They clear up this is not a sexual thing. Maddy is into girls, and Owen is genuinely like… that’s fine, I don’t care. I don’t think he’s romantically or sexually into Maddy, but Owen IS a girl so either way that doesn’t bother him.
31:20 – In the commentary, Jane: “Justice and his very prevalent Adams Apple there, that’s how you know he’s trans.” Like, Jane was joking, yes, but… it’s funny because it’s true.
32:40 – Maddy asks him if he likes girls and/or boys. Owen: “When I think about that stuff, it feels like someone took a shovel and dug out all my insides. And I know there’s nothing in there, but I’m still too nervous to open myself up and check.”
You can feel hollow when trying to think about who you are romantically or sexually attracted to, because you don’t understand your own gender and that super complicates things. See The trans Tuesday on SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER.
Note that Owen’s AFRAID to look inside, and it’s not because there’s nothing in there, because he’s afraid if he explores those feelings he’ll discover what IS in there is his transness. And remember he DOES open himself up and look at the end of the movie! He progresses. He changes. He is not the same Owen at the end (remember that).
33:03 – Owen: “I know there’s something wrong with me.” That’s what society tells you about the feelings you have when you’re trans. “My parents know it too, even if they don’t say anything.” He’s afraid of what they’d say, and they already treat him like they know.
My parents subconsciously knew I was trans, even if they consciously didn’t realize. This is something I’ve talked about with multiple other trans women who were the eldest child in their families and had similar experiences.
Our parents, even my VERY rigid-gender-role ones, never treated me like an eldest son. They treated me like an eldest daughter. And so many other trans women have said the same.
Subconsciously, they picked up on cues (maybe in the same way we trans people can sometimes spot each other), and somewhere in there they KNEW, and they treated us like it… even while consciously berating, mocking, and punishing us for any behaviors outside the cishet “norm.”
Cis boys totally did this, too (and many trans women I’ve talked to also experienced this). Subconsciously they pick up on how different we are, how we don’t conform to what they expect cis boys to be, and then punish us for it.
It was a wild and bad time, friends.
33:29 – Owen asks Maddy if she feels hollowed-out, and she says she doesn’t know. She doesn’t want to admit it, but look at her face. She absolutely does feel that way (this is some great acting by Brigette Lundy-Paine).
38:38 – Maddy: “Maybe you’re like Isabel. Afraid of what’s inside you” AHA! Yeah, just maybe he is.
And what do you think happens when all of society teaches you to be afraid of the truth you feel might be deep inside you? It’s a rough journey, friends.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com