Transgender Character A First For TV

Well, it's interesting and encouraging to see more diversity on TV. I wonder how story lines like this one really impact the folks that watch them. It may be a sense of sensational freakery that motivates them to continue watching, but can stories like these actually change the way people think about the GLBT community?

Good luck to AMC and to "Zarf" (sounds like an alien to me, maybe that's the next spin). Once the story of the transition is told, it will be interesting to see if they are willing to stick with her as a regular on the show.  If not, maybe she could join the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.

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 from cnn.com

In a story unusual even for a soap opera and believed to be a television first, ABC's "All My Children" this week will introduce a transgender character who is beginning to make the transition from a man into a woman. The character, a flamboyant rock star known as Zarf, kisses the lesbian character Bianca and much drama ensues. The storyline begins with Thursday's episode of the daytime drama.

There have been a handful of post-surgical transgender characters in television shows, including a college professor in the 2001 prime-time CBS series "The Education of Max Bickford" and a model in the short-lived ABC soap opera "The City" in 1996, according to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Showtime's "The L Word" currently features a character changing from a woman into a man.

"All My Children" was looking for something new, and knows its audience is always interested in anything to do with sexuality, said Julie Hanan Carruthers, the show's executive producer. "After 36 years, you start rehashing," she said. "It's inevitable. We didn't want to fall back on the baby-switch story again." The show wasn't interested in doing something just to be sensational, she said. GLAAD and some transgenders were brought in as consultants in shaping the character, teaching the producers when it is appropriate to call a character "she" even before surgery, she said.

Damon Romine, a spokesman for GLAAD, said he hasn't seen the show yet but feels people involved were genuinely interested in telling the story with dignity. Emotions are so close to the surface in soap operas, and this story can serve a purpose by showing what transgenders go through, he said. "I think it's groundbreaking and breakthrough television for daytime to put a spotlight on transgender people and tell their story," he said.