Odelay
07-10-2007, 01:43 AM
I'm not trying to hijack the HA Book Club thread here, but I was curious to find few or no mention of titles which had transsexual characters in it.
I was recently reflecting on the fact that I read John Irving's The World According to Garp some 25 years ago. It was actually published in 1978! To me it was groundbreaking because there were some significant TS characters and themes in it, especially around transitioning. In fact, the ending (which is really an epilogue so I'm not spoiling anything here) has Garp's son meeting a pre-op TS and marrying her after her transition. The movie version of Garp (with Robin Williams) isn't bad either, although they truncate the story by not including the epilogue scene. John Lithgow's character as the former Philadelphia Eagles Tight End who becomes a transsexual is memorable. I can vividly recall the one scene where s/he visits Garp and complains about how the hormones she is taking are killing her.
Another gender transformation story I enjoyed was Robert Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil from 1987. This one has a twist as an old decaying multi-millionaire self-funds a brain transplant for himself and happens to wake up as a gorgeous woman as that turned out to be the transplant body. Then he/she figures out how cool it is to be a woman and have sex as a woman.
On the movie end I can think of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Crying Game, and of course, Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Anyone else see or read anything "fictional" with similar themes?
I was recently reflecting on the fact that I read John Irving's The World According to Garp some 25 years ago. It was actually published in 1978! To me it was groundbreaking because there were some significant TS characters and themes in it, especially around transitioning. In fact, the ending (which is really an epilogue so I'm not spoiling anything here) has Garp's son meeting a pre-op TS and marrying her after her transition. The movie version of Garp (with Robin Williams) isn't bad either, although they truncate the story by not including the epilogue scene. John Lithgow's character as the former Philadelphia Eagles Tight End who becomes a transsexual is memorable. I can vividly recall the one scene where s/he visits Garp and complains about how the hormones she is taking are killing her.
Another gender transformation story I enjoyed was Robert Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil from 1987. This one has a twist as an old decaying multi-millionaire self-funds a brain transplant for himself and happens to wake up as a gorgeous woman as that turned out to be the transplant body. Then he/she figures out how cool it is to be a woman and have sex as a woman.
On the movie end I can think of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Crying Game, and of course, Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Anyone else see or read anything "fictional" with similar themes?