Last night I had the opportunity to watch the HBO movie "Normal". This movie is about a man who has been married for 25 years, and decides that he wants a sex change operation. The movie looks at different aspects of what he has to endure, as well as the problems that arise with family and friends.
While I would like to applaud HBO for breaching a subject that few understand unless it has directly effected them, I feel they could have done more to explain what it is that a person with gender dysphoira goes through.
The movie began with Roy and his wife talking to their preacher. A few minutes into the discussion, Roy admits that he feels like a man trapped in a woman's body. He tells his wife and the preacher that he wants to go on hormones and have the sex reassignment surgery.
The movie goes on to show his wife's denial, the rpoblems with his parents, the problems he faces at work, as well as the problems with his children, mainly his son. At one point, we even see Roy on the verge of comitting suicide. The movie ends the night before Roy is to have his surgery.
For anyone that watches this movie, understand, while this movie does put out some good information and some very good facts, it leaves out a lot of what people with gender dysphoria go through. The movie never touches on the counseling and therapy that a person with GID has to go through. That is the first step before a person can even consider hormones.
Second, the movie makes it appear that the hormones had their full effect within one year. This is not true. Some people will be on hormones for three years or more before they have their surgery. Another point where HBO took liberties is in Roy being able to have surgery a year after starting hormones. In order to have surgery, according to the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association's Standards of Care, a person must have lived full time in their preferred gender for one year, and have two letters, one from a liscenced psychiatrist, before they can have surgery.
At no time did HBO ever make reference to the required therapy that a person with GID goes through, nor did they ever mention the Standards of Care. Also, the scene where suicide was contemplated was out of sequence. Most all people with GID who contemplate suicide do so before they ever know that it is GID that effects them. Many suceed in suicide. The ones who do not, usually then find out the truth about themselves, and the threapy and transition begins.
HBO did do good in explaining some of the effects of hormones, as well as the workplace issues that often arise. They also did a good portrayal on the problems that are faced by family, including denial, confusion, the feeling that the person effected is being selfish, and loss of family.
Really this movie would have been better if it had been a weekly series so that more information could have been put out, or at least a mini-series movie. It is impossible to put everything that someone with GID goes through into a two hour movie and do it justice.
I rate Normal as a good try, but lacking in the parts that were really needed. Normal will be aired again on HBO. It is rated mature, since it deals with a very touchy subject, and does have some strong langauge.
You can join Unsolved Mysteries and post your own mysteries or
interesting stories for the world to read and respond to Click hereScroll all the way down to read replies.Show all stories by Author:  47296 ( Click here )
Spring is coming |
