Last week, our downstairs friend who is a huge Grey’s Anatomy fan, called us at the very start of the show, telling us only “there’s a plot line you’ll want to see.” So we watched as a trans woman character came to the hospital for her GRS surgery, and were quite surprised – as were, no doubt, lots of viewers – that her wife had accompanied her there.
(You can read more about the episode, and even view it online, at the Grey’s Anatomy website. Spoilers below, so go watch it first.)
That fact of it alone was a great education for a lot of people, making the clear point that plenty of trans women prefer females, thank you very much.
While some of the informaton on the show was a little off – like when they implied that if she went on hormones her beard would come back, completely eliminating the likeliness of laser hair removal or electrolysis – it was absolutely an empathetic portrayal. The monogues by the wife were especially accurate, that odd combination of gallows humor and anger and sadness and sympathy that so many trans partners express about transition.
Most accurate, I thought, was a key moment when the trans woman is being told the hormones she’s taking to be a woman are giving her breast cancer & she doesn’t want to give them up, and the wife – frustrated & scared – uses her partners male name to tell her to “Wake up!” and flees the room after she does. Not much later, she talked about going on dates only to find that she wanted to talk to her “best friend” about those dates – like you do – and finding her husband, male or female, was her best friend. Which is how she ended up holding her hand for surgery.
It’s that “best friend” bit that’s most problematic to me. Betty is my best friend, has been since the minute we met. She’s also my teacher, my role model, my mentor, my child. All of them. And all of those things could and would stay in tact post transition. But it’s that other role – lover, husband, monogamous pervert – that’s the problem. Desire is desire, and it’s very hard to predict what might make it go away.
I talk about this at length in the new book of course – of course! – but I did want to thank the writers of Grey’s Anatomy for doing an excellent job portraying the feelings of het partners of trans women.
Feel free to come discuss the episode further on our boards.