Television documentary follows transgendered student at Smith
Lucas' Search For His Identity
Smith Grad Is One Of Four Transgender Students In Sundance Series
September 20, 2005
By ROGER CATLIN, Courant TV Critic
It was a simple choice for the Oklahoma high school senior to attend Smith College in Northampton.
"Academically it's one of the top schools in the country," says the student, who graduated from Smith with highest honors in May. "It's one of the only schools that offer a neurosurgery major. And it had very good financial aid. It just happens to be a women's college."
The gender issue wasn't quite as black and white for the student, born as Leah 22 years ago but more recently known as Lucas.
He didn't realize there was such a thing as transgender students - and that he was one - until he got there. Not that it was some kind of campus fad.
"It's not something that suddenly happened to me," Lucas says by phone from his home near Tulsa. "I spent my entire life with a certain problem. I didn't have any language to use to understand where I was coming from.
"As a young child, I was more masculine, and I had trouble relating to people in ways they could understand. When you're 2, you hardly know what transgender is.
"The issue has been there my entire life," Lucas says. "That made it very identifiable when somebody gave me a word for it. That's when I realized it. I started taking steps to let people I knew that I knew."
At first that came in making more visible the transgender support group at Smith. It comes with a wider impact in a new eight-episode series that follows Lucas and three other transgender students from other campuses.
"TransGeneration" begins tonight on Sundance Channel, in cooperation with the Logo network.
It's produced by World of Wonder, maker of such films as "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," "Party Monster" and "Monica in Black and White."
"They have a way of looking at characters who might be challenging for audiences or people might have preconceptions about and finding a way to really humanize them," says Adam Pincus, senior vice president of original programming at Sundance, who said he got the idea for the series from a New York Times article.
"One of the things that we've been trying to do with the documentary work is to find stories and characters who are really pushing things in new directions and challenging the status quo," Pincus says. "These kids are pretty radically redefining what their gender identity means to them. And they're smart, and they're articulate."
Besides Lucas, the subjects are:
Gabbie, 21, a male turning female at the University of Colorado, entering her junior year, the only one of the four to undergo surgery during filming.
Raci, 20, a male-to-female entering her sophomore year at California State University in Los Angeles, who was most reticent to tell her fellow students what the camera crews were about. "They're doing a documentary on women in college," she'd fib.
T.J., 24, a graduate student at Michigan State University, an activist who has the most trouble getting accepted by her parents, who are of Armenian descent.
"The only thing these four have in common is that they're dealing with an issue of gender in some way," says Jeremy Simmons, director and supervising producer of "TransGeneration." "These are four very different experiences we're showing."
"We're almost like polar opposites," Lucas says of his fellow subjects, whom he met at an early screening of the film.
The producers said they tried to reach out through groups and on the Internet to find the right people. In the case of Lucas, it was his roommate, Kasey, whom they had originally come out to interview a year ago. After months of filming, Lucas says, "We didn't know who was going to be the focus until after the school year ended."
Why agree to do it?
"I guess overall I wanted people to appreciate the aspects of me that they can relate to that didn't have anything to do with gender reassignment," says Lucas, who adds that he's been a fan of documentary film and Sundance.
Parents of all the subjects eventually become part of the series, and Lucas' mother emerges as "so incredibly likable," Pincus says. "It's so counter to what some people's preconceptions would be about what that woman's reaction and experience of her son is," he says. "She goes through a whole process that you see in the course of the show."
Now that it's about to be seen, "my mom is very anxious," Lucas says. "She's worried someone she knows is going to see it, which is understandable. My dad is not so anxious about that, but he's extremely aware on how it's being marketed."
The series' promotional catchphrase is: "Four college students switching more than their majors."
"He doesn't understand that you have to trivialize the issue to create public interest," Lucas says.
Lucas says he feels a little anxious in advance of his life's being shown on national TV. "But mostly I'm excited in a positive way."
As he decides his next move in his graduate education, he says he feels more comfortable in Oklahoma, ironically, than he did in the famously liberal enclave.
"I'd come home and just be read as male," he says. "Then I'd go back to Northampton, and there'd be so many lesbians there, they'd know me as female."
Smith Grad Is One Of Four Transgender Students In Sundance Series
September 20, 2005
By ROGER CATLIN, Courant TV Critic
It was a simple choice for the Oklahoma high school senior to attend Smith College in Northampton.
"Academically it's one of the top schools in the country," says the student, who graduated from Smith with highest honors in May. "It's one of the only schools that offer a neurosurgery major. And it had very good financial aid. It just happens to be a women's college."
The gender issue wasn't quite as black and white for the student, born as Leah 22 years ago but more recently known as Lucas.
He didn't realize there was such a thing as transgender students - and that he was one - until he got there. Not that it was some kind of campus fad.
"It's not something that suddenly happened to me," Lucas says by phone from his home near Tulsa. "I spent my entire life with a certain problem. I didn't have any language to use to understand where I was coming from.
"As a young child, I was more masculine, and I had trouble relating to people in ways they could understand. When you're 2, you hardly know what transgender is.
"The issue has been there my entire life," Lucas says. "That made it very identifiable when somebody gave me a word for it. That's when I realized it. I started taking steps to let people I knew that I knew."
At first that came in making more visible the transgender support group at Smith. It comes with a wider impact in a new eight-episode series that follows Lucas and three other transgender students from other campuses.
"TransGeneration" begins tonight on Sundance Channel, in cooperation with the Logo network.
It's produced by World of Wonder, maker of such films as "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," "Party Monster" and "Monica in Black and White."
"They have a way of looking at characters who might be challenging for audiences or people might have preconceptions about and finding a way to really humanize them," says Adam Pincus, senior vice president of original programming at Sundance, who said he got the idea for the series from a New York Times article.
"One of the things that we've been trying to do with the documentary work is to find stories and characters who are really pushing things in new directions and challenging the status quo," Pincus says. "These kids are pretty radically redefining what their gender identity means to them. And they're smart, and they're articulate."
Besides Lucas, the subjects are:
Gabbie, 21, a male turning female at the University of Colorado, entering her junior year, the only one of the four to undergo surgery during filming.
Raci, 20, a male-to-female entering her sophomore year at California State University in Los Angeles, who was most reticent to tell her fellow students what the camera crews were about. "They're doing a documentary on women in college," she'd fib.
T.J., 24, a graduate student at Michigan State University, an activist who has the most trouble getting accepted by her parents, who are of Armenian descent.
"The only thing these four have in common is that they're dealing with an issue of gender in some way," says Jeremy Simmons, director and supervising producer of "TransGeneration." "These are four very different experiences we're showing."
"We're almost like polar opposites," Lucas says of his fellow subjects, whom he met at an early screening of the film.
The producers said they tried to reach out through groups and on the Internet to find the right people. In the case of Lucas, it was his roommate, Kasey, whom they had originally come out to interview a year ago. After months of filming, Lucas says, "We didn't know who was going to be the focus until after the school year ended."
Why agree to do it?
"I guess overall I wanted people to appreciate the aspects of me that they can relate to that didn't have anything to do with gender reassignment," says Lucas, who adds that he's been a fan of documentary film and Sundance.
Parents of all the subjects eventually become part of the series, and Lucas' mother emerges as "so incredibly likable," Pincus says. "It's so counter to what some people's preconceptions would be about what that woman's reaction and experience of her son is," he says. "She goes through a whole process that you see in the course of the show."
Now that it's about to be seen, "my mom is very anxious," Lucas says. "She's worried someone she knows is going to see it, which is understandable. My dad is not so anxious about that, but he's extremely aware on how it's being marketed."
The series' promotional catchphrase is: "Four college students switching more than their majors."
"He doesn't understand that you have to trivialize the issue to create public interest," Lucas says.
Lucas says he feels a little anxious in advance of his life's being shown on national TV. "But mostly I'm excited in a positive way."
As he decides his next move in his graduate education, he says he feels more comfortable in Oklahoma, ironically, than he did in the famously liberal enclave.
"I'd come home and just be read as male," he says. "Then I'd go back to Northampton, and there'd be so many lesbians there, they'd know me as female."