We're okay with the L, G, and B.. how about the T?

The world has come a long way since "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."  That cult classic, a favorite when I was in college, was always considered "way out there", mostly because of its very offbeat plot, involving transvestites and transsexuals.  Conventional movie theatres wouldn't show it during regular hours, so it became a midnight special, and it has remained in that time slot for an amazingly long running.

                                 

The sight of Tim Curry in women's clothing and high heels was a shock to my college self.  I guess I had never thought about transvestites.  They were about as far from my teenaged existence as Martians.  When I did think about them, I have to confess it was with a bit of disgust.  Why on earth, my very sophisticated self thought, would a man want to dress up and act like a woman?  Such people lived in a subterranean world, not only to me but to the vast majority of people, because that is where we consigned them.

One evening not long ago, my mate and I were bored and looking for a movie.  We both like sports and ESPN specials.  We happened upon a movie called "Renee". 

Out of curiosity we watched it and were spellbound from the first.  "Renee" chronicles the life of surgeon and tennis player Renee Richards, born Richard Raskind.  In her life as Richard -- she was born male -- she was a ladies' man, tennis wunderkind, Naval officer, and all-round high-achieving male of the alpha-male variety.  But she had a secret -- she wanted to be a woman.  She knew that was her true self.  She became one of the first to seek gender reassignment, at a time when that surgery was fairly primitive.  She went on to try and compete as a woman in the U.S. Open, and fought fierce opposition to do so.  Many felt she had an unfair advantage in having a man's height and physique, despite the surgery and hormones she had taken.  Eventually the Supreme Court ruled in her favor and she did play, although she did not place highly.

Renee's life was an unhappy one, and one that makes one reflect deeply upon our society and the judgments we put on those who are truly born different.  Most of us accept our gender unthinkingly.  But for a significant minority, it isn't that easy.  We've come a long way toward accepting sexual differences.  But transsexuals remain on the outer edge of acceptance.  Watching a movie like "Renee" really brings the realization home...we are still so primitive in our embrace of all humanity, of those who don't fit at all in our little preconceived ideas of normalcy.  Isn't it time we saw transgendered people not as freaks, but as our own selves -- just with a different gender identity?