I am coming to the end of Mary L Gray's Out in the Country, and as usual, I am looking forward to the concluding chapter tomorrow. That is the problem with doing "whole" books; I reach a point where I'm no longer sure if the meanings I find are the meanings that are intended. This chapter, "To Be Real: Transidentification on the Discovery Channel," deals primarily with the meanings two rural trans youth make out of the Documentary "What Sex Am I?" that aired on the Discovery Channel.
What it seems to boil down to, after all of the theorizing and quoting, is that we cannot, or should not, rely on textual analysis of any one piece to determine its usefulness. As Gray argues, "these narratives of queer realness are compelling not as particular grouping of cinematic, televisual, or digital texts but as situated, discursive practices that mark the local boundaries of LGBT identities" (2811-2827).
She proves her point by describing the realness that the documentary "What Sex Am I?" has on the two youths mentioned: one an MTF and one a FTM. The show had a profound effect on the FTM. He even recorded it so that he could sit down with his mom and watch it. The point being, the FTM has a supportive family, lives within two hours of medical treatment for the transition, and was allowed to leave school and pursue his GED online to avoid the harassment from classmates. When his family makes the two hour trip for medical treatment, they also go see the friends that he has made via his internet connections. Within this context, the documentary opened up an entire new world for this FTM and set him on a path to his true identity.
The other youth, the MTF, has a much different story. When she caught the show on the Discovery Channel, she watched in constant fear that her parents would return any moment and make her turn the channel. She lives in an area where the closest medical treatment would be 4 hours away, she is constantly fearful that her parents will discover what she is searching for on the internet on the computer in the family room (and in fact they did find emails on this topic and took away her internet privileges), and she is still in public school where she worries that others will discover her secret. While the documentary helped make real her feelings, it did little to change her world.
Gray set out to determine "how does it [media] come to matter or to occupy a place of importance in a rural young person's negotiation of queerness" (2845-2860). It becomes apparent that media has to be considered within the context the viewing, not just the media itself.
What it seems to boil down to, after all of the theorizing and quoting, is that we cannot, or should not, rely on textual analysis of any one piece to determine its usefulness. As Gray argues, "these narratives of queer realness are compelling not as particular grouping of cinematic, televisual, or digital texts but as situated, discursive practices that mark the local boundaries of LGBT identities" (2811-2827).
She proves her point by describing the realness that the documentary "What Sex Am I?" has on the two youths mentioned: one an MTF and one a FTM. The show had a profound effect on the FTM. He even recorded it so that he could sit down with his mom and watch it. The point being, the FTM has a supportive family, lives within two hours of medical treatment for the transition, and was allowed to leave school and pursue his GED online to avoid the harassment from classmates. When his family makes the two hour trip for medical treatment, they also go see the friends that he has made via his internet connections. Within this context, the documentary opened up an entire new world for this FTM and set him on a path to his true identity.
The other youth, the MTF, has a much different story. When she caught the show on the Discovery Channel, she watched in constant fear that her parents would return any moment and make her turn the channel. She lives in an area where the closest medical treatment would be 4 hours away, she is constantly fearful that her parents will discover what she is searching for on the internet on the computer in the family room (and in fact they did find emails on this topic and took away her internet privileges), and she is still in public school where she worries that others will discover her secret. While the documentary helped make real her feelings, it did little to change her world.
Gray set out to determine "how does it [media] come to matter or to occupy a place of importance in a rural young person's negotiation of queerness" (2845-2860). It becomes apparent that media has to be considered within the context the viewing, not just the media itself.
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