TransGeneration is an American documentary-style reality television series that affords a view into the lives of four transgender college students during the 2004–2005 academic year. Two of the students are trans women, and two are trans men. Each of them attends a different school in the United States, and they are each at a different stage of their degree programs. The filmmakers document events in the students' academic careers, their social and family lives, and their transitions.
TransGeneration was commissioned by the Sundance Channel, and produced by World of Wonder. Sundance commissioned the series as part of a concerted effort to vary their programming and revise their image. The inspiration for the show was an article in The New York Times about transgender students at US colleges.
A feature-length preview of the series premiered at the Frameline Film Festival in June 2005, and was screened at numerous other venues before the television debut. The complete, eight-episode series aired on the Sundance Channel from September to November 2005, and on Logo TV from January to February 2006. In Italy it aired on Cult, a satellite television channel. It was released on DVD in the US in March 2006, and on Google Video and iTunes a few months later. That year, TransGeneration won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary, and was a nominee for the IDA Documentary Award in the Limited Series category. The response to the show from critics and other viewers ranged from exuberant to dismissive. In addition, some viewers believed the show had distinct educational value, while others felt that the chosen narratives oversimplified the subject.
A year after taping the series, World of Wonder produced a half-hour reunion show, TransGeneration Reunion. Among World of Wonder's later transgender programs are Sex Change Hospital (2007), Transamerican Love Story (2008), and Becoming Chaz (2011).
Overview TransGeneration introduces viewers to four transgender college students—two trans women and two trans men—who are each studying at a different college in the United States during the 2004–2005 academic year. The series begins in the autumn of 2004, and concludes with an epilogue in the summer of 2005. Each episode revisits the students at an eventful time in their lives, and concentrates on life events that pertain directly to transgender experience.
The youngest of the four is Raci, a first-year student at a state university near the West Coast of the United States. Gabbie is a second-year student at a public university in the US's Interior West. Lucas is in his final year of undergraduate study at a women's college in the Northeastern US. The eldest of the four, T.J., is a graduate student in the first year of a master's degree program at a state university in the Midwestern US.
The students
Raci "Raycee" Ignacio Raci was born on February 5, 1985, in the Philippines. She attends California State University, Los Angeles on a merit-based scholarship, and must maintain a GPA of at least 3.5. She moved to the United States at the age of 15, and she is now beginning her university studies in history with a pre-law option. Raci is on hormone replacement therapy (HRT). She wants to be seen as normal girl, and is reluctant to reveal that she is a trans woman. She is also poor and hearing-impaired; she speaks English as a second language, and she is living away from her mother for the first time. Raci and her aunt rent a small room in Eastside Los Angeles. Andrea Gabrielle "Gabbie" Gibson 19-year-old Gabbie was born on April 22, 1985, in Redlands, California. She is a sophomore at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she majors in computer science. She started HRT in February 2004, and since then has lived full-time as a woman. She is a resident assistant in a dormitory. Because of their community restroom policy, the university assigned Gabbie a private room with attached bath. She has become active in LGBT student activities, and anticipates her upcoming genital reassignment surgery. Gabbie is candid with others about being trans, but she wants to be understood as a person with more to her identity than her gender. Lucas Cheadle Lucas was born on November 3, 1982, in Oklahoma. He attends Smith College, a private, women-only college in Massachusetts. Lucas is a neuroscience major in his senior year; he has fought for transgender rights for his entire college career. He has not yet started hormone replacement therapy, and is cautious about it. Lucas' parents are divorced; his mother and brother know that he is trans, but his father does not. Lucas plays guitar in a punk band, and lives in an apartment with his friend Kasey, a trans man who has been on HRT for eight months. Trent Jackson "T.J." Jourian T.J. was born on June 6, 1981, in Beirut, Lebanon. He is of Armenian descent; he grew up in Cyprus, and came to the US for the first time in 1999. He is a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a master's degree in student affairs administration at Michigan State University. Outgoing and involved, T.J. is active in several student organizations pertaining to performance art, gender, and social change. He lives with other students in a housing cooperative. His mother lives in a close-knit Armenian community in Cyprus, where the news would surely travel if T.J. transitions. Because his mother opposes his transition, and because he must return to Cyprus for two years due to a travel visa requirement, he has not yet started HRT.
Episodes
TransGeneration Reunion In the spring of 2006, after TransGeneration was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award, the filmmakers gathered the four students in Los Angeles, where they taped a reunion show and attended the awards ceremony.
Development The idea for TransGeneration came in 2004. Lawyer and journalist Fred Bernstein had written an article about transgender students at US colleges and universities. The New York Times published the piece in March; some Sundance Channel staffers (including Adam Pincus, senior vice president of original programming) read it, and saw potential for a documentary series. The idea got executive approval, and Sundance commissioned World of Wonder Productions to make the series.
The Sundance Channel, which was partially owned by media conglomerate Viacom, divided TransGeneration'''s production cost with Logo TV, an LGBT-themed cable channel that Viacom was preparing to launch. Sundance assumed most of the cost. The companies planned for Sundance to air the show first, followed by Logo several months later. One reason why they aired the series on both channels was because Sundance and Logo had distinct target audiences.TransGeneration was produced at a time when the Sundance Channel was actively working to expand their library of original programming, to outsource production, and to foster a public image as a channel for independent thinking. Sundance's research concluded that their viewers wanted a broader range of programming, and that their viewers were more likely to consider themselves "independent thinkers" than "independent film fanatics". Later that year, the channel premiered two new and original series: TransGeneration in September, and Iconoclasts in November.
Production
World of Wonder founders Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato served as executive producers. Adam Pincus was the initial executive producer for the Sundance Channel, later joined by Laura Michalchyshyn; Lauren Lazin and Eileen Opatut were executive producers for Logo. The producer was Thairin Smothers of World of Wonder, and Ashley York of Sundance was a segment producer. The director and supervising producer was Jeremy Simmons, who had previously directed the 2003 documentary Gay Hollywood for World of Wonder.
To cast the series, Jeremy Simmons and Thairin Smothers posted to LGBT Internet forums and electronic mailing lists, and visited college campuses. In August 2004 they traveled around the country to meet the shortlisted candidates. Smothers said that their main casting goal was diversity. Diverse representation was also important to T.J. Jourian, one of the four students cast for the show: "What pushed me to do it was the idea of showing trans people of color, pushing beyond the American image of a gay white man." "I didn’t want to be in anything where I was representing the whole community.… What I want to do is just give another example of a way to be."
The film crew recorded the students on campus, at home, with their friends and families, at medical appointments, and at transgender-related events. Some footage was recorded by the students themselves. In February 2005, the administration at Smith College prohibited the crew from continuing to film one of the documentary's subjects, Lucas Cheadle, on campus (except in his apartment). Cheadle asked the dean of students to reconsider, but his appeal was denied. Smith College has received considerable media attention about questions regarding transgender students.
Marketing When the Sundance Channel decided to broadcast more original programs, they also planned to support those programs with integrated marketing campaigns. In the months leading up to TransGeneration's TV premiere, Sundance promoted the series across a range of media, including advertisements and mentions in several gay and lesbian magazines; posters; television ads on the Sundance Channel, NBC, and VH1 (all of which are properties of the corporate stakeholders, Viacom and NBCUniversal); preview screenings at more than 150 LGBT events; a billboard in Los Angeles; and MTA bus advertisements in New York (one of which wound up in the background of a scene in The Devil Wears Prada).
Broadcasts, releases, and screenings
For preview screenings, the series was edited to an 83-minute feature film. The global premiere of the film version was on June 23, 2005, at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, for the 29th Frameline Film Festival. This was the first occasion on which the four students were able to meet. After the screening, the audience greeted director Jeremy Simmons and producer Thairin Smothers with a standing ovation. A second standing ovation followed as Gabbie, T.J., Lucas, and Raci walked to the stage.
Screenings at more film festivals followed, including Outfest in July; the Gay Orlando Film Festival and the North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in August; and the Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, the Houston Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival in September. At the North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, T.J. Jourian was on hand to answer questions.
Of the approximately 150 preview screenings before the television premiere, most were at US colleges and universities. Among these were the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Georgia, Depauw University, Boise State University, and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Some off-campus screenings were organised in collaboration with LGBT groups, such as the San Francisco LGBT Community Center and the United Gays and Lesbians of Wyoming.
In advance of the television debut, PlanetOut Video streamed the first episode via Gay.com and PlanetOut.com. The series aired on the Sundance Channel from September 20 to November 8, 2005, and on Logo TV from January 9 to February 27, 2006. Both channels gave it an evening time slot. The Sundance Channel reran the series in May 2012, followed by a marathon in June. In Italy, it was syndicated by the satellite television channel Cult in 2006.
New Video Group released TransGeneration on DVD in the US on March 28, 2006, under their Docurama imprint. The two-disc DVD set includes about 19 minutes of deleted scenes. In the summer of 2006, the Sundance Channel also made the series available to rent or buy through Google Video, and later marketed it on iTunes.
Reception Before the television premiere