by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2016 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved
After From This Day
Forward PBS showed a filler short
on a similar theme, but with some intriguing differences: Pink Boy, also a story about coming out Transgender in an
unforgivingly Right-wing environment (Tallahassee, Florida instead of rural
Michigan), but with the differences being that the male-to-female Transboy is
only seven years old and her foster mother is B. J., a butch Lesbian — she goes
through virtually the whole movie wearing a T-shirt that reads “BUTCH,” just in
case you didn’t get the message from her low, growly voice, her stocky build,
her masculine manner and her overall presentation — the kid’s 51-year-old
great-aunt who steps in when Jessie, a.k.a. Jeffrey, is taken from his/her
mom’s home by Child Protective Services, something B. J. identifies with
because she was frequently removed
from her mom’s home and placed in foster care when she was a child, and she
wants to make sure no one in her family suffers the same fate she did. This
means she has to get a crash course in “femininity,” embracing pink colors and
all sorts of phenomena traditionally associated with womanhood but which she’s
consciously avoided before in her own life. It means learning about Barbie
dolls and helping Jessie with her makeup the year she decides that her
trick-or-treat costume for Hallowe’en will be a Princess.
