Oprah started the show (07/02/2008) with what I call a “Braveheart speech” or a “cya”(cover your a**) on why she is having shows that are determined to teach us to be tolerant and accepting of different people. She genuinely believes that it might not happen in her time, but future generations will be; but the least she can do is bring light and understanding to her viewers. I feel she knows how conservative people, some her viewers, are and will obviously shoot her down by saying she is promoting what “God” is completely against. But I, as an eternal Oprah fan, say “Bravo, Oprah! You inspire me and hopefully the world should learn that we are all God’s children with all our faults and choices. As Maya wrote “You make me proud to spell my name W-O-M-A-N. You are a phenomenal woman.” Keep teaching us so we can know better, understand and do better”
Angelika The show was centered around two young people that feel they were born in the wrong body and are going through changes to “fix” it. Angelika, was born and raised a boy but felt from a very young age, 4 or 5, that he was born in the wrong body; he was meant to be a girl. Now, at 21, he has transformed (still transforming) his body and is living as a woman. She says she always felt like a girl, acted like one and was hectically bullied because she was different. She took us to her old neighbourhood to painfully share her past there. She didn’t seem comfortable there at all! She seemed sad and almost on the brink of tears as she told us how her family felt embarrassed by her. Her descriptions of her mother’s behaviour concerning her feelings were not supportive. I, personally, think that the mother was hurt, confused and completely thrown off her guard to have a male child that felt, behaved and wanted to be a female. But as a child, all you really want is your mother or parent to just understand.
Angelika, as a young boyShe says at the age of 4 or 5 she would look in the mirror and know in her mind that she is meant to be a girl but looking at her privates always confused her they were male genitals. She was raised Catholic and believed that if she prayed hard enough God would make him what he was meant to be so she would pray over and over and over again for this. All she wanted to do was play with the other girls, with their Barbie’s and hang out but she was not allowed to. This would just add more frustration and confusion to her. At, 15, Angelika started her transformation to be a transgender female. She told her mother that she was gay – I guess to make it easier on her mother. She admits that the “coming out” still did not feel right, as she genuinely believes she was not meant to be born a boy but a girl.
Angelika, now Angelika showed us how she gets ready for her days; with a little make-up. She says she gets complimented a lot on her Angelina Jolie lips and she loves it because they are real. She also gets complimented on her hips which she has to wear padding to give her some curves. Her chin hides her Adam’s apple a little bit but at times you can see it. She has to take testosterone blocker pills four times a day. My Gaad, people forget to take prevention pills once a day, what would have happened if they had to take them this much?
Jake Jake, now 16, was born a girl named Julia. At 7, she declared to her mother that she was born in the wrong body and should be a boy. Her mother, Peggy, just figured Julia was a tomboy and would maybe grow up to be a lesbian. Julia loved playing with trucks and would only wear boy’s clothes. She wanted to climb trees and be Ken; her little brother was always forced to play the sister or mom because she wanted to be the dad or the brother. She also was confused about her genitals because they did not look like her brother’s but she believed she was meant to be a boy. She was forced to wear dresses at special events, like weddings, but she always insisted on wearing shorts underneath. She was always uncomfortable in a dress.
Julia, uncomfortable in a dressAs she grew older, she also thought that she was lesbian but it didn’t feel right because she says she wanted to be a positive male role model, a husband and a father. At 13, Julia met a friend that admitted to being transgender – as he explained it to Julia; she knew that is exactly what she is! She told her parents who were shocked but supportive; her dad seemed to have taken it harder than everyone. He did not speak to Julia for 2 years; and they lived in the same house. Whenever they started a conversation they would end up fighting. Apparently father’s are supposed to be very protective of their little girls (I don’t have first hand experience so can’t vouch much for such) and it must have been heartbreaking to him to see his baby girl becoming something he didn’t think possible.
Julia went through a stage of depression where she hated the body she was in. Her family worried she would commit suicide. She was evaluated by doctors and psychiatrists and at 15 she began the transformation to become Jake. Jake believes that Julia was never there; he was always Jake just in a different body in a different time. He had a mastectomy; removed his breasts, at 16. He now lives as Jake, everyone refers to him as such and the entire town treats him normally and have accepted his transformation.
JakeJake also showed us how he gets ready for his days; he shaves and uses male soaps. He used to play-shave with his dad and now does it for real. Before he had his B-cup breasts removed, he had to wear a vest that binds them. Now he loves the fact that he can just grab a shirt without worrying if the boobs will show! He injects himself with hormones every two weeks, a small price to pay for his elation he says! Why do guys have it so easy? Angelika has to take pills four times a day to be feminine and Jake has one shot in two weeks!!
A Parent’s View
Peggy, Jake’s mother is very supportive of her child and feels that she can’t judge nor condemn. She admits to being hurt and distraught, mourning but the grief is not for losing a child but a dream. Her dreams of having manicure and pedicure parties, shopping, getting her daughter ready for a wedding in a wedding gown are gone.
Peggy, Jake’s mom Her and her husband are very progressive parents and knew that Julia was a tomboy. When Julia told her that she was a boy, she figured Julia meant she would grow up to be lesbian. Her and her husband were not shocked when Julia came out to them like that- she was still a healthy child; however when she said she was transgender it was a different case altogether. They had to deal with more difficult decisions and issues. The family remains supportive because the world is a harsh place; and the least everyone has is family.
Peggy admits that the family had to put all the focus on Julia because they were worried of what she would do to herself. I loved it when she said “I’m only as unhappiest as my unhappiest child” – I thought, what a great mom! I want to be like that, you will never lose a connection with your child if you are supportive and there, even when you are unhappy and don’t understand but just being there says “I know what you are feeling, and I feel it too”
She says she is a very progressive parent because she can’t judge people for their beliefs and choices and she has made bad decisions in her life before she had children. So, she can’t enforce or expect people to live their lives when she knows that she also has made mistakes. Now this is a woman I strive to be, non-judgmental, understanding, accepting and fully aware that she is not perfect and no-one is.
Jake admitted that his father took a long time to accept him, he only recently started calling him “Jake”. It felt good to him to hear his father calling him that as it showed he is accepting who he really is.
A sibling’s trauma Jason, Jake’s younger brother broke my heart. I was sobbing as if I had just been told that someone close to me had passed away. He still calls Jake “Julia”. He still refers to Jake as “her” and “she”. He misses his sister and wishes she was still a girl. He feels that he has different bond with his sister and that is how it should be. Now the relationship is competitive, when it was protective. He admits to being very supportive of what ever Julia wants to do as he doesn’t want to lose her altogether. She seems happier than before and normal again (I guessed that he was referring to Julia’s depression) just in a different body.
Jason, Jake’s younger brother Jason says his parent’s focused on Julia so much that they kinda neglected him so it did push him behind their priority list a bit. Their dad had to teach Julia to shave before him, which he never thought would happen. He clings to the name Julia because it has sentimental value to him; it was his first word and its going to take time to call her “Jake”.
Oprah promised that she would discuss the sadness in Jason’s voice, words and manner and him calling Jake “her’’, “she” and “Julia” after the break since Jason was not there. He was supposed to be but couldn’t miss the first day of school but Oprah never did come back to asking! I was really really looking forward to hearing Jake’s answer and prayed there was a way that Oprah could have a satellite link to Jason to speak to him.
Oprah’s expert 
Dr Mark BowersThe true Oprah-style expert was the deal-clincher for me! Stick with me here, you might have to read the next sentence seven times. Dr Marci Bowers, a sex reassignment surgeon, formerly known as Dr Mark Bowers, a ObGyn (Obstetrician Gynaecologist) was born a boy, lived his life as such for 40 years, got married, had three children, came out to his wife during xmas dinner, had a transformation eleven years ago and is still married to his wife of 22 years. She says she knew when she was very young, around 4 or 5, that she was born in the wrong body, went through life pretty much unhappy about it, trying to hide it and forget about it, and she tried to live as a woman in 1978 but failed. So she decided to be a part of women’s lives by being a gynae when Oprah asked her if she became a gynae so she could look at vajayjay’s all day and was she envious? Miss Winfrey! Well, you gave me a laugh out loud moment in my teary state.
Dr Marci BowersShe now performs sex changes and has helped 500 patients similar to Jake and Angelika. She explained that the sex change is the least important moment of the process; the biggest part of the transition is the feeling of going to buy toilet paper in the mini-skirt that you had saved up for.
She explained the differences between transgender and sexual preference. Sexual preference is obviously the physical attraction to a specific sex. Transgender is a feeling about yourself, are you female or male. It is the mental knowledge (from the neck up) of who and what you are; your soul. She explained that in order to qualify to have a sex change there is an entire process you have to go through, physical and mental analysis on whether you are transgender or a cross-dresser. They have to know that this is not a mental issue as transgender is not a psychiatric illness. Based on the psychometric results; you have to take hormones and to live in the desired gender for a year before finally going through surgery. About a 1000 to 2000 people go through gender reassignment in America, I wonder if it happens at all in Mzansi… Noeleen, please find out for us.
It was not easy for her family to accept, adjust and keep the family together. When Oprah asked her why she got married and had kids; she said you have to “play the cards you are dealt”, she thought she could live her life, forget about her feelings and raise her children but she couldn’t
Words of wisdom
Oprah and her guestsExcept from
www.oprah .com Oprah applauds Angelika, Jake and Dr. Bowers for being so open with their stories. "Not everybody watching here is going to believe it, relate to it or understand it, but at some point in your life, I'm sure, you will have to stand up and say who you are, in one form or another," Oprah says. "What you will want is for the people to accept whatever that is. So we thank you."
By doing shows about gender identity, Oprah says she hopes people will see how we're all more alike than we are different. "Soon, and I know that it is not going to happen in my lifetime, but I feel like all of us who are living in this lifetime have to do our part to create a greater understanding…where people accept you just for being who you are."