‘Glee’ and Transmen

Written by Jackson Adler.

FOX’s Glee, a show about a high school glee club, its teachers, and, later, its alumni, is airing its final episode March 20, after six seasons. Glee has been a show aimed at families, teens especially, and has no doubt been an introduction to LGBT issues and representation to many. While not always perfect in how it addresses various issues, it has certainly raised awareness in America to LGBT rights and acceptance. Due to the show having had a fair amount of tokenism of various groups, although it has improved in terms of representation in regard to some of those groups, when it was announced that one of the show’s characters was going to come out as a transman, I was simultaneously unsurprised and excited. I was several seasons behind on the series, and that announcement made my ears perk up and lead me to binge-watching the show again. At that point in time, I had literally seen zero representations of transmen and transboys in fictional media, and it was going to mean a lot to me to see my identity validated. As I hope is obvious by me being a writer for Bitch Flicks, I am a feminist, as well as a transman, and it therefore positively enraged me when I found out which character Glee was outing as a transman.

Football Coach Sheldon (formerly known as Shannon) Beiste has been one of my favorite characters on the show. Dot-Marie Jones is a phenomenal actress, and though the writing quality of her character is incredibly fickle, she commits beautifully to every moment. She and her character are tall, broad, muscular people, and much of Bieste’s character arc is about how every woman deserves to be respected, to feel pretty, and to have a chance at love. Her character has been repetitively bullied by those whose narrow definition of femininity and womanhood is beyond her character’s reach. It is therefore highly important that other characters started to acknowledge Beiste’s femininity, and to see Beiste as a woman who should be treated and respected like any other. When the writers of Glee decided to make Coach Beiste their token transman, it undermined her character arc and a powerful lesson about sexism and bodyshaming. It was a slap in the face to girls who had written to Dot-Marie Jones sharing their personal stories of being bullied for not meeting the narrow physical image of feminine beauty that is wrongfully promoted in our culture. I felt insulted for the actress, because it is her own body that is on display and is argued about in the episodes in which she stars. I felt awful for every woman and girl, and those raised as such, who has ever faced bodyshaming. There are so many other characters on the show from which the writers could have chosen to be their token transman, so choosing Coach Beiste was far from the only, and definitely not the best, option. In my opinion, two of the best characters the writers of Glee could have chosen to be a transman would have been Emma Pillsbury and Quinn Fabray.

School counselor Emma Pillsbury has anxiety and OCD, and for much of the show was terrified of sex. Many transpeople develop anxiety and OCD due to the pressures they have felt to present and pass as a gender that was assigned to them, and not their true gender. While it would have been great for the character to be out as asexual, another possibility would be that the character is uncomfortable with sex due to physical dysphoria in regards to their own body. Emma Pillsbury coming out as a transman would have also required glee club teacher Will Schuester to address his stance on homosexuality on a more personal level, due to his romantic relationship (and now marriage) with Emma.

Quinn Fabray was always obsessed with being the best girl at the school, the best cheerleader with the best boyfriend, the best hair, the best clothes, with being the homecoming and prom queen. Wouldn’t it be interesting if this obsession was revealed to be a way of compensating for not being a girl at all? What if her attraction to fellow blonde Sam Evans was because he was a representation of the type of boy Quinn secretly wanted to be? Then Quinn’s various past partners, including Quinn’s on and off boyfriend hypermasculine Noah “Puck” Puckerman, would have to contemplate their own sexuality and their opinions on homosexuality in a more personal way.

Both Emma and Quinn are skinny, White, and fit what society deems to be attractive. They often wear makeup and “feminine” clothing. Writing either Emma Pillsbury or Quinn Fabray as a transman would have challenged societal views and myths in regard to femininity and masculinity. It would have meant more thorough discussions about identity and sexuality, and the societal biases towards them. Glee so often provides “lessons” for its viewers, so why not address the subject of transmen in a way that thoroughly addresses issues surrounding that identity, instead of going the route that it did and promote a misogynistic message that Coach Beiste really isn’t and never was a woman who should be respected and treated like any other? Though Glee is ending, hopefully other shows, especially family and teen shows, will promote LGBT issues just as often, if not more so, than Glee – though hopefully in a more thorough and respectful way.