Bruce Jenner and My Father-In-Law: Transition and Transformation

The summer of 1984 was my first exposure to the mega-international sporting event known as the Summer Olympic Games. At eight-years-old, it was the summer of American patriotic pride and athletic world domination for the United States. My favorite athlete that summer was Carl Lewis, but I also remember my parents pointing to the athlete in the tank top and long hair running with the Olympic torch and telling me about the great Bruce Jenner, who famously won the gold medal in the Decathlon event of the 1976 Summer Olympics eight years earlier. Of course I was already familiar with Bruce Jenner because I was an avid player of the Apple II computer game, Olympic Decathlon, in which Jenner was a character.

To say 2015 was a year of transition and transformation for Bruce Jenner would be quite the understatement. The famous Olympic athlete who became a reality TV star seemed to transition from male to female in front of us all. The legendary American male athlete Bruce Jenner will be known to my children's generation only as the woman Caitlyn Jenner. With the popularity of such TV shows as Amazon's Transparent, transsexuals are becoming more accepted in our society. Jenner's decision to begin transitioning to a woman must have been extremely difficult and, while her transformation was extreme, she still serves as a wonderful example for us all during the upcoming Days of Awe, a time of transformation.

Transparent, Transsexuals and the Former Hasidic Jewish Transgender

Like millions of others, Jeffrey Tambor's win at the Golden Globes propelled me to watch the Amazon Prime Video original series "Transparent." My wife and I spent a few hours watching it Saturday night and then finished our "binge watching" of the series on Sunday night. My three main initial impressions of "Transparent" are: 1) What a powerful way to introduce us to the life of a transsexual; 2) This might be the most Jewish television show of all time; and, 3) This is important television as much as it is entertaining television.

In an October 2014 episode of HuffPost Live, Amy Landeker, one of the stars of the show said, "Transparent can actually save people's lives." And she's correct. Not only is it an enjoyable, smart and funny TV show, it's also educational in the sense that it brings transsexuals into the mainstream and shows just how human they really are rather than "other." The transitional and transformational life of the transsexual takes its toll on their family and friends as well. "Transparent" is the type of show that simply hasn't been done before. When I was a young child I remember hearing my parents talk about Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie." I never saw that movie, but my sense is that it wasn't the authentic portrayal of an adult transsexual like Jeffrey Tambor brilliantly portrays in "Transparent."

Jill Soloway, whose own father is a transsexual, has brilliantly created story lines that demonstrate the ups and downs in the life of a transsexual. The confusion, curiosity and embarrassment that one feels during this journey is overwhelming. As Tambor shows the viewers, the mere act of taking out one's driver's license to checkout at a store or walking into the restroom at the mall can be a terrifyingly complicated ordeal. This is something that religious leaders and those who work with teens have to recognize in the 21st century as transsexualism is becoming more common among teens.