Favorite Characters: Maura Pfefferman (Transparent)

Thought I might as well jump on this bandwagon.  I think by now most people have heard about the bombshell that starts off Transparent, but if not, consider this your last warning.  On the whole, I find Transparent to be a little uneven and entirely too in love with the fact that it’s an Internet series that can show as much sex and drug use as it wants, but I love the character of Maura.  Today’s post is all about the newly proclaimed Pfefferman family matriarch.

Although, like many LGBT characters, much of Maura’s storyline centers on her LGBT identity, it feels true to life here.  In the pilot, she’s finally preparing to come out to her adult children as trans, after she’s spent her life masquerading as the man they call their father Mort.  As she goes to meetings at a local LGBT center, introduces herself to her kids one by one, and navigates new gender waters with the help of a supportive friend, I recognize that state of being, that period when you first start coming out and it seems to eclipse everything else in your life.  It’s on your mind all the time, you’re equal parts terror and boldness, and once you take those early steps toward the light, you can get this sudden urge to run into the sunshine.  That’s what I see in Maura.  She’s jittery, a raw nerve, exploring everything, curious in an almost childlike manner, and generally a sweet trans mess.  That whirlwind, fear, and triumph all feel so authentic to me.

I love her forays into her real identity.  She’s so sincere and elated fluttering around her friend’s apartment, admiring the wardrobe and noting the womanly touches in the décor.  The rush she feels when she “passes” in public is lovely, I like that she finds the guts to perform at the LGBT center talent night, and of course she has an instantaneous placebo reaction to her very first estrogen pill.  I really like her relationship with her oldest daughter Sarah, who’s overwhelmed but trying to be supportive.  Whether she’s stalwartly defending Maura’s right to use a women’s restroom or warning her about the scam of “free” makeovers, Sarah is a great ally in training.

Obviously, though, not all of Maura’s experiences go as well as she’d like.  For every time a clerk calls her “ma’am,” there’s an instance of someone staring at her like she’s an aberration of nature.  Old friends react as if she’s burning their retinas, so-called concerned citizens call her sick and perverted, and a niece confides that she teaches a boy “who suffers the same condition.”  You ache for her when she bails out of an early coming-out attempt and shows up breathlessly late in men’s clothing.  When she tries being out with her grandchildren, their dad goes into an ugly, disgusted rage; her response to his diatribe is possibly the best moment of the season: 

“This is my family.  Leonard, I am so sorry.  This is my fault.  I should have called you.  Honey, I should have taken you out to lunch and we should have talked.  But I didn’t do that.  And I’m sorry about the ‘Mort’ and the ‘Maura’ and the ‘he’ and the ‘she.’  I’m just a person.  And you’re just a person.  And here we are.  And baby, you need to get in the whirlpool or you need to get out of it.”

There’s the heartbreak of her apologizing for who she is, but she answers his ignorant poison with such softness.  And ultimately, it comes from a place of strength, because she’s not backing down from asserting her right to be.  I know it’s condescending to tell queer people how “brave” they are, but she’s stunning here.  Faced with someone who denies her reality and seeks to make her dirty and wrong, she holds her ground and refrains from anger.  Maura Pfefferman rocks.