We’re Everywhere!

Now we are in the soaps again.

CBS soap reveals character is transgender
USA Today
By Maria Puente,
March 18, 2015

On soap operas everybody has secrets, but The Bold and the Beautiful's popular Maya Avant has a new one.

Turns out, she was born a man.

Not shocked? Well, join the crowd.

Transgender characters (and sometimes actors who play them) are suddenly everywhere in pop culture — they're so mainstream they can even turn up on CBS' long-running daytime drama with a blast of proud network publicity.

The 28-year-old soap revealed in Wednesday's episode that Maya, a model now dating Rick Forrester, transitioned from male to female at a young age, after her sister confronted her with her birth certificate.

• The network says B & B is the only current show on broadcast or cable TV to include a transgender character as part of the regular cast.

This is not the first time there was a trans character in the soaps, back in 2006 All My Children has a trans theme. This is from my blog back then,

On the TV Soap All My Children they have added a transgendered character, Zoe (Played by an actor), who is going through transition on the show. Last Friday they showed a scene from a support group that they did for the show and they used actual transgendered people, not actors for the segment. Two of the people that were part of the support group I have met; Betty Crow and Jennifer Boylan. Betty’s wife is Helen Boyd the author of “My Husband Betty” and “She is not the Man I Married”. Jennifer Boylan is the author of “She is not There: a Life in Two Genders” and she has been on the Oprah Show twice and her book was one of Oprah’s picks. The TV film clip is a fairly good presentation of what goes on in a support group, it was unscripted and I think the clip is worth watching.

Zoe’s comment at the end of the clip was how I felt after my first support group meeting, that I was not alone. What Betty said about her wife “Getting it.” is true.

Watching the clip over again I thought of Zoey Tur because of what David Harrison when Zoe walks through the door, “I thought you were just another celebrity looking for publicity, but you’re here.”