Gender Switch: Sunday Ramblings and Movie Reviews

This has turned out to be something of movie weekend for me.

A smidgeon hung over and tired after mum's 90th birthday party on Friday (more about that later) I spent most of Saturday reading and watching some soaps I'd downloaded, ending the evening with Mango Kiss.

I fell asleep before it was over. So continued this morning. Mango kiss is a flick I wouldn't recommend. Sure, the girls are cute and there are some semi hot scenes. But the whole is just too shallow and it seems based on some idea that all lesbian relationships are different kinds of role playing. It's mildly amusing and can possibly be fun at a gathering of girls with a healthy supply of wine or other suitable intoxicants. It gets 3 out of 10 for cute girls and some humor.

After that I wanted something better and found a DVD with no label, popped it in the player to check what I had. The DVD had no opening title but it seemed to be some British film. It opened with a florist at a wedding and it soon became apparent that it was in some way lesbian. After some googling on florist, British, movie and lesbian I found out that I was watching Imagine me and you. What a difference! I don't want to reveal too much of the story but it's obvious from the start that the leading roles are the florist and a newly wed bride. And as it is a British romcom it's well written with good actors and a good balance between drama and comedy. All in all a good old feel-goodie. An 8 out of 10 for acting and story.

Next came a flick break for some time on the net and to install Open Office to facilitate my translation of Kate Bornstein's Hello Cruel World into Swedish.

For my next movie of the day I had planned on Aimee and Jaguar or Journey to Kafiristan. But instead I ended up watching Normal, It tells the story of a middle aged man in a small rural town in the US. He's come to the point that he can no longer hide the fact that all his life he's felt that he is a woman. And now he decides that there is no choice, he must make the transition. What follows is a believable story of his journey. The wife's initial rage and disappointment, the harassment at the workplace and the church. The flick is not sensational nor is it too sentimental. It made me realize how fortunate I am that I was born in Sweden when I was. 8 out of 10 for good, restrained acting and an important story well told.

Which brings me back to Friday and mum's birthday. Not all relatives and acquaintances knows that I'm going through the transition so this promised to be a somewhat interesting day. The main event was to start at four pm but before that some ladies that are not so close came by for coffee and port. As one of them arrived mum said with something like pride in her voice: "And of course you know Olle who is sometime soon to become Caisa." It made me happy to hear that tone of pride and acceptance. Especially as my family isn't known to express feelings very well. What mum didn't know is that Karin and I had met several times about town and that she knew about me being Caisa.

When the rest of the gang arrived it turned out that the only ones who didn't know were my 93 year old aunt and her son, my cousin. She's nearly blind and to be honest not all there some of the time, and he's too shy and polite to ask. So there was no dramatic revelation moments.

What can be of interest to my readers is that one of my sisters in law works as a nurse at a hospital ward for children that are born premature or with other problems. We got to talking about Caster and she said that on her ward alone they get several cases each year where the gender of the new born is difficult or impossible to determine.

The point I'd like to make is that my family and acquaintances have no problem with my transition. They just accept it as a fact of life and can see that I'm much more happy, content and calm now. Of course we have our issues, some of them quite major, but none regarding gender or sexuality.

And to end today's post here are some pics from Fridays celebration: