IDENTITY

Spoiler alert to all you Family Guy fans!!!

This week on Family Guy everyone meets Quagmire’s dad for the first time. Your first impression of him is that he is a stereotypical gay man. Peter tells Quagmire that he thinks his dad is gay and Quagmire denies it. When Quagmire asks his dad though he tell his son that he is not gay, he is in fact a woman stuck in a man’s body.

The definition for transgender for those of you that dont know:

It means being a person who identifies with or expresses a gender identity that differs from the one which corresponds to the person’s sex at birth.

 Or it is a person who feels like a man or a woman on the inside but that is not reflected on the outside. They strive to become the sex they feel is right to them through dressing the way that gender does or getting sex changes.

The topic of transgender people is a very touchy one. The subject is rarely talked about outside of LOGO. It is misunderstood and hard to talk about for a vast majority of people. And especially since the man who is transgender was a Navy veteran. The US military has a problem with people who are LGBTQ, shown through the don’t ask don’t tell law, and it is clear that they would have a problem with transgendered people.

Peter and Lois thinks it is funny that his dad is trans and believes that it means the same thing as being gay which is a common misconception. There are some people that believe that gay men are feminine and just want to be woman. There are others think that  an operation does not change you sex and your still gay because you like the same sex. True not all people who transition (changing from one sex to another) like the sex they were before. There can be a female who transitions into a male and prefers men. But it is not a sexual orientation, it is a physical orientation. If a person feels deep down that they are a woman, that doesn’t mean he is gay, it means he is out of place physically.

Quagmire feels super uncomfortable about the whole situation because he is not used to the idea yet and his dad got a sex change right after telling him about it. He is used to a war hero super macho father. Quagmire goes through what any person would when faced with this. He is in shock and doesn’t want to believe something that society views as wrong. He is also scared for his father and what people will think of him.

Quagmire’s dad shows the everyday hardships transgender people face all the time through Peter and Lois’s mean jokes and picking on him. They call him names and ask him uncomfortable questions about his transitioning process. Transgender people are faced with that interrogation a lot in their lives. People can not label them and don’t think they deserve the common courtesy of a “normal” person so they ask hurtful things like what are you supposed to be?

Stewie and Brian also have a conversation about what do trans people do after they have their sex change and how it must be difficult. This brings to light a different side of the episode.

At the end Quagmire and his dad make up. Quagmire just wants his dad to be happy because he loves him and cares about him.

The side story of Brian even ties in. He is mad at everyone for being self-absorbed and he ends up being the same way when he meets up with Quagmire’s dad after his sex change. It adds a kind of perspective on the story that makes you rethink your reactions to the idea of transgender people. 

The very end of the show is Quagmire beating Brian up because he thinks that Brian knew and was being mean about it.

The whole episode overall was a good way to show people a close to home story of a son going through his dad’s transition. It has people who don’t get it and are mean like Peter and Lois and those that try and be understanding as best as they can like Quagmire.

Chardonnay