Anchored by an instantly likable teen, “Becoming Us” uses a screen that often subdivides into video blogs, FaceTime chats and texts to make its preference for selfie over soapbox instantly clear. Ben Lehwald, an Illinois junior with a passion for photography and possibly the most expressive eyebrows on television since Mr. Spock, narrates his life as the child of a transitioning transgender woman.
In doing so, he and his family, as well as his girlfriend and her family (which in one of the more suspicious bits of serendipity also includes a father who is transitioning) address both the particulars of their situation and the universality.
Though billed as a real-life “Transparent,” a reference to last year’s show on Amazon in which Jeffrey Tambor plays a transgender woman who is also a parent to three grown children, “Becoming Us” is something different. Ben is not grown, nor is his girlfriend, Danielle Molnar. Carly and Daniel’s decision to transition, though liberating for them, came at a price. Although everyone involved supports the two, they also readily acknowledge the confusion, anger, pain and sense of betrayal that family members can feel when a parent transforms in such a profound way.
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The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Kids, transgender parents are heart of ABC Family’s ‘Becoming Us’
