Becoming Us - My Thoughts

I watched a new series today called Becoming Us. Here's a quick synopsis: In this unscripted drama, a teenager named Ben learns to live with his dad becoming a woman. The series will follow Ben, his family and his friends as they support one another through this unexpected journey and navigate their new world with Charlie now living as Carly.

Transgender seems to be a hot topic these days and rightfully so. It's about time this section of the LGBT community gets the spotlight.

When I first watched this series I thought it was a well done "scripted" reality show but come to find out that it's not scripted at all. They actually followed this family for three months and filmed them. Of course being in TV I know that it's been "produced" to some extent but for the most part it feels very real.

I really enjoyed the first episode. Got to know all the characters and the various relationships. I admit that this episode made me tear up several times, especially when Ben's girlfriends father (who is also living as a transwomen, but not as far along as Ben's father) go bra shopping for the first time. There is this moment when she looks in the mirror and is near tear because it's the first time that she feel beautiful... it's an amazing moment.

I like the overall style of the series, with it's many windows with moving pictures and stills as transitions. It also takes advantage of all the social medias like hashtags, twitter, texting. This may age the series in the future but for now it's fun and very cool.

I'm actually looking forward to episode 2 and seeing how this father (now mother) and son relationship continues to grow. Check it out on Monday nights on ABC Family.