Bold and the Beautiful’ Transgender Storyline Shocker Is ‘About Tolerance,

[damnedifIknow]

With “The Bold and the Beautiful” fans still recovering from Wednesday’s jaw-dropper of a reveal, Bradley Bell, executive producer of the CBS daytime soap, has spoken out about the twist, saying that the shocking turn “is important because it is about tolerance.”

On Wednesday’s episode, it was revealed that Maya Avant (played by Karla Mosley) is actually transgendered. The moment of discovery came during a confrontational moment between Maya and her sister Nicole (Reign Edwards)."

In a statement provided to TheWrap after the episode aired, Bell said that the Maya/Myron story “is about respecting other people’s differences and uniqueness.

“The transgender story we are telling on ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ is important because it is about tolerance,“ Bell, executive producer and head writer on the show, said. “It is about people respecting other people’s differences and their uniqueness. In the end, we all want to be loved and in order to love someone else you first have to love yourself. If you are transgender, gay, straight, it doesn’t matter. It’s about finding love in life. This is a love story.”

http://www.thewrap.com/bold-and-the-beautiful-transgender-storyline-shocker-is-about-tolerance-ep-says/

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. It's kind of...offensive that this is a Big! Shocking! Reveal!

seriously, I imagine that it's probably not a bad thing that there are transgender characters in mainstream media, but at the same time the framing of "here's this Weird and Shocking Thing!" is not really great? It's kind of like how "Character X is actually gay!" would have been "shocking" 30 years ago, now it's more "so?" and being gay is seen as just another kind of normal human variation. Looks like we have some way to go still before being trans is seen the same way. (Also, "Maya/Myron"? Really? Am I the only person who remembers Myra Breckinridge? That just kind of makes it worse.)

[niyad]

2. people can rag on the soaps all they want, but many of them carry story lines

and important information.

for example, several decades ago, one of the abc soaps carried a story line about one of the women characters having a heart attack. it was pointed out then how differently women who have heart attacks are treated than men. it also pointed out that the symptoms are different. this was DECADES ago, and this information is only now really being mainstreamed.

kudos to b&b.

anybody else remember the story arc in "all in the family" about edith's friend beverly?

[cilla4progress]

3. My redneck cowtown has "invited" Bruce Jenner?

to be Grand Marshal of our annual virgin offering celebration - Apple Blossom Festival. I think is it is a snarky sarcastic move, and people's comments here have included such comments as "gross."

This is juxtaposed against a recent NPR story I heard about the mother of a now 4-year old little boy, who started life as a biological girl, and by the age of 2, was clearly in the wrong gendered body. It was a story of anguish and redemption. Gracious and life-affirming.

I look forward to the time when gender reassignment (?) is completely accepted as natural, factual, and biologically-based, rather than something "gross."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. Soaps are morality tales that try to keep up with the times....

This story line is less about the character and more about the reaction of those around the character.

Some accepting and some rejecting.