There's a statue in Copenhagen of Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, looking mournfully back out at the sea. This is it right here:
This is one of the saddest pieces of art I've ever seen, based on the most bittersweet of fairy tales. Whenever I think of the lives of mid-20th Century trans people, I think of this statue for some reason. Not because I think they've suffered some irretrievable loss, mind you, but because so many other people believe this. This is an attitude that persists unto the present day. In my own life, I cannot count the number of well-meaning cisgender acquaintances who have come up to me and said: "It must have been very hard for you," with that note of condescending sympathy. Maybe the condescension is something I only hear in my head. I'm sure it's sincere, but, man, it gets old. And it's so clueless.
Copenhagen itself is where Christine Jorgensen underwent her surgery, substituting her fins for legs, and if you believe the end of the movie version of her life, The Christine Jorgensen Story (1970, directed by Irving Rapper), she suffered nothing but heartache in the bargain. The movie has that same condescending sympathy. The form of the movie--styled as a 1950s weepie--builds this into the very fabric of the narrative. And it's so earnest! Mercy, it's earnest! So much so that it barrels right through its own cluelessness. This is a combination that usually results in really bad movies, and this one, it turns out, is a howler.
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