Transparent
トランスペアレント
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A retired professor comes out as a woman to her three adult children; the star was later dismissed over misconduct claims.
Maura Pfefferman, a retired professor of political science in Los Angeles, has three self-absorbed grown children who know her as their father, Mort. In the first season she comes out to them as a trans woman, and each of them hears it from inside a crisis of their own. Sarah, the eldest, leaves her husband, Len, and their children for Tammy, a woman she loved in college. Josh, a record producer, still sleeps with Rita, the family's former babysitter, who began a sexual relationship with him when he was a teenager: abuse the family knew about and let happen. At the end of the season he learns that she bore him a son, Colton, now seventeen. Ali, the youngest, drifts, and begins to question her own gender. Their mother, Shelly, nurses her dying second husband.
In the second season Sarah's wedding to Tammy falls apart. Josh and the family's rabbi, Raquel, are expecting a baby, but she miscarries and they separate; Raquel is the first to call what Rita did to him molestation. Maura falls in love with a woman, Vicki. Flashbacks to 1930s Berlin show how Maura's mother and grandmother escaped the Nazis.
In the third season Maura prepares for gender confirmation surgery until her doctor tells her that her heart cannot take it, and she has to stop her hormones; she and Vicki split. Rita takes her own life. Shelly reveals that a music teacher abused her as a child and turns her life into a one-woman show, performed on a family cruise. In the fourth, Maura travels to Israel and finds that the father she was told had died is alive; he tells her that Gittel, a relative from the Berlin flashbacks, was also trans. At a sex-addiction meeting Josh begins to name what was done to him; Sarah and Len reunite and bring a third lover into their marriage; Ali, drawn into a romance on the West Bank, keeps questioning her gender.
The series ended in 2019 with a feature-length musical made without Maura: she has died suddenly, of an aneurysm. Ali, now Ari and non-binary, flies home from months of study in Israel, and the funeral becomes the coming-of-age ceremony Ari never had. Josh and Raquel find their way back to each other, and Colton arrives with a baby daughter. Maura has left her house to her friend Davina, who opens it to young LGBTQ people with nowhere else to go. Shelly, who has turned the family into a musical, closes the series with a song arguing that Jews need joy to balance the weight of their history.
Starring
Jeffrey Tamboras Maura Pfefferman
A retired political science professor who comes out to her grown children as a trans woman.
Maura Pfefferman’s story
Maura has lived for decades as Mort, father of three, and in retirement begins living openly, first at a support group, then with her children, each too caught up in a crisis of their own to listen; singing at a talent show, she looks out to find they have all left. She falls in love with Vicki. Preparing for gender confirmation surgery, she is told by her doctor that her heart cannot take it and she must stop her hormones, and she and Vicki part. In Israel she finds that the father she was told had died is alive, and learns from him that Gittel, a relative from the family's Berlin past, was trans. She dies suddenly of an aneurysm, leaving her house to her friend Davina, who opens it to young LGBTQ people with nowhere else to go.
Amy Landeckeras Sarah Pfefferman
The eldest child, a restless wife and mother who leaves her husband for a woman and keeps searching for what she wants.
Sarah Pfefferman’s story
Sarah is married to Len with two children when she meets Tammy, the woman she loved in college, again, and leaves her family for her. Their wedding falls apart. She pays a woman she met at a festival to spank her, throws herself into the synagogue until she falls out with the rabbi, Raquel, and lives under one roof with Len without being together. By the fourth season, honest at last, she is back with Len, and the two of them bring a third lover, Lila, into their marriage. At Maura's funeral she tells Tammy and Lila that she is happy with just Len now, tries to hold her mother, Shelly, at a distance, and explains the Holocaust to her children after they learn that Maura will be cremated.
Jay Duplassas Josh Pfefferman
The middle child, a record producer with a chaotic love life, abused as a teenager by the family's babysitter.
Josh Pfefferman’s story
Josh is still sleeping with Rita, the former babysitter who began abusing him sexually when he was a teenager, and learns that she bore him a son, Colton, now seventeen. He falls for the family's rabbi, Raquel, the first to call what Rita did molestation; she miscarries their baby and they part, and he learns that his parents knew of Rita's pregnancy all along. When Rita takes her own life, he drives to Kansas to tell Colton, converts to Christianity there, and scatters her ashes at sea. At a sex-addiction meeting he begins to name what was done to him, and sees how much he shares with his mother, Shelly, who has moved in with him. After Maura's death he finds his way back to Raquel, and Colton arrives at the funeral with a baby daughter.
Gaby Hoffmannas Ali Pfefferman
The youngest, a restless drifter who explores gender and desire and ends the series as Ari, who is non-binary.
Ali Pfefferman’s story
Ali, the youngest, drifts without work or direction, and as Maura comes out she begins to question her own gender. She takes a gender studies class and gets involved with its teaching assistant, and on a train to visit Maura's mother tells Maura she may study with Leslie, a poet and professor. Leslie becomes her lover, then too clingy, and Ali escapes on the family cruise. In Israel with Maura she is drawn into a romance on the West Bank and keeps questioning her gender. By the finale, after months of study in Israel and thinking of becoming a rabbi, Ali has become Ari, non-binary. Ari flies home for Maura's funeral, which falls on the day of the bat mitzvah Maura once let Ari cancel, and it becomes the coming-of-age ceremony Ari never had.
Judith Lightas Shelly Pfefferman
Maura's ex-wife and the children's mother, needy and theatrical, who has hidden an abuse of her own since childhood.
Why it matters
Transparent put a parent's late-life coming out as a trans woman at the centre of a family comedy, and became the first streaming series to win the Golden Globe for best comedy series. Joey Soloway made it after their own parent came out as trans and hired more than eighty trans people, yet cast a cisgender man as Maura, a choice Soloway had come to call unacceptable by 2016. In 2018 Jeffrey Tambor was dismissed after two trans women, his former assistant Van Barnes and the actress Trace Lysette, accused him of harassment, and the story went on without its heroine. What remains is a portrait of how secrets pass through a family: a father who was a woman, a son abused by his babysitter, a mother abused by her teacher, a flight from the Nazis. The Pfeffermans are selfish, funny and hard to love, and the series keeps asking whether such people can learn to see one another.