Wow, these chicks are hot!  I found myself saying that more than once throughout the course of this documentary, and I'm evil, so I have a strong desire to post up some pictures of the contestants in this pageant and see what people say about them.  I should explain here.  For the uninitiated, "Trantasia" is a documentary that's noteworthy in the queer community for detailing the on and offstage antics of the first ever Transsexual beauty pageant, and indeed, the contestants are fucking hot..  I was checking them out, and I'm pretty ok with that but I think there are a lot of people who might be uncomfortable with that experience, so since I'm evil (as previously stated) I think it might be interesting to gauge people's reactions and how they respond to thinking these chicks are hot and then finding out these chicks used to have dicks (some still do, it's a complex and multifaceted process at times).

That's the thing about this documentary.  The interviews with the individual contestants are totally engrossing, the stories and family profiles and all that info is interesting to watch.  The onstage performances...? Not so much.  But I'll get to that later.  The interviews are the heart of this documentary and I found them enthralling.  The contestants come from many walks of life and the stories they had to tell and the stories their families had to tell were priceless and informative.  I like hearing about how people grew up, how they were raised, how they discovered they were gay. And even more interestingly, when they found out they WEREN'T gay.  That's the kind of information I think people need to hear from a documentary like this.  I talk with a lot of different people from a lot of different walks of life and so I know it's a strange thought to some people that a man might think he was supposed to be born a woman and go through a transformation like this, a total overhaul of his physical makeup and become a woman only to stay in a relationship with a woman.

I was blissfully ignorant of all things outside my personal realm of experience and I figured men who dressed like women or obtained surgery to transform themselves into women were sexually attracted to men, and women who had surgery to transform themselves into men were sexually attracted to women.  That does happen a lot of times, but it's not universal, and that concept blew my mind.  What, you mean love is about love and it doesn't always have to do with gender?  Get out.  Not to go all "we are the world" on you, but that "love is bigger than gender" stuff, that's something I really never considered before (because I am ignorant) and it's something I had to learn, and documentaries like this help me learn more about the idea so I can contemplate further. I'm obsessed with my thoughts as they glitter like shiny objects, and I totally appreciate things that make me think.  As such, I love hearing interviews and hearing transgendered people talk about their experiences, I'm fascinated and I learn something new every time I listen to such interviews.

This is going to sound really stupid, since the central concept of this documentary is a pageant and all, but the most boring part of the documentary for me is the pageant itself.  I'm a bad person, I know, but I hate pageants.  I could give a shit less who wins and I like how shiny and pretty they are, but beyond that, I really don't give a fuck and they bore me to tears.  In this case it was great that these people finally got to compete in a pageant and got to realize that they are beautiful and I know that feeling so I tried my best to be connected with what was going on, but I found my mind wandering and my eyes glazing over until the pageant scenes were over and we were back to documentary footage and interviews again. The way the documentary is structured there are interviews, pageant footage, more interviews, backstage scenes and scenes of the contestants going about their lives and talking about their experiences, so you never have to watch the pageant for too long at a time and get bored to death like I do because I'm a bad person, but it does get a tad boring while the pageant is being featured.  If pageants are your thing though, the movie will be perfect and you won't find anything boring here because there's plenty of pageantry goodness.

Shiny and pretty and substantial, oh my. Well worth the watch to open your mind and expand your horizons, even if you have to sit through some boring pageant crap to do so.

• For more information on "Trantasia," including purchasing directions, visit the official website.

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