Set in the 80s, abused by her fundamentalist preacher father, a runaway hermaphrodite scratches a living as an exotic dancer in Tijuana, until one day she is discovered by an LA porn director. With the porn industry booming under the VHS revolution and performing using the name Tia Reesias she becomes a porn sensation, transforming her life into a hedonistic whirlpool of sex, drugs, money, rock & roll and more sex & drugs. Unable to form a stable relationship, she is introduced to the lead singer of a famous English 80s New Wave band who has the same condition as she and they settle into a weird kind of domestic bliss... ...until one day she gets a call telling her that her father committed suicide over his guilt and decides that she wants to be reunited with her mother. But first Tia must find the forgiveness and compassion within herself that her family denied her.

Fresh off a Majors win, a closeted bisexual pro golfer undergoes a medical examination only to discover that he is both man and woman, and that technically he could qualify for the LPGA. But after a drunken night out, his former lover accidentally outs him to the paparazzi. Enraged by this violation of his privacy, he decides to exact retribution and humiliate her by playing and winning all the majors on the women tour. But as his sponsors and his old, conservative following abandon him and law suits start to fly, he unexpectedly picks up a new group of supporters, becoming a symbol in their struggle for social justice, recognition and acceptance, as he comes to terms with his own sexuality.

Depressed and lonely, a hermaphrodite travels to the far east and gets caught in an accident. But when the examining doctor discovers her intersexuality, she becomes the object of attention for a religious sect of hedonists, who begin to worship her as the earthly reincarnation of a minor Hindu deity. Reveling in this new found adoration, to her chagrin she discovers that it comes with a price: her followers are expecting her to do all the things that your average goddess is capable of.

What if our unwitting intersex person made their living from understanding men? Maybe s/he is a motivational speaker or dating advice guru, basing that teaching on understanding the male psyche? This new discovery threatens to undermine that career - until s/he decides to play on this unique understanding of being male and female and creates a new super-theory of men AND women...

Talk about things being in the ether but I think Shaula's already written a version of this script. Both her story and the one above are uplifting and heart warming! I love a story with a warm fuzzy feeling.

A variation on Boogie Nights!

That's a twist: The technicality of what sports an athlete can participate in: male or female?

An object of worship. That's the biggest twist yet you've come up with, pliny!

Debbie, that raises Jung's theories about animus and anima. Also a really interesting book I read years ago: "The Goddess or the Alphabet," how 'male' and 'female' can be seen as metaphors as a way of interpreting human history and cultural evolution. But the idea of this person coming up with a super-theory of human identity: male AND female? I think Jung would resonate with that.

Shaula wrote a script with this premise?!?! Talk about synchronicity! Must know more.

Scott, is that Shlain's book The Goddess v The Alphabet? If so, it's an awesome book and we seem to be returning to that cycle. His Art & Physics is another good one. And watch out, Justine Musk is reading those books. No telling what she'll do with them. Anyway... A regular guy and two buddies in a small town, all played sports together and cruised for women, mourned for each other when they got married, shared the demands of being the providers. Our regular guy has been playing the part all along and hiding his feminine side, secretly jealous of his wife when she's pregnant and giving birth, staying at home with the kids and nesting. During a game of one-on-one with his buddies, he's injured and has tests that show he's an intersexual. Everything makes sense, he's cool with it, feels lucky to know both sides of the gender story. One problem. Over beers with his closest bromance friend, he says: I wanna have your baby.

That's the book. I believe he is or used to be a neurosurgeon in Mill Valley? I really should go back and read that book because I think there is a lot you can extrapolate as far as developing and writing characters, exploring left-brain / right-brain, masculine / feminine aspects, using those metaphorically. As far as your idea goes, that's in the spirit of what I was thinking with a nifty twist! The U.S. is so daft about sexuality and gender issues [yes, a broad generalization, I know], I just think a story with this at its core, really exploring what it means to be a man, a woman, a human could be an intriguing one.

Zachary Ward has always had his fair share of good luck. He's mayor of a quaint American town with strong faith and values despite the changing world around it. He relishes in his life; lavish home, loving wife, respectful children but then he must confront his own sense of identity when a doctor informs him that he is in fact both a man and a woman. He resolves to ignore the evidence at first but the more he ignores it, the more he notices his perfect little town is changing. Soon his wife can't fight the urge to wear three-piece suits and his eldest daughter has cut her hair and goes by the name Mike. The changes affect every inch of the town as gender-bending seamlessly becomes the new norm and nobody seems to mind, except the one person who actually had a secret desire to change before this all started to happen, Zachary. But there is hope to regain the town that has now become a distant memory, and that is for Zachary to change. Every change Zachary makes towards becoming a woman is a step closer to making the town return to what it once was. Can Zachary be true to himself in order to undo the mess he may have started? Essentially it's like a reverse Pleasantville but set in the modern world with a gender-bending curse on the town onset by the man who can't accept that he feels that he is truly a woman.

the POTUS is a happily married man with a high approval rating and a lovely wife who is a crowd favorite. so, he either reveals he was born with both parts but always identified as a man... or that his wife has/had both parts but always identified as a woman thus bringing equal rights to the forefront. threats, riots, kim jong un... the end. I can't brain today.

nice!

That's interesting, Trent: Using Zachary's metamorphosis as a metaphor for the change the town must make.

Ha! Love your Act Three! Some days we got it, some days we don't. Still good to use those muscles.

Scott, this might be crossing the bounds of propriety and taste, but you wanted a "twist". I think this counts... A land of technology gone wrong, with magic and strange creatures, is ruled by a despotic Dark Lord, who prophecy says can only be defeated by a man who is twice all men born to someone who is both mother and father. A pregnant young girl is on the run from the Dark Lord's vicious servants, but it turns out that she's a hermaphrodite who self impregnated, and will give birth to a unique boy with two Y chromosomes. Twice all men indeed. Saved from certain death by a powerful wizard, she's taken into his care, and with the help of three sister witches, gives birth to this child of destiny. But the window of opportunity to defeat the Dark Lord grows short, forcing the Wizard and Witches to speed up the process of transforming the boy into a man, while providing him with the skills he'll need to be the great warrior and savior he is destined to become. Now mankind's fate rests on his shoulders as he must single-handedly face the Dark Lord in combat and bring an end to his cruel reign.

Actually TQA's right. This is remarkably close to the multicam/live audience sitcom pilot I sent into the BBC a month ago for the Trans Comedy Award. Set in the imaginary (and disaster-stricken) remote Northern Irish town of Port Gormlis, it's the story of a hometown hero and civic leader whose eyes are opened to his true gender identity while he fights his uptight nemesis to control the destiny of the town. Also, like the story above, the protagonist has a fantastic wife, a practical, down-to-earth woman who isn't surprised or flustered by any of this. She loves him madly and in her books that's that--whether he's wearing a flannel shirt or a lacy camisole. (In many ways, his wife is based on my own fantastic husband.) You can see the parallels... The thing is, in the manner of Northern Exposure, Doc Martin, or Corner Gas, the star of the show is "the town", full of quirky characters who exist in a non-judgemental universe. And in Port Gormlis, once you scratch the surface there isn't a single character with a completely traditional or mainstream gender identity--and you don't have to scratch very hard. Port Gormlis, like the town of Cecily, Alaska in Northern Exposure, is the kind of place where you wish you lived in real life. I took my lead from British TV writer Russell T. Davies whose work I tremendously admire, and wrote a fully-developed protagonist with external goals--who happened to also be a trans gender person. And while his experiments and adventures with his gender identity are part of the pilot and the episodes outlined in the show bible, that's not all of who he his--his gender identity is just one part of a complex human being. The protagonist is busy pursuing his external goals of keeping his family business afloat and making Port Gormlis the best town to live in in the whole wide world. The comedy comes from the quirky characters, the protagonist's unbelievable optimism (and the pickles that creates), and the frustration comedy of his eternally-thwarted nemesis. But we don't laugh at the bloke in the dress: in fact, we're rather proud of him for his courage. The whole point is that it's a show you can watch with your kids or your gran and if any of them are trans gender you should just enjoy it all the more. The BBC contest results come out at the end of May. I've fallen in love with the hero and his village of lovely weirdos and if they don't find a home at the BBC I hope to reset this in Newfoundland or Maine or even even rewrite it as a stage play or a feature. I definitely want these people and their stories to connect with an audience. If anyone besides the BBC is in the market for a warm-hearted, small-cast, trans gender positive, 3-location live audience sitcom pilot, just leave me a comment. ;) PS (Because I know TQA wouldn't forgive me if I left this out) It also has exploding cows.

I love Northern Exposure! There were a 2-3 years where that series was consistently great. I hope you nail that gig and bless us with more quirky characters. A blast of creative juju your way, Shaula, with a Northern Exposure twist: MAURICEMAGGIEHOLLINGEDCHRISSHELLEYMARILYNRUTH-ANNEFLEISCHMAN!!! KABOOOM!

That is possibly the most awesome blast of creative juju in juju blast history, Scott. Thanks! I'll put it to good use. :)

Whoa Plinny, that's some genetics class. As if there wasn't enough to worry about? Self-impregnation! I can imagine the book for that health education talk would be quite complicated. On another note, it actually sounds like quite a cool film, with a lot of A-HA moments. I love the myriad of stories generated here.

i see some hints of Greek Mythology in that. Clash of Titans or something...

In a conservative town, a family struggles with how best to raise their hermaphrodite child. With increasing pressure from peers and society to conform, the young parents decide to be true to their child, supporting whichever sex choice s/he chooses to identify as. This is more of a half-formed idea, but wanted to look at it from the perspective of the family unit, and how people might deal with such a major decision in a small-town setting.

jb, I found that interesting in the original article: How the wife just completely accepted this development, then then the couple went about adjusting and accommodating the situation. Obviously in a movie, you'd need to visualize more conflict. Going with a larger family and town setting allows you to do that.

He's really upset by the news. He gets drunk in a local bar and gets to talk with the strangest person there in town. This person advises him to get in touch with his feminine site. To explore it. He admits secretly he always liked the pageant. He then decides to submit to the annual pageant. On his way to the pageant lots of funny things will happen. His wife detests it, but his daughter encourages him.