Dec 08, 2006  |  By: ZACK HUDSON  | COMMENTS     

LIKE MOST OF HIS NEW neighbors in fictional Pine Valley, rock star Zarf has a big secret. Born into the body of a man, Zarf, who identifies as a woman, will come out as transgender and begin the transition process before the eyes of viewers of ABC’s soap opera “All My Children.”

“When she first spoke it, even though her parents loved her, they didn’t understand it, and she learned to bury it,” said Megan McTavish, head writer for “All My Children,” explaining Zarf’s story.

As McTavish spins it, Zarf has come to Pine Valley to seek help from Babe, another  “AMC” character, as he begins the process of transitioning into Zoe. It is as Zarf, however, that he first meets Bianca, the heralded lesbian daughter of “AMC” mainstay Erica Kane, in a moment played out in true soap fashion.

Zarf “sees that Babe is distracted and says, ‘You can’t help me,’ and starts to walk away. And then the elevator doors open, and there’s Bianca,” McTavish said.

AS ZARF’S WORLD TURNS into Zoe’s, she will ponder the question of sex reassignment surgery, confront romantic longings for women as a lesbian and encounter both acceptance and prejudice from the wily denizens of Pine Valley.

“I think you will feel for this character regardless of how you feel about the issue. We’re not out to preach, we’re not out to convert anybody. This is a facet of human experience that hasn’t been told in our medium,” McTavish said.

“AMC” producers worked with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to develop the story, and brought in transgender women as story consultants.

Mara Keisling, executive director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, a non-profit trans advocacy group, stressed caution and optimism approaching the story. 

“Any portrayal that’s true to who trans people are, it helps us. If it’s just for sensationalism, that doesn’t always help with education. We’re moving past the point where trans characters are not always played for sensationalism,” she said.

Drama is derived from conflict, however, and Keisling expects Zoe to experience significant turmoil.

“This is a soap opera, and the whole point of soap operas is that they have twists and turns. We just hope that it’s going to be done realistically,” she said.

News of Zarf’s secret spread quickly, thrusting “AMC” into national headlines and into the line of at least some critical fire. Keisling was displeased with advance stories that she said were trained on cross-dressing and whether Zoe will undergo sex reassignment surgery.

“Those are both red flags for me. They’re sort of focused on things the media always focuses on,” she said.

ZOE’S ADDITION TO THE “AMC” brood holds some promise as one of the more reality-grounded stories to emerge on the show in some time, according to TVGuide.com soap editor Daniel Coleridge, gay author of “The Q Guide to Soap Operas.”

“Compared with a lot of the out-there story telling that ‘All My Children’ has been doing recently, including the arrival of a character who was born to a woman after having been stolen from another woman’s uterus, the introduction of a transgender character seems rather tame,” Coleridge said.