When Musicals Tackle Transgender Equality and Acceptance

by Jordan Rubenstein · 2010-06-26 08:57:00 UTC
Topics:

Considering the success of the musicals Rent and Avenue Q, it perhaps isn't surprising for a musical to have gay or transgender themes. What is surprising is when the musical pops up in the middle of Kentucky. The Kentucky Center, in Louisville, is showing a musical about a transgender woman living as a member of a southern Indiana family.

The musical follows the transition of a transgender woman, Miyia O'Bannon. Miyia felt like a woman from an early age and attempted suicide as a teenager. In The Prodigal, Miyia's family goes through a journey to understand, accept, and love her.

Miyia's mother, Sheila O'Bannon, is a church music minister. She wrote the music and script and named the musical after the biblical story of the prodigal son. In that story, the son leaves his family and squanders his inheritance, but is still eventually welcomed back into his father's home. The older brother, of course, gets upset at his father's quick forgiveness. In the musical, Sheila was much like the older brother in the biblical story. She didn't understand Miyia's identity but eventually grew to accept it through love. The O'Bannon family explains that the story of the prodigal son can apply to anyone, and describes that God loves everyone no matter what.

The musical has great potential to help other people in the community, including families with and without LGBT people. Miyia explained that "people need to see those emotions and see that that's what people like me go through and that's why you shouldn't treat anyone disrespectfully." The Prodigal shows the importance of mending relationships and working through conflicts. Sheila hopes that people will learn from the musical "that family needs to be family, no matter what."

These highlighted issues are incredibly important in the LGBT community, as families go through a range of experiences once a family member comes out of the closet. If everyone could see and learn from The Prodigal, people would be able to come out without the fear of rejection and hate from within their own family. The O'Bannon family is brave for sharing their story of acceptance of Miyia. Hopefully their story will help other families on their journeys to acceptance.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Jordan Rubenstein is the former president of Carnegie Mellon University's LGBT student organization, ALLIES. Jordan lives in New York City.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Sherri Shepherd's and D.L. Hughley's HIV Mythology
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (5)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.