The fourth episode of this season’s The L Word: Generation Q centered a joyous look at transgender, nonbinary parents and their kids, discussed LGBTQ parental names, which I’ve been collecting for over a decade, and mentioned the restaurant of a queer chef who has a picture book about her. Here’s my parenting-focused recap!
Spoilers ahead.
Advocate vs. Avocado
Prospective parents Micah (Leo Sheng) and Maribel (Jillian Mercado) are getting ready to go to the Halloween party of one of Maribel’s co-workers and their partner. Maribel rolls into the room in an avocado costume, but Micah … isn’t thrilled. “We’re about to meet the only trans, non-binary parents that we know,” he explains. He doesn’t want to be dressed as an avocado while he’s asking questions about life insurance.
Despite Maribel’s urging that “I need another half,” Micah’s just too focused on Getting. All. The. Parenting. Info. We all know someone like that, I suspect (and might be that person ourselves), so we really shouldn’t fault him, even if we want to tell him to lighten up.
At the party, there are a bunch of kids running around, one of whom immediately vomits onto Micah’s shoes. He swears, and Maribel chides him. I have to say, having to stop myself from swearing in front of my kid was one of the hardest things about becoming a parent at a relatively late age. It meant a lot of quick transitions into other words: “Aww … fudgesicles!”
Micah bursts into apologies as one of the child’s parents appears. Maribel introduces them as Reese (Armand Fields), and I have to wonder if this isn’t a nod to Trystan Reese, founder of The Trans Fertility Project and author of How We Do Family: From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy, What We Learned about Love and LGBTQ Parenthood.
Reese’s partner, however, is the big surprise. He’s Max (Daniel Sea), from the original L Word! While Max was one of few trans characters on television at the time, his storylines were often othering, with harmful stereotypes. The LW:GQ creative team, however, now shows Max as a loving parent in a stable relationship, passing on parenting wisdom to another trans parent.
As Drew Burnett Gregory writes in an interview with Sea at Autostraddle, “Max is getting a happy ending. And it’s happening in an episode that has a nonbinary director and a nonbinary writer [Em Weinstein and Nova Cypress Black]. This one correction, this one apology, this one episode is not everything. But it is something.”
Sea themselves said of Max, “I just think he’s a nice guy and I love to see him happy with a cute kid.” (I am following Sea’s pronoun use for Max.)
Later, Max is telling Micah about how they started their family. Max carried their first child, from when “I was dating this gay cis guy, and he turned out to be the worst.” That’s a reference to the awful storyline in the original show that left Max pregnant and abandoned.
“Our middle two are from my first marriage. The boring old hetero way,” Reese tells them, and Max adds, “And then we adopted Phoenix from foster care last year.”
By Any Other Name
Reese also shares that “I’m Dama and Max is Nibi,” and Max explains, “We just sort of figured, you know, ‘dad’ is just a sound. I mean, the meaning is totally made up.” I love this example of the creativity of LGBTQ parental names, which I’ve been collecting in my own little project for over a decade. (It’s now up to almost 400 entries! Please add yours!)
Reese agrees and Max wax poetic about how therapy helped them work through some issues and be better parents. Reese explains, “So much pops up, so it’s just so much easier if you have the same shared guiding principles.”
“Oh, we have one. ‘Don’t drop the baby,'” Maribel says. That’s an excellent place to start—but she’s clearly not as keen on the idea of therapy as Micah, who’s been in therapy as a therapist himself. I can almost guarantee they’ll have a future argument about this. I agree with Reese here, though, on the importance of guiding principles, therapist or no. I’ve long recommended that the first thing a couple should do on the journey to parenthood is talk with each other about their values and own childhood experiences.
Micah insists he won’t drop the baby, then hesitates: “No, what happens if we do?” Max and Reese assure him that they’re usually all right. Let’s have a round of applause here for actor Leo Sheng, playing Micah with sweet bumbling earnestness.
Later, Maribel is ready to leave, but Micah protests that he has more questions, and he can’t just Google them as Maribel suggests. He has a point, in that much queer parenting wisdom has been and still is passed via word of mouth—and information about trans parenting is particularly scarce (which Trystan Reese’s work is trying to remedy).
Wisdom from One Who Knows
Micah awkwardly asks Max if he can ask some more questions. “I know that we don’t really know each other, but…” he begins.
Max cuts in. “It’s special, this,” he says. Micah agrees.
“I mean, it is for me, too,” Max adds, explaining, “‘Cause I’m the one who gets to tell you how great it’s gonna be. Your whole life. You get to reinvent everything for yourself and be your own kind of parent and your own kind of man. Yeah, I’m excited for you.”
“You get to reinvent everything for yourself and be your own kind of parent and your own kind of man.”
I absolutely love that. So much about LGBTQ parenting and lives, and particularly, I think, trans ones, has been framed as struggle and challenge. There is, however, also joy and possibility, and the show’s writers capture that wonderfully here. (As a cis person, I leave it to trans and nonbinary folx to assess the overall portrayal of trans and nonbinary characters on the show; all I can say is that I think there’s some wisdom for all LGBTQ parents here, too.)
Micah still has questions, like how do you know when to change a diaper. Max starts to respond, then restarts. “Can I tell you something that I wish I’d have known?”
“Anything. Please,” Micah begs.
“Just don’t forget to have fun, too.”
Max for the win again. Despite the wealth of parenting information outlets today, the fact is that people have been parenting for millennia without such resources. There’s no one way your child will let you know when they want something; no one palette to paint your nursery to ensure your kid will get into a good college. For the most part, I think parents should spend time learning about their specific child, rather than trying too hard to figure out the one objectively “right” way to do everything (which usually doesn’t exist). Loosen up and have fun, and that spirit will rub off on your kid, too.
Micah’s still learning. He asks Max, “This one sounds stupid, but I’m genuinely worried. Like, what if the kid is weird?” Max laughs, and the scene ends. Just as well; all kids (and all humans) are a little weird in our own ways. Micah needs to learn to roll with it.
Finally, he goes home to Maribel, dons his half of the avocado costume, and admits, “It should be fun.” She apologizes for being a pain in the ass. Somehow, I have more faith in them as future parents now.
And the Rest
In a second storyline, Shane is making out with Ivy in Ivy’s car. They turn as if to get into the back seat—but there’s a child seat there. “I should move that,” Ivy observes. It’s a hilarious moment that reminds us we don’t lose our whole selves, including our sexual selves, when we become parents. We just have to occasionally make accommodations. Of course, Shane is cheating on Tess with Ivy, so we can’t get too excited about this—but the car seat moment was funny.
Speaking of Tess, she’s still caring for her mom, who has dementia. Tess is clearly struggling to balance this and her relationship with Shane. As Tess is sitting at the kitchen table supervising her mom as she eats, Shane asks her, “Are you good with n/naka?” The reference is to n/naka, the two-Michelin star Los Angeles restaurant owned by queer chef and restaurateur Niki Nakayama. It’s a nice little queer inside reference, but also indicates just how out of synch Shane and Tess are. Shane wants to go out to eat at exclusive restaurants; Tess is focused on making sure her mom eats without spilling her food. Bonus fun fact: Nakayama was the subject of the delightful 2021 picture book Niki Nakayama: A Chef’s Tale in 13 Bites.
Tess’ mom, in a moment of clarity, finally says she wants to go live in a nursing home. Tess resists, but eventually gives in. I wrote last week about caring for elderly parents, so I’ll refer you back to that for more. It’s a poignant storyline that serves as a counterpoint to some of the more frivolous drama on the show. As someone with parents and parents-in-law who have had various levels of elder care, I am glad to see this represented.
The trailer for the coming episode shows Maribel and Micah picking out sperm. “Wacky antics in search of sperm” has been a long-running trope on television, so I hope they find a way to keep this fresh but authentic. I’ll be here to comment on it in any case!
Catch up on my other parenting explorations of this season’s LW:GQ:
