I love how subtlety bigoted Tall Pines is to Alex.
The way everyone just humors his manhood, just like they humor him as Laura’s partner, but never truly accepted him because he was never ‘one of them’. His manhood is only affirmed when he does something in favor of the Tall Pines Ponderosa cult to manipulate him. Like when he kills Riley, he’s just ‘a husband protecting his heavily pregnant wife’. But when he starts doing what he knows in his gut is the right thing, suddenly it’s all,
‘You’re a murderer and we are too forgiving of how fucked up you are because no one else will accept you, you just can’t help yourself when you get the chance to be violent, how many times are you gonna be the victim, I’m tired of cleaning up your messes, are you gonna arrest me officer, you’re a coward, I never liked you, you’re playing house, you’re a tragic cliché, living in a nuclear family fantasy, using Laura and her baby to make you feel like a Real Man’.
Just like Julia Serano says in Whipping Girl, a transsexual woman’s gender is considered ‘artificial’ if she’s particularly gender conforming. Laura’s personal bullshit aside, Alex wanted to be a better dad and a better man than his father was for Laura and their baby, and he’s ridiculed, accused of delusion and manipulation to roleplay his idea of what a ‘man’ is. Alex’s traditional masculinity in his transsexual body is considered ‘artificial’ and ‘false’.
The series ends with its two queer protagonists, Alex and Leila, stuck within the clutches of Tall Pines, because Tall Pines broke them into not seeing a future for themselves beyond its ‘safety’.
